Vera sat up abruptly in bed, her skin slick with sweat. Vera lifted up her hands to look at them and she noticed that they were shaking. This intrigued her. Why was she so frightened? It was just a dream and as far as she was concerned dreams weren"t real. She only got involved with lucid dreaming out of curiosity. She glanced at the digital clock on the table near her. 03:00. She peered through the darkness at her other roommates and could make out the outlines of two of them that were huddled in deep sleep. The room was quiet except for the soft purring and ticking of various automatic devices.But the dream did seem so real. This wasn"t just random spurts from her unconscious; it felt like she had really been there. The wind, the headstone she touched, she had felt it. And it had felt cold, bitterly cold.
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Vera forced her mind not to dwell on the matter and lay back, hoping to sleep off. She was feeling herself begin to drift when she heard voices. At first, she thought that one of her roommates had woken up and was speaking on her mobile phone but then realized she could hear a second voice. She a.s.sumed that the second roommate had woken up since she didn"t hear the door open to allow anyone in. Then she realized that one of them sounded like Alice while she couldn"t place the other voice though it seemed weirdly familiar.
"How is this possible?" it said.
"It"s always been possible," said the voice that sounded like Alice. "But you people are always so short sighted."
Vera"s eyes opened a fraction and she thought she saw two shadowy figures hovering near her bed. Terrified, she gave a short scream and sat bolt upright, her eyes as round as saucers. There was no one there. Her startled yell had not awoken her roommates. She could hear them snoring. She sat there shivering like a leaf and wondered what she had seen. Apparently, it had been her imagination, the shreds of a nightmare that had crept into her wakefulness. It was jarring none the less even if it hadn"t been real. Well, that"s the end for sleep any time soon she thought. She got up from bed, put on a bedside table lamb and fished out a fat textbook on junior physics. She sat at the table and began to read, despite having read the book from cover to cover like three times already. She didn"t mind. It soothed her frayed nerves. Well, it did until she heard a man laugh outside in the hallway.
Vera looked up in alarm. What was a man doing inside a female hostel at past three in the morning? She quickly grabbed a flashlight and rushed to the door despite being dressed in only a halter top and a pair of boxer shorts. She tried to unlock and open the door as quietly as she could but it still creaked anyway. She cursed under her breath but her roommates still seemed dead to the world.
The hallway was pitch dark. She swept the flashlight left and right but all she saw were doors to hostel rooms. Could he have gone into the bathrooms? Vera"s skin crawled at the thought. She decided to investigate anyway.
Treading as softly as possible with her flip flops she headed down the hallway. Everywhere was quiet except for the mournful howl of the wind outside. Flashes of lightning lit up the hallway through the windows at the far end. She could hear the soft patter of light rain on the roof. Eventually she reached the bathrooms.
She swept her flashlight left and right again. The stalls seemed empty. She headed to the toilets and yielded the same results. She decided that the man must have gone to another floor. She had every intention of finding him.
Fifteen minutes later she had made a thorough search of all the floors in the hostel. She didn"t find anyone. She got down to the main entrance and stared at it baffled. Where had the man gone? The hostel was locked from the inside. All the windows were barred from the outside. Had she been dreaming again? But she had been wide awake and reading!
Eventually, Vera had to return to her room. She was a bit perturbed by the recent events. Was she under a lot of stress? That seemed unlikely. Her academic schedule barely strained her, she actually enjoyed it. Her friends and roommates always looked at her in disbelief whenever she brought out a ma.s.sive textbook to read just to pa.s.s the time. Something else must explain the weird dreams and quite possibly, hallucinations. Trying not to think anymore of it, she resumed reading the textbook.
The scream tore through the hallway like a siren. Vera jumped and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Goose pimples broke out over her forearm. Her roommates jolted up.
"Jesus! What was that?" Sandra asked, looking ready to lay an egg. Ada pulled her blanket up to her chin, her eyes as wide as saucers. She seemed speechless.
Okay, Vera thought as she felt her heart pound against her chest. Now, that was definitely real.