The Phoenix, the Tiger, and the Rose

"It’s hard to stop loving someone when they’re always in your dreams, haunting you, taunting you. It’s sick love, the kind of love you’ll die by fire like the phoenix over and over for, the kind that transcends logic, time, and death."

In the summer of 1982, teenage Veronica is haunted by vivid, recurring dreams of a mysterious man—a stranger in her waking hours, yet achingly familiar, as if etched into her soul. What begins as a tender, dream-bound friendship soon blazes into a passionate love affair, confined to the fragile realm of sleep. Then, months later, her reality fractures: she glimpses his face on a record sleeve—Alan Runner, the magnetic lead singer of a British pop sensation sweeping the world. He’s untouchable, a distant star—until eerie coincidences, waves of déjà vu, and lyrics that echo her own dreams whisper an impossible truth: he might be dreaming of her too.

But even soulmates can be star-crossed. Spanning decades, this bittersweet saga traces Veronica and Alan’s desperate quest to unite their dream-forged bond with a waking world bent on tearing them apart. Interlaced with Veronica’s raw dream journal entries, her haunting poetry, Alan’s soul-stirring lyrics, and fleeting moments of REM-woven intimacy, this is a tale of love’s persistence, the ache of longing, and the fragile hope of finding the one who truly sees you—across the vast, unyielding divide of sleep and reality.