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You could define "living" a billion different ways. It all depends on an individual's experiences, the context of their life, their circumstances; "living" means something unique to everyone.
But this wasn't living.
Apparitions of real-world scenarios were no replacement for genuine excursions. Assumptions of what taste, sight, and touch felt like could never amount to anything more than a hollow attempt at convincing the brain that it was experiencing something meaningful.
Romeo knew this. As hard as he tried to give Delilah a life, she would never have one. She had been asleep since birth. No hope of ever awakening; her condition was more intense than his.
Their shared dreams were all they had. He would manifest games and scenes for her. They would play in fake fields, strategize against each other in fake card games, enjoy each others fake embrace. See the same fake sunset for the thousandth time. Its golden rays were nothing more than vague colors haphazardly spread across a disturbingly blank canvas. Its warmth provided no comfort; the heat passed through their bodies as if they were ghosts.
This wasn't living.
They loved each other. He could make her smile, and Delilah seemed content... but this wasn't living. Romeo knew this.
He was fortunate to have been awake at some point. A brief period of time before his condition overtook him, but it was perhaps the most significant and formative part of his life.
Because it meant he knew.
He knew temperature. He knew pressure. He knew movement. He knew texture. He could wave his hand and feel the air waft against it, he could see the dust suspended in the air from the light cast by a window, he could smell the new paint on the walls.
All of it was solid. Substantial.
Real.
And Delilah would never know.
She would live a fake life in a fake world with fake memories and fake love from a fake brother who was too afraid to do anything about it.
Because he could do something about it.
Delilah's situation wasn't permanent. It was impossible to solve through conventional means, but the two of them weren't exactly normal. He was intelligent. Within his own dreams, he developed his own magic. Worked it out from the ground-up. His own programming language. The Backyard was accessible from his dreams. That space, that "dev box" as it were, could be used to change their situation. Fix Delilah's condition.
Make her real.
And yet, he was still powerless. He determined the only way of fixing their conditions was to limit their powers tremendously through direct editing of the Backyard's code. He could do it. He knew the order of operations. He knew exactly what he would write, what lines he would edit, what tweaks and changes he would make. He knew it all.
But it would take much more power than he could give. To accomplish such a feat, he needed to be awake.
Pathetic.
He was afraid. Yes, he would admit it: he was scared of dying.
No, his fear wasn't from any noble emotion. It was not a result of worrying about Delilah. He knew she would be sad if he disappeared, but selfishly, he didn't even consider her when debating his own death. All he could think about was his own fear.
He could go on and on about it in his mind. It's only natural humans are afraid of death. It's basic survival instinct. The goal of any species is to survive and guarantee the existence of the next generation. Death directly opposed this. So of course he would be scared.
Pathetic.
Delilah was his responsibility. He gave her a fake life. She did her best to hide it, but she yearned for a real life. She saw how wistful he would act, how uniquely solemnly he spoke of those days in the past when he could feel pain, blood could trickle down his arm and he would feel it, it would be sticky between his fingers, it tasted of iron and smelled of copper.
There was no pain in a dream. They couldn't even pretend.
It was his fault that she yearned for something she would never have.
So it was his responsibility to fix it.
Just take the plunge. Just jump.
Wake up. Create a localized absolute world. Use it to edit the code and then die. Fade away into nonexistence.
Perhaps Delilah would forget about him in time. Forget that he was real. Convince herself that he was simply part of her good dreams.
That would be nice. That would be ideal.
It should be ideal. It should happen now.
But he was scared.
Pathetic.
Do it.
Just do it.
Wake up.
It's a choice.
A conscious choice and you're not making it.
You're choosing not to help her.
Of your own volition, you refuse to give her what she yearns for, the thing you selfishly planted in her head.
If not for you, she would never want to wake up.
She would never know that she was living a fake life.
She would never know that she wasn't living.
And you aren't living, either.
So go.
Just go, Romeo.
A voice in the corner of his mind.
Someone beckoning.
Gentle. Motherly.
"I suggest you stop," it said. "You will regret waking up."
He hesitated. The voice was calming. Reassuring. He wanted to listen to it. He wanted to see who it was.
"I believe our interests align," it spoke. "Stay in this dream and I will give you the means to obtain what we both want."
He wanted to trust it. He trusted it.
He stepped away from the edge.
He approached the voice.
He remained asleep.