- Gabriella -

"Jeez Briel, what time is it already and you're still up reading your soul out of those books?" Claudia complains as she shifts the blankets up to cover her face against the light beside my table.

"Oops. Did I wake you up Claud?" I mumbled, sounding apologetic. But in actuality my eyes were glued to the printed words in the book.

"Dreams are a part of your consciousness. They are usually linked to a part of your consciousness that runs in the background without you realising." I read softly from the book. My eyes scanned the text and landed on the words I wanted to find out.

"Out-of-world experiences in dreams may happen to individuals where they find themselves to be in a place they've never been too." Yes. This exactly describes my dream.

"However, research shows that these places are linked to these people's wishes. For example, a man who wishes to become a movie director may dream of himself inside a movie scene. People who claimed to have experienced such out-of-world dreams usually describe it as fleeting fantasies."

"Many said it was obvious that they knew it was a dream because it has a muted dream-like quality, and they woke up feeling happy. It is thus concluded that in such dreams, dreamers will experience what they wish to happen due to their over imaginative minds, however nothing physical is experienced."

No. That can't be. It's clearly not my imagination and I experienced pain in my dream. I frowned at the words in disbelief. That was the end of the passage? Just like that? I read it again, and then twice. But there, it stopped and the next page was about sleepwalking.

"What time are you sleeping? It's 2 am already." Claudia said groaning softly as she rolled in her bed.

"Just a sec. I'll be in bed in a second." I said.

"Ugh. The welcome party is tomorrow and there's morning classes. Don't tell me you're skipping your morning lessons?" She continues to mumble under the blankets. "Freak. Just off the damn light. I can't sleep with that thing shining brightly. Read in the dark if you want." She said angrily.

I hastily switched off the table light and the room plunged into darkness. In the quiet room, I hear Claudia's breathing become even and deep as she falls back to sleep.

Claudia has early morning classes, and my lessons tomorrow aren't as early as hers. It's selfish of me to deprive her of her sleep, since I'm no longer sleeping in my own bedroom but sharing her room.

I rubbed my eyes but I'm still not tired. Switching on my phone's flashlight, I continued reading. Somehow, my eyes adjusted easily to the dim light and I can resume with the book. It's a book about dreams. Heck, there are several books about dreams, strange sightings and even hallucinations.

Ever since that dream, I was puzzled about it and I mustered up my courage to enter into the library to find out more about it. The internet didn't help out a lot. The search engine showed me lengthy articles and research on what dreams are. There isn't anything about out-of-world experiences.

So I had to resort to going back to that library, where that incident happened. I was really hesitant about going back there, but luckily nothing happened. No strange sounds, no blindness, no blue skinned people. I was happy that I managed to find a few good books under the librarian's recommendations but now I'm disappointed.

There isn't anything here that remotely describes what I experienced.

Many of them stated that dreams remain a topic to be fully understood and the things experienced are hard to explain. I scratch my head in defeat. Surely, there's something about nightmares?

I flipped to the content page and under a section it states "Dreams that instill fear: Nightmares". I flipped to the page stated in the index and read the contents.

"Nightmares are vivid realistic dreams that rattle you awake from deep sleep. They often set your heart pounding from fear. Nightmares tend to occur most often during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, when most dreaming takes place." Mhm, nothing special. Just the normal explanation.

"There are many causes for nightmares. Research has shown that people who participate in stressful or fear inducing activities before sleeping are reported more likely to have nightmares. It varies from person to person. Although there are some common nightmares that many people experience. For example, nightmares about not being able to run fast enough to escape danger or about falling from a great height."

"If you've undergone a traumatic event, you may have recurrent nightmares about your experience. Although nightmares and night terrors both cause people to awake in great fear, they are different. Night terrors typically occur in the first few hours after falling asleep. They are experienced as feelings, not dreams, so people do not recall why they are terrified upon awakening."

I slumped in my chair. That's it. All I learned was that my dream seems to be more of a nightmare than a night terror.

I squinted against the digital clock above Claudia's table and it read 3.05 am. That's really late. I better head off to sleep. Stifling a yawn, I headed over to my bed and crawled into my blankets.

***

I'm walking to the West Wing of the university where my forensics lesson is held. It's situated in the Science blocks, inside a lab.

A tired yawn seized me, before I felt a familiar sense of fatigue creeping in. It's happening more frequently these days. The periods between each fatigue session is shortening. Usually I can go without contact for almost an entire day. Now, it's half a day or somewhere in between.

Sighing, I headed to the Garden of Sins, needing to make the detour. Luckily, I'm early. There's still some time before the lesson starts.

As I brushed my fingers across the green leaves, I marvelled at this new spot I discovered. It's a little deeper in and hidden from the eyes of the public. A small clearing with tall walls covered in vines. Here, I can touch as many plants as I like without any students judging me.

A slight scuffling and the sound of bushes rustling came from somewhere. I froze, peering around. It's empty, there's no one here. I made sure of it before I chose this spot. Is it happening again? Me hallucinating?

I'm sure that's not it. I mean what are the odds? Right?

Snorting to myself, I peeked through the corridor in the walls that leads to another open space. Here, it's just bushes and tall trees. Before I dismissed it as a figment of my imagination, the sound of rustling came again. I positioned my head nearer and looked out. There I could see the bushes moving as if something was hiding there.

A butterfly with blue wings fluttered across the bush, coming close.

The bush went still. I watch as the butterfly descends on a flower, gracefully landing.

Several seconds passed, and nothing happened. Thinking that it's probably the wind, I watched the butterfly flutter to the next flower, taking its time.

Suddenly, a large animal that looks feline and golden-bronze leaped out of the bush and pounced on the butterfly. It looked like a cross between a tiger and a large cat. I shrieked in surprise, jumping up out of my skin.

A chain of events happened next. The cat creature tilted its head to stare at me in surprise and it landed awkwardly. In that split second, the butterfly managed to escape from its paws and flutters into the air. Realising that its plaything has escaped, the creature glared at me with its surprisingly human-like eyes and leaped off.

I blinked. The butterfly and that large animal vanished.

Omg. This is the third time already. Am I turning mad?

***

The white pristine floor of the forensics lab was the first thing my eyes were drawn to. And then the rows of tables with many interesting looking apparatus and tubes that fill the workspace. The faint tang of sterilizing alcohol emanated from the lab room. Choosing the back row, I sat on the stool and set my heavy bag down.

I recovered quite fast. Maybe because I'm getting used to these weird occurrences.

The sound of opening and closing doors drew my attention. The other students are walking into the lab, arriving from their previous lessons. They filled up the empty seats in the remaining tables before a neatly dressed young man strode into the lab.

"Afternoon everyone, my name is Zachery. You guys can call me Mr Zac. I'm a forensics graduate at Velin's University, but I was born in Soren." The man introduced himself to us. He is handsome in a mature way, around his late twenties to early thirties.

"So today, I'm letting you guys have a taste of what it feels to be a forensics student. Let's start with the samples I have here." Mr Zac took out some ziplock bags sealed with tape from the large freezer in the lab.

"Here are some samples that are left behind in a possible crime scene. I want you guys to partner up with the person beside you and solve the identities of who one of these samples belong to." Mr Zac passed down the samples, distributing to each table.

I glanced at the empty seat beside me, wondering if I should tell him about my apparent lack of a partner, when the door to the lab opened. A guy with short disheveled curly golden hair sauntered in. Instantly, all eyes are drawn to the stranger. It wasn't just his tall height and lean build.

There was something magnetic about his gaze. He has dark blue eyes and his skin looks tanned from hours under the sun. Intense is the word I will describe him.

"Ah, you must be the transfer student, Fenrys. Please take a seat. The lesson has started." Mr Zach said, unperturbed by the sudden interruption by the late student. The boy, Fenrys, scanned the tables with his sharp gaze. Finding that all the seats were taken, he made his way to my table and took the seat beside me. In a fluid movement, he sat down with the grace of a cat.

His shaggy mop of golden curls reminded me of the large cat I saw. Wait, what's wrong with me associating this guy with cats?

Without saying a word, he looked towards the trees outside the window and propped his hand under his chin. Up close, he looked even more beautiful. Stormy blue eyes and long eyelashes.

I may not be a socially awkward person but I don't usually take the initiative to talk to others. Especially now, when I can see that the new guy seems to be in his own world and doesn't want anyone disturbing him. Well, it seems the class assignment to be done with a partner is not going to work.

With a shrug, I opened the ziplock bag and pulled out the sample Mr Zach was talking about.

It's a smear of a fingerprint in blood, or should I say dark red dye? I looked at the other tables, curious about what the other students have gotten. One of the cool samples was a scalpel stained in red, another is a life-like replica of a gun, apparently with fingerprints on it.

"Alright, you may begin once you're ready. Refer to the worksheets on your tables for instructions on how you should handle your specimens and then fill in the blanks based on what you have in the worksheets. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. I will be walking around to help you guys." Mr Zach said, leaving us to figure ourselves out.

Flipping the worksheet on the table that I'm supposed to share with Fenrys, I searched for the section under fingerprints. I read the steps I have to perform. It's a complicated process, but I followed the steps and lastly, placed it under the scanning apparatus.

This is the last step already, all I have to do now is wait for the results to show in the scan.

But the picture on the scan turned out to be unclear and the results I wanted wasn't shown. Frustrated, I sat back on my seat, contemplating which of the steps I missed out or did wrongly. I scanned the worksheet, mentally ticking the steps I managed to do.