Yawning for a last time, he crawled up to his bed and curled up. His dreams were strange. He stood in a cold forest with nothing but his pajamas on and ran through the trees in the freezing weather. Every step seemed to sap him of his energy, for at the beginning he was smiling and laughing, but, coming to a large tree, he stopped dead cold. It was as if he was looking down on himself in a sort of third person point of view, and the tree looked quite familiar. It was enormous compared to the others and had inside of it a large hole the size of a car. He’d never heard of an oak tree this big, especially with a hole like that, so he walked up to it. It wasn’t like one of those trees that had a hole in the bottom for cars to go under, it was in the dead middle of the tree, as if something had carved it out for some strange purpose. But why? He watched himself run his hands over the rough bark. It was warm? He wasn’t even inside his body, but he could feel the tree as if he himself was touching it. Maybe this is what you called an out of body experience…

Suddenly he heard a rustling in the bushes, and his dark hair stood on end. Was this a memory? Wait a second… that tree. Was this the forest that he was attacked in? As he thought about it, an enormous bear ripped out of the bushes, and it was angry. It was black, but on it’s chest a white circle lay on it’s rough fur. Lawrence watched his younger self run away from the bear to no avail, which scrambled after him. He felt his muscles screaming as he ran, and ducked behind a tree. The beast was still breathing heavily, but it was like the thing was searching for him. It looked behind each tree, claws scraping against bark. Just then he heard a voice, making some sort of annoyed noise, and he stood up. It was bright, too bright, but the next thing he knew he was laying on the ground, bear paw on his chest. It had found him. The bright light smashed into the bear, ripping it off of his body, but he was already out like a light. That thing had scared him half to death. He lay in the snow, unconscious, no way for anyone to ever find him in a forest that large.

He was tired as per usual in the morning, and looked over for the pin. It was turned around, but still there. He had probably just knocked the tray, moving it a little to the right, no big deal. He placed it inside his pocket and, somehow feeling better once again, walked down the stairs instead of using the elevator.

School was easy when you didn’t feel like dog shit every day! Somehow, even though he spent hours sleeping in all his classes, it felt like it was going faster now, which was really nice. His calculus class was even a whiz, and he felt like he’d aced his test for the first time in his life. Even at work making sandwiches for people had never been so easy! As he walked through campus on his way home, smiling and waving at people he vaguely knew, he realized something else. He hadn’t seen any shadows. If he was out here like this he felt as if he was bound to see them, yet not a one appeared on his way home from work. Not that it really bothered him, if he never saw one of those things again his life would improve so much! He could make finally make friends, maybe he could even stay awake in his English class! All was open for him if his cursed exhaustion started to turn around. Maybe tomorrow he would sign up for a volunteer clean up get together… Thinking about this, Lawrence turned the knob of his dorm building and walked up the stairs yet again. Once he returned to his dorm he placed the pin by his bedside again, falling asleep quickly. He was plagued by another dream, but this one was short. He opened his eyes for a moment while he was laying in the snow and something was standing above him, which was glowing bright. It was a person… no, not a person… what kind of person has ears...

Once again waking up tired, he thought about the strange dream he’d had. Why had he seen that? A person with ears? Man, maybe he should become a writer with an imagination like that. Lawrence smiled and groped around the tray next to his bed, finding that it was not there. It was gone. Did his roommate hide it from him?

He shook Jeremy awake and started to ask the guy a hundred questions.

“Some pin? Never saw it no… but I saw some good shit last night let me tell you!”

He’d started off on another tangent, and Lawrence left the idiot to reminisce on the joys of twelve hours ago. He looked under the fridge, his chair, his computer, everywhere. The small pin was nowhere to be found. He had to get to class though, and decided to give up for now. It had to be in the room after all.

The day moved slowly.

In the break between calculus and journalism, he saw another shadow. Figuring he had no sanity points to lose, he went and sat next to it. It was some sort of boar, and was lying on it’s back asleep.

Sitting in the grass he inconspicuously nudged the boar, which sputtered awake. It was like… when the shadows focused on him he could see them better. Maybe he really did need glasses. The boar looked up at him and squinted, which brought it into even better focus for Lawrence. It was brown, with tusks like ivory piano keys and very flexible legs, which it stood on bipedally. He sniffed the air, and looked terrified.

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“It’s!”

“Hey I have a question.”

“Yes!”

“What are you?”

“Wha- You don’t know?” But you smell like…”

“Like what, a human, well yeah probably because I am one.”

“No no!”

With that the boar dropped to all fours and ran away in a daze. He just sighed again and continued his classes of the day. Why did it run away from him? Was he that scary? Man he was really hoping that all this wasn’t stemming from sort of trauma that he’d been hiding for years. Maybe he’d go on one of those doctor talk shows and have a touching reunion with someone from his past. If only it was that simple. He didn’t want to think that the shadows could be simply hallucinations, but he was really starting to wonder. Maybe if he could have a decent conversation with one he’d get over thinking they weren’t real...

After that, he saw no shadows for three days, and was only becoming more tired as each one progressed. Lawrence didn’t want to deal with the tiredness anymore. He thought that things were finally going to start improving again, maybe he could have even gotten a few friends, but no. He had to go and lose the thing that appeared to be curing him. Well, no longer. He was finally fed up with the exhaustion. His family doctor had said that the exhaustion didn’t exist and that he was lying since there was absolutely nothing wrong with him. Of course that wasn’t true, it just wasn’t. He’d cried to his mother after that, saying he wouldn’t lie about something so stupid. Of course she said she believed him, but he hadn’t wanted to bother his parents as time went on, and started acting as if the exhaustion no longer ailed him. He didn’t mind being tired, if he’d always been like this. He just hated that he’d changed so much after some stupid vacation! He just wanted to be the nice guy that would take volunteer jobs and was liked by everyone again… On the fourth day following the incident with the boar shadow, he was finally fed up with being tired, and went to the convenience store in his building. Maybe if he just had some sort of energy boost he could do it. Thus his eyes fell on five hundred minute energy. He’d heard a lot about it, but never thought it really helped. Some people he knew had used it once or twice, they’d felt a little better but…

But nothing, it was three dollars and he had nothing to lose. Besides those three dollars of course, and he wasn’t all that materialistic in his opinion. Perhaps financially conservative, but not when it came to something that might help him.

He bought two of them just in case, and went back to his room. It was late, and he didn’t want to keep himself up for the entire night, so he placed them on his desk and went to sleep. It was the most potent dream yet that night.

He was laying in bed at his old apartment, and somehow he knew that his parents were gone yet again. They always went on vacations due to his father’s job. He couldn’t recall the exact name of his father’s profession, but he would take high ranking officials from investment companies out on cruises, or ice fishing, or for a weekend golfing, just to kiss up to them for money. It was a great job, but not one that really allowed for a family. After his mother had lost her job, his father had asked the company if she could be allowed to go along as well, because somehow that sort of job paid extravagantly. They could support a family just through his father’s job, it was stupid. Thus Lawrence stayed at home, and after the incident in the forest he’d never been allowed to go on another of his father’s stupid vacations. Either way, he lay in bed in a dark room on the seventh floor of the apartment building his parents had. The boards creaked, and he heard some people talking a few rooms away. He was twelve, and being so young he didn’t really like being alone like this. It had seemed like his entire life had gone down the rabbit hole since that stupid forest trip. His friends had dumped him for various reasons, someone said, “You liked the girl I liked”, or, “You lied about going to that movie with your family”, things that he hadn’t really even done. So he was alone. The absolute worst part was the shadows in his home, whenever he’d just woken up it felt like there was something moving in them, some presence watching him. Amazingly enough though, he had learned to live with even that even at such a young age.

When he awoke, he was absolutely drained and downed one of the energy drinks. Anything would help him get through a tiresome day like this.

Nothing really changed, but he didn’t expect to get energy immediately like the pin gave him, and it was fine as long as he felt a bit better.

He still had a bit of time before his first class at ten, so he decided to go take a shower. As he got in, he started to actually feel a bit better. He started humming to himself, and his energy grew. It grew so much that he could barely contain himself, he felt like a kid on a sugar high.

Of course, that was when his hands started to glow. It began low, then it started to grow, and soon his entire body was emitting a bright light. He felt something crack in his chest area. It didn’t hurt, but something was definitely different. It was suddenly quite cramped in that small space.

Lawrence felt something furry on him, it was somewhat coarse hair. He looked down to see… a… g-girl. In the shower with him. But this was not some regular girl. She had ears of some sort, a tail… she definitely wasn’t human. Unless she was a furry but that wouldn’t explain the light coming from his body.