dreams

Bonk.

Claire pulls her blankets tighter, burrows a bit deeper into her bed's comforting warmth.

Bonk.

She pointedly turns her back on the window.

Bonk.

Her patience breaks.

"Will you stop already?! I'm trying to sleep here!"

You are dreaming.

The oddity of recognizing this does not impede your progress forward into the dining hall's elegant vastness. Nor does it permit you to deviate from the path the dreaming part of you—the part that weaves the world—has chosen for you.

"Oh, you're finally here!"

Florence lies on her back, staring up towards the distant sky. A strand of drool drips from her slackening mouth.

Something is wrong.

She feels too much; distantly, indistinctly, like oil slowly dripping through gauze to infiltrate the wounds beneath, but FAR TOO MUCH.