I woke up and smacked my lips, a smile spreading across my lips. Damn, I felt great. And that dream, god that had been vivid. I could recall it in pretty good detail too, a rarity for me. I wanted to write it down, even if I never turned it into a fic I wanted to remember it. I reached over and turned on the lamp on my bedside table.

I didn't have a bedside table.

My heart skipped several beats as my eyes flew open and I twisted my head back and forth, looking at the familiar not-my room. That...no, that shouldn't be. How the fuck was I able to sleep in a dream? Unless...

No. Nope. Nuh uh. Amy that's a stupid idea and you know it's stupid. That shit is fictional. You literally wrote fanfic about it. I had to still be dreaming...somehow. God damn, whatever I'd taken I was going to kick my ass when I finally, actually woke up. Okay, okay, another day as 'Lia'. I glanced at the clock and, yep, six again. Seemed my internal clock was carrying over at least.

I got up quickly this time, stripping and dressing before I could wake up enough to think clearly. It was the same outfit as yesterday but...I couldn't be bothered. I couldn't be bothered because if I let myself start thinking about that I'd start thinking about my body and where I was and why I wasn't in my fucking room.

I forced my-not-self to breathe slower. I couldn't afford a panic attack, not right now. I shut my eyes, balled my hands into fists, and began taking deep, slow breaths. I was okay. Even if I was still in the dream, yesterday had gone well enough. Yeah I wanted to go home but like, I could tolerate another day in Brockton Bay. Probably.

And thinking of it, it wasn't that weird that I woke up in a dream. I'd been having recursive dreams like that since I was five. So...okay, a dream inside a dream. Freaky shit, absolutely but still just a dream. I could handle that, I'd handled far fucking worse dreams than going to high school with a quarter of the Dallon-Pelham Torment Nexus.

I just had to treat it like I had actual high school; a place where I had to go and listen to teachers talk until I got to go home. It wasn't the healthiest way to engage with school, but I wasn't trying to engage, I was trying to muddle through. I was an expert at that, the world's third or fourth best muddler no doubt.

A thump from upstairs pulled me out of my spiraling thoughts, just like the day before. Dream before? That meant Mom was up and stumbling around...probably with a nasty hangover. I pulled the tupperware from my bag and headed up, silently going into the kitchen and washing it out. I had just poured myself another bowl of cereal when Mom silently trudged in, her eyes bloodshot.

“Lia,” she croaked. “You're up already.” I nodded.

“Yup.” I couldn't sleep with...all this. “You want coffee?” She nodded.

“Please.”

My not-mom sat at the island while I prepared the machine. It was just a standard drip maker, no fancy settings beyond a pretty basic timer. All I had to do was pour in grounds and enough water for two cups, because no way I was going without, then press a button. I picked at my cereal while the kitchen filled with the delicious scent of cooking coffee.

A few minutes later, I poured it into two mugs. I added cream and sugar to my own, in my preferred amount (plenty) and offered Mom the same. She declined, which was definitely a choice, and I dutifully handed her her mug before sipping at my own. I shut my eyes and let out a long sigh, then a deep breath filled with the smell of my drink. Perfect. I glanced at Mom and saw her grimace as she sipped at her own, black coffee. Did she not actually like it?

“You sure about taking it straight?” I asked after she made the same expression of disgust on the third sip.

“It's fine,” she replied, taking another sip.

“You're allowed to enjoy it, you know?” She paused, staring at the mug.

Suddenly she rose and headed to the fridge. She took the cream from inside, and the bowl of sugar on the counter, then returned to the island. Three scoops of sugar and a good helping of cream later, Mom took another sip and let out a contented sigh. I hid a smile behind another sip of my own coffee. I had needed to be told that too...

“I won't be able to drive you to school today.” Mom sounded disappointed.

“Okay,” I replied with a shrug. “I don't mind the bus.” She frowned.

“Are you sure, Lia?” I nodded and she sighed. “Thank you that's...thank you.”

“Oh, uh, can I have some money for lunch?” I didn't want to deal with leftovers. She nodded and passed me a ten dollar bill.

It was easy to talking with parents when they weren't mine. If she had been my actual mom...yeah that would not have gone smoothly. But she left with a quiet goodbye and I was once again left with the house to myself for...an hour. Plenty of time to lose track of time and wind up late for the bus, for school, and then--

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

No, stop. I bit the inside of my cheek hard, counting with excruciating slowness to thirty. I could taste blood after five, I felt it starting to pool on my tongue at twenty. Finally I finished and let out a long, shuddering breath. I wiped at a tickling on my chin and the back of my hand came away bloody. Shit.

I walked downstairs and rinsed my mouth with water, then mouthwash. It hurt like hell, but meant I probably wouldn't get an infection at least. It took five rinses with the coldest water I could get for it to stop running red. Right, okay, problem solved. I just needed to chew on the opposite side from my wound and I'd be okay.

Damn, it had been a while since I'd gotten that bad. Well I made it through mostly intact, though hopefully that injury didn't translate to the real world. It would be a pain to wake up hurt because I'd been having a minor breakdown in my dream. Whatever, it was past now and I had to get ready to go to school, again.

Right on time, I was out the door and heading to the bus stop. It was a little colder than yesterday, so I doubled back and snagged a short jacket from the closet, and jogged back to the stop. I got there with just a minute to spare and once again took my place at the back, breathing a little heavy. This girl was not an athlete.

I shut my eyes as the bus drove on, my earlier energy sapped. In a weird way, I had been looking forward to going back to my life. Sure it wasn't great but, well, I sort of had a lot to lose. And I did want to see the people I loved, so hopefully this would all be over before long.

The clouds were a little heavier today, blocking more of the sun and cooling things down compared to the day before. The scent of a storm was heavy in the air, but it seemed to be holding off for now. Hopefully it would until I got home, I didn't have an umbrella and wasn't looking to get soaked.

The bus pulled up to Arcadia and I headed straight inside, not wanting a chance encounter with the Dallons. I could only handle so much shit, and they were so much shit. I just kept my head down and ducked into my Global History class, heading to the back and taking a seat. It was a shame; I was a huge history buff, my plan in life was to be a history teacher. If there was any class I should be interested in it was this one.

I couldn't though, my brain just wouldn't focus on the text in front of me. It kept pulling out random, familiar bullshit like 'Behemoth' and 'Triumvirate' and 'Scion'. It was just a reminder that I was stuck inside a dream, in a world like mine but different enough to distract constantly. Eventually I settled for putting my book up in front of me and my head down on the desk.

Somehow it worked. I wasn't called on, and after a boring class filled with buzzing thoughts, the bell rang and I headed to my next one. Textiles. Shit. I actually really had to pay attention here, because I couldn't just screw around like my last class. The machines here, I noticed, had names on them. It took me a minute to find mine, Amelia D'souza, right next to...

Amy Dallon. Shit.

Yeah it fucking would be like that, huh. I dug around in the drawers under my machine and found patterns with just my name on them. Well, at least we didn't seem to be working together. That should keep socializing to a minimum, so I could just check out and follow the lines drawn on the fabric. I wasn't an expert seamstress, neither was Amelia, but between the two of us I felt confident I could figure out a dotted line.

Amy herself came in seconds before the final bell and greeted me with a grunt, sitting at her machine. She looked pretty tired, but began taking out patterns of her own and organizing her desk. From the glimpses I caught out of the corner of my eye, her lines looked far neater than mine. Interesting.

The teacher came in and told us we could get to work. It took me a couple minutes to figure out threading the machine, but I finally managed. After that I just set the stitch length to what was on my drawings, and bam, I was off. Slowly. I had always been timid around sewing machines. Not for any good reason, I had been far too cautious to ever be injured. I frowned, like this I was barely managing to do two inches in a minute. That wouldn't do.

I tried to recall how Amelia did it. She was a bit quicker than me, and soon I found I was going at an actually decent pace. Much better. I actually wasn't having that bad of a time with this. Back home, handcrafts had been something I just never caught on to. And I had tried! Crochet, embroidery, hand-sewing, machine sewing, fucking tatting. I was hopeless with anything that didn't involve a keyboard.

But not here. In this dream I was actually mildly capable. My stitches weren't perfect, not by a long shot, but it was far better than I had done before. I pressed the pedal down a little further, getting more comfortable with what I was doing. It was surprisingly easy to keep my fingers clear of the rapidly bobbing needle. A simple push-pull motion that, as long as I was consistent, made sure that--

My machine made an awful screech of tortured belts and bobbins and ground to a halt. I stared, wide-eyed, at where I'd jammed my thumb under the needle like a fucking twit. I had felt it slide over me rapidly until the thing had given up. The needle was bent and twisted where it had hammered against me. Amy was staring too, eyes as wide as mine.

What.

“Uh, um,” I stammered. “I um, gotta go.”

Before anyone could stop me, I bolted out of the classroom. I jogged down the hall, then ran when someone called after me. My breath came in short, sharp gasps as I stumbled through the doors and the courtyard, then up the road that the bus usually drove me down. I only slowed when I nearly fell over twice, that fucking pressure pushing at me.

I found that park overlooking the bay and sat down heavily on a bench, my hands trembling. I was panting, really hyperventilating, and my vision swam with spots. Time, as a concept, vanished and I simply stared at the ground at nothing as my heart hammered and my lungs burned. Gradually though, I calmed down, my body stopped freaking the fuck out, and I could regulate my breathing. Fuck. Fuck. It had never been like that. This girl was having a bad fucking time, and I was too.

I shut my eyes, took a deep breath, and held it for as long as I could. Then I slowly let it out and opened my eyes as I did. My hands weren't shaking anymore, and I stared at them, curious. I held one up, twisting it around in the air. It was...strange, like there was something on my skin. I turned more towards the sun and it caught suddenly, a glint, a shimmer on my hand. A force-field. Or something, at least. Something that was there, but practically invisible.

Oh my fucking god I was a cape.