The Children of Hypnos

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He doesn't remember who he is.

Is there a he?

A being?

Who? Wh—?

He is cradled in a bright place. His mother's face looms large above him. Strange that he shouldn't remember who he is, but he knows who she is. He will always know who she is.

She will always be young, as she is in the only picture he has of her. She will always be wearing that dress, and her hair will always be the same cut. She has green eyes like his and a curl to her mouth like his, and she is beautiful in an ethereal way. That's why she glows.

She smiles down at him.

She smiled when she left him at the gates of Fenhallow. He's sure she did. It was a sad smile, of course, because she didn't want to leave him. He's sure she didn't want to leave him.

She wasn't a terrified addict who didn't know what to do with a baby. She wasn't thinking that the Hypnos State might give her drug money for him.

She was beautiful and sad and beautiful and beautiful. There are other words in the English language besides beautiful, but he has forgotten them all.

Er wechselt auf Deutsch, kann sich aber auch nicht an viele deutsche Wörter erinnern.

He feels the air around them shift. Her edges blur, and she becomes hard to focus on. She is going to the waking world, and she is taking him with her. She bends and kisses his forehead.

The waking world will be safe for her. No one can kill her now. Only he can do that, and of course he won't. He would never hurt her.

There is yelling far below him, in a world soon left behind.

He hurts everywhere and he is sure nothing is okay except that his mother is here now, she left him but she came back, she came back and she won't leave again.

As he passes out of the Dream and into the cold sleet of the Sleeping City, he remembers his name.

He is the Sandman.