The school day came and went.

Lunch had been well within my expectations for disappointment. Which is to say very.

My friends at lunch teased me a bit for falling asleep in class. I wasn’t too surprised that the gossip had reached them by the time I sat down to eat.

Mr. Gomez verbal thrashings of misbehaving students was a frequent topic of gossip. Because I had gotten off rather lightly in the punishment department, I was spared from too much of their attention and interest.

Following lunch, I muddled through my afternoon classes. I couldn’t tell you if anything interesting was covered or not because my mind kept wandering back to that nightmare I had.

I should have been able to shake it off and forget about it, but for some reason it persisted in my thoughts and continued to unsettle me. It was hard to pin down any one thing that made it super bad, but there was that thing at the end…that voice telling me to awaken.

At first it seemed like it was my own voice, but it also somehow felt completely different and alien to me. Now, hours later, when I think back about how it sounded it doesn’t sound anything like me. I can’t help but imagine it sounding like something bigger and grander. Like if I put my voice through a audio filter on my computer and added lots and lots of reverb

It also seemed to be distinct from the rest of the dream somehow, I had no idea what any of it meant. Maybe it was just my brain's way of interpreting Mr. Gomez’s calling on me in class as a signal to wake up.

Eventually though school did finally come to an end and I, like the rest of the non car owning population, waited out front of the school building for the buses to arrive to whisk us away from our educational tormentors.

“I really wish I had a car.” I groaned unashamedly.

“You and me both.” My friend Beth said from beside me.

“We’d probably be halfway home by now, if we didn’t have to stand around waiting for our bus to get here.” I turned to face her.

“Why can’t this cheapass school get more drivers and buses so that we don’t have to wait around for forever.” Beth paused a few seconds for dramatic effect. “Rhetorical question, I know the reason why, and that reason is they… are a bunch of cheapasses.”

I couldn't help myself and let out a small giggle at that.

“I mean yeah I guess they feel like they can get away with it.” I told her absently as I spotted our bus finally pulling into the school’s bus lane.

“Finally! Hallelujah and praise be!” Beth excitedly exclaimed as she walked up to the edge of the curb to be the first one onto the bus.

Our small stalwart group of the last bus goers still stuck waiting at school boarded our escape vehicle.

Beth and I of course took our seats near the back.

“So.” Beth started without prompting. “I hear you fell asleep in Mr. Gomez’s class.”

“Oh for frick’s sake.” I dramatically put my head in my hand.

“What? I mean that’s so unlike you to fall asleep in class though.” She answered somewhat comfortingly.

“Yeah, you're usually a model student in his class.” Said the cute boy sitting in front of us who I definitely didn’t have a crush on.

“Someone who might want to be less kind could even describe you as being a teacher’s pet.” Beth helpfully added.

“Rude.” I mumbled pitifully.

“I mean, I wouldn’t call you that, but you must have had a rough night, lack of sleep or something like that.” Said the cute boy named Scott, coming to my defense much more deftly than I had.

“That’s the thing though I did get a good night’s sleep, or at least I thought I did.”

“Are you sick or something?” Beth was starting to show a bit of concern now.

“No, I mean, I don’t think I am.” I took the back of my hand and placed it on my forehead, checking my temperature, demonstrating just how confident and certain I was.

“Well at least Mr. Gomez didn’t give you too much of a hard time. Honestly, you got off pretty easy. In my experiences with him it’s always detention, detention, detention.” Scott was wildly gesticulating with his hands to demonstrate his point. Dramatically trying to emphasize our teacher’s supposed harshness.

“Eh, I wouldn’t say it was luck.” Beth cut in. “What with Jenni being a…” She paused to build suspense while staring at me with a stupid smirk on her face.

I in turn gave her a piercing glare.

“...good student and all.” Beth concluded her thinly veiled tease with an even bigger smirk.

“Maybe.” Scott considered, oblivious to the silent war of glares and smirks between Beth and I. “But he’s always been pretty fair and evenhanded with whichever student he singles out for lecturing or punishment.”

“Pfft, listen to yourself. He singles out, he lectures. Yeah that sounds super fair to me.” Beth responded sarcastically with accompanying air quotes. “Weren’t you just crying about how much detention he gives you?”

“Yeah, but that's me though, and I’m not saying…”

“Can we please stop bickering about if Mr. Gomez is a dick or not.” I pointedly didn’t look at either of them as I turned to look out the window of the bus to guesstimate how much longer it was until my stop.

“Were we? I don’t recall us bickering about Mr. Gomez's dick or anything.” Beth’s words caused Scott to cover up and stifle a half-snort of laughter. “I personally have no opinion on the matter.” She said imperiously. Raising her chin and looking down her nose at me with as much of a haughty air as she could manage.

“So Jenni, what do you think about Mr. Go-…” Beth tried to say before I quickly cut her off.

“I didn’t mean it like that!” I told her exasperatedly. “Can we please, please not talk about our teacher’s g-gentalia, please.”

“Genitalia, haha.” Scott pointed out while trying to hide another snicker.

I in turn gave him a well deserved glare.

Scott then abruptly stopped acting up for absolutely no discernible reason.

“Look.” I said. “I wanted to talk about the dream I had in class. It was really weird and more than a little messed up. To be honest... it was really more of a nightmare.” I looked them both in the eyes as I said this, hoping that they’d at least try to take me at least a little bit more seriously now.

“You had a nightmare in class?” Beth asked, genuinely curious.

“What was it about?” Scott added.

I took a deep breath bracing myself. “Please don’t think I’m super weird just because of a freaky dream I had. Okay?” I wasn’t looking them in the eyes any more at this point. “Please?”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“I won’t.” Beth said with conviction and without any hesitation.

“Sure, I mean ,a dream is just a dream right. You can’t really control what weird things your brain thinks up when you're asleep.” Scott said eagerly.

“Alright then, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” I told them solemnly.

“Was it really that bad?” Scott asked with a hint of worry.

“When Mr. Gomez woke me up in class I honestly just about had a full-on panic attack. Not from waking up in class or anything, but from how fricked up the dream was.”

“Well, spill then, you’ll feel better just talking about it with someone.” Beth tried to console me, but her eagerness seemed to prevent her from understanding why I might be hesitant to talk about it.

“Okay, I had a dream where I was eating someone’s body.” I finally blurted out. Talking about odd or strange a dream was, always felt weird to me. Opening up and confessing about this particular messed up and crazy nightmare was proportionally more weird.

“Like, zombies or cannibalize or something?” Scott inquired.

“It was like I was eating someone’s dead body with all its fleshy bits and blood and stuff.” I clarified simply and poorly.

“Is that it? I mean that’s fucked up, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve had all kinds of crazy and screwed up dreams before.” Beth told me with a bit of disbelief in her expression as she looked at me.

“You don’t get it Beth.” I told her defensively. I looked up at her, making sure we made eye contact. I hoped she would pick up my sincerity this way. “Beth, it was so, so real. Like I could taste th-the meat I guess you could call it. Also, I could smell the sharp tanginess of the copper and iron within the blood.”

“So what did it taste like?” Scott asked with the morbid curiosity only a dumb teenage boy can manage.

“Scott, you dumbass!” Beth scolded him with her words while giving an equally withering look. “If I was sitting beside you I would totally kick you in the shins right now.”

“What? I was just curious.” Scott looked between us preparing to make his case for a stay of execution. “I mean it didn’t really happen so it could’ve tasted like anything. Maybe in her dream it tasted like cotton candy, or I don’t know salad dressing.”

Beth rolled her eyes. “That’s stupid Scott.”

“It really is.” I told him. I mean honestly, why would that be your question. Why would you even want to know what something like that tasted like?

Scott could be so frustrating at times, one moment he could be super understanding and funny. Other times it seemed like the part of his brain for understanding human emotion would just shut down or take a nap.

“Just please, try and listen without adding any more dumb questions.” Beth helpfully instructed.

Scott, for his part, looked like he wanted to say something, but after a moment he wisely just nodded his head and waited for me to continue.

Taking that for my cue I took another long inhale of breath and plunged back into those disturbing memories. “Honestly, those sensations weren’t really the worst part.” I was looking down again, fitfully wringing my hands.

“What could be worse than that, did something happen to you? Did somebody attack you or something.” Beth inquired while trying to maintain eye contact with me.

I didn’t let her though. “The worst part was the thoughts I had while I was doing it. It felt like they weren’t even my own thoughts. It was like they didn’t even belong to me. It was like they belonged to an entirely different person. No…” I stopped to consider and process my own thoughts on those alien feelings. “It was like those thoughts were from a different kind of creature, a monster, but those feelings and d-desires, I guess, were coming from my own brain.” The fitfulness of my hand wringing started to accelerate without me noticing it. “It was like I wasn’t in control of my own body.”

“Damn. Well I can’t really say I’ve had a dream like that, but I do know that feeling.” Beth confided a bit. This prompted me to look up at her again.

“Really?” I asked

“I mean yeah.” It was Beth’s turn to break eye contact and look around awkwardly. “Sometimes in a dream, other times it’s you know...not.”

“Not?” I asked. What could she mean?

“It’s not important, we’re talking about your dream stuff right now.” She deflected.

“No, I wanna hear about this. Did something bad happen to you?” My mind immediately went to the worst places.

“What? No, no nothing like that. I was just talking about some confusing emotions and feelings I get sometimes.” She turned to look back at me now and was giving me a slightly perplexed look.

“Oh.” I replied sagely.

What could she mean exactly by confusing emotions and feelings? My thoughts briefly tried to suss out what that meant, but I couldn’t come up with anything concrete. I’ll have to bring that up with her again at some point. Preferably when we're alone.

“So….about my horrifying cannibalistic nightmare, it's pretty messed up right?” I elegantly and gracefully dragged our conversation back on course.

“Yeah, I agree it’s pretty messed up.” Beth said.

“Definitely messed up.” Scott said, finally speaking up again. I almost forgot he was still here. I quickly looked out the bus window to see how much time we had left.

The answer was not much.

Scott continued with his thoughts. “I’m not sure what would be worse, cannibalistic nightmares or Mr. Gomez’s English class.”

“Okay, you can go back to not talking now Scott.” Beth scolded.

“Right, not talking.” Scott replied sarcastically.

“I can see you still need some practice.” Beth shot back with added eye roll, but also a bit of smirk of her own.

I gave a small snort of amusement at their back and forth sniping. Beth doesn’t actually dislike Scott as much as she pretends.

Beth turned her predatory gaze onto me. Uh oh, curse my rebellious feelings of mirth.

“Sooo, are you planning on going to Damien’s party tonight?” She asked me knowing full well my feelings on parties, and my almost certain answer.

“Ugh.” I grunted demurely.

“Come on, look, it's our senior year. It’ll be fun. You’ll have fun, I promise. You don’t even have to drink or do anything crazy.” She vainly pleaded at me.

“I don’t know…” I did know, but she was right, this was our senior year.

Would I regret it later if I didn’t go?

“You know, it's not really my thing.” I didn’t like disappointing my friends, of which Beth was a member. At the same time, I was really not a party girl. “I think I just wanna focus on finishing my homework and stuff.”

“Well, I’m definitely going. Damien always throws the best parties when his parents leave town.” Scott told us casually.

“I mean I guess I could try and make some time for it.” I said, abruptly changing my mind. Frick, why did Scott going suddenly make me completely put aside my dislike of all things parties. I wasn’t crushing on him that hard, was I?

I was.

“I see, well I’m glad you’ve come to your senses and made a rational and considered choice.” Beth knowingly teased me. The look she was giving me told me she totally understood the flimsy reasoning my change of heart was based on.

Stupid hormones, I thought to myself bitterly.

“Awesome!” Scott said. “I think this'll be the first party you’ve gone to this year right?”

“Second.” I told him. “The first was after the first week back, when Beth dragged me to that party at Jackie’s place.”

“Oh right, I think I might have drank too much and passed out pretty early at that one.” Scott gave a boisterous laugh at that. He seemed to find that pretty hilarious for some reason.

“You did.” I told him a bit too curtly.

“But hey, we should make an effort to hang out at Damien’s thing then. I promise I won’t drink too much, especially if you won’t be doing any drinking yourself.” Scott told me this with a broad and friendly smile on his face.

“Y-Yeah, that sounds fun.” I fought with tremendous ferocity to hide the blush growing on my checks. “I mean if everyone else is drinking and stuff, I can probably have like one or something. I don’t wanna be the only girl not drinking there right. That would be super lame.” I forced out a laugh in my attempt to seem cool, but it felt so painfully cringe to my ears and soul

“I mean, you can do whatever you want. I just think it’ll be fun to actually hang out with you at a party for once.” He told me sincerely.

“C-cool, yeah. It sounds like fun, I’ll definitely be there.” My blush was quickly winning the battle taking place on my cheeks. Noticing the bus was starting to slow down I did a quick glance out the window to confirm we were at my stop. “I’ll uh, see you both there then I guess. Bye, guys.”

“Later.” Beth told me.

“See you then, Jenni.” Scott said, adding momentum to my blush’s inevitable march toward victory.

I hurriedly got up, made my way to the exit, and left the bus with a few others getting off at my stop. I made it a point to wait there and wave at my friends as the bus started off again and onto its next stop.

“I should call Mom.” I told myself out loud. Which is totally not a weird thing to do.

I need to figure out if I need to make an excuse for staying out late for this party. An audible sigh escaped from lips out the thought of that last part.

Party.

Another sigh was set loose into the air. The phone rang for a while, but no one picked up on the other end.

“She must not be near her work phone or something. I’ll just try later once I’m actually home.”

My feet and I started off the curb, onto the street, and onward towards home. Should I try calling Dad instead?

“Hmm” I pondered aloud. “Nah, he’s super busy in the aftern-” my words and thoughts were harshly cut off by a loud blaring horn coming from my right. I jerked my head around to look, only to see a large white truck speeding down the hill, right at….