The young man's direction shifted, and the sense of aimlessness vanished as he walked toward her. "Aaaand you saw me," Saniya muttered under her breath, crossing her arms. "Awesome." She still did not move toward him or away, debating what she wanted to do and wondering why her subconscious had decided to file "short guy with blue bracelet" in with "decrepit industrial buildings". On the one hand, something about this dream deeply unsettled her, and some company might do her good. But ultimately, no version of Saniya had ever been what you might call a "people-person". Making up her mind, Saniya waved her hand dismissively at him to make the stranger disappear.

He did not. Saniya cursed under her breath. She had never been very good at controlling her dreams, even when she was fully aware of them. The best that she could usually do was to sway the odds in favor of what she wanted, rather than make something happen outright. Her therapist said it was something about perceived helplessness and a low self-esteem becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. While awake, Saniya felt this was a reasonable explanation. Here, she thought it was a load of crap. Well, fine, if she could not make him go away... 

"What are you supposed to be, then?" she called as soon as the boy was within earshot. In the relative silence of this place, Saniya's clear and distinctly female voice seemed nearly deafening. "A projection of my secret desire to be a dwarf?" She recognized that this was not particularly fair. He was only a few inches shorter than she was. Then again, no one had ever accused Saniya of being fair.