Mirrored Dream

The cool night sky was dark, cool, and unwavering. The wind echoed between tree branches nearby. Once, an owl perched on the lychee tree by the window as an embodiment laid in slumber beneath her covers. The owl’s golden eyes stared in the night calling forth her fellow night stalkers as the moon revealed her face to the world. The moon crawled from behind the misty grey clouds passing by laying her calm white light through the window caressing the skin of the one in slumber. As the light reaches the face of the girl, she twitched as she sleeps deeply in dreams.

Out of the mist in her mind, the girl faced before her something so familiar. Once then twice light flashes blinding her then revealing before her a figure drenched in red. As though looking into the mirror, Vastria stricken in disbelief found herself before her, a reflection. No, before her was a girl who looked like herself, but this girl was drenched in blood.

Vastria looks down at herself, white camisole and loosely white lacy shorts. Then to the figure before her with the same face in the very same attire. Her long dark brown hair with red pigments along her small backside; you would think was not her natural color, but it was. Vastria in thought stepped back eyeing the figure before her who smiled in glee staring back at Vastria. As the female figure smiled at Vastria, blood dripped down the corners of her mouth revealing two piercing white teeth for show. Vastria looked to meet this figure’s red eyes with a soft silver glow in which her pupils resembled a cat. Vastria stood frozen in disbelief unsure what to do, unable to produce any thought. The air became thin and still as the two stared at each other.

Vastria tried to speak, but no sound came. The girl in front of her opened her mouth, and yet no sound came between those red stained lips. However, Vastria read what was formed to words from the girl. Know who I am. Know who you are and know who you will become.

Vastria stared not sure what the words meant, but it hit her. Vastria’s eyes widened, her heart beating in fright in slight realization. Deep down Vastria knew what it meant even though she may not truly know the meaning in present. In response, the girl in red widened her smile.

In the distance, a cry had cut through. A flutter of wings passed by as a great owl appeared. Vastria blinked at the owl then opened her eyes finding herself in her bed sitting upright. She turned and looked out the window, the owl gone from her perch on the lychee tree. A dream. Creepy dream. Vastria thought to herself. Looking at the clock on the bedside table next to her, 2:30a.m., Vastria sighed in disbelief and saddened that she had such a dream. She fell back down to her pillows running through what she just saw in her dream and the words of the other girl. Vastria has always been having these weird dreams; some dreams she can remember and others she cannot remember. The dreams she can never remember, she tends to feel déjà vu during current events. She closed her eyes hoping to fall back to sleep until the morning dew.

6:00a.m. the alarm started to ring. Vastria slapped the alarm without looking. The alarm was turned off and fell to the ground. Vastria slowly opened her eyes as the morning sun started to shine through the branches of the trees into the room. Groaning at the morning sun, Vastria got out of bed slowly getting dressed and ready for her day. She had briefly forgotten that weird eerie dream she had the night before. On her mind now was to make sure she gets to her college classes on time.

Vastria has always dreaded her classes, but she did find her writing courses to be the most amusing and simple to her. Sitting in her second and last class of the day, Advanced Nature/Environmental Writing and Literature, the class was discussing interconnected earth and the professor has just started the population bomb video.

Watching the video, Vastria could not stop staring at the parts where the India people were dying of starvation, war, and abuse. There was a scene of dead bodies and she could not hear what the narrator was saying. Vastria had to look down. Death did not really bother her, but if others around her knew that death captivated her, people would not find it amusing. In fact, it would make her weird and bizarre in other’s eyes or even a psychopath. She stared at her blank paper knowing she was supposed to get ideas for a writing piece, but she had to think of an appropriate piece to write, other than about death and the possible torture of humankind.

She started to jot some ideas down, then her memory of her dream the night before drowned her thoughts. The girl covered in blood with her face. She could not get the image out of her mind nor the words from the girl. It was not that the dream scared her, it startled her because it was so vivid. She was able to see the faces in her dream and not forget it. Well this single face because it was her own. Other dreams she would only see blurred figures. When she would finally see the figure clearly, she would forget the image she saw instantly. It frustrated her just as much as forgetting the dreams entirely. She had tried to remember them, but she could not. She even tried to write the dream down in a journal soon as she woke, but shortly as she grabs her book and pen, poof, dream forgotten.

Lunch time came around and the dining hall was packed to the max. As soon as the doors opened to the eating area, student voices flooded out leaking out of the large enclosed room. Vastria entered the room in silence and gradually made her way through the lines in the cafeteria buffets then wondered through the tables with her tray of freshly rolled “amateur” sushi and a slice of cheese pizza.  “Vass! Over here!” Vastria heard her friend calling her over to a table near the corner window of the dining hall. She sat in the inner most corner of the hall, wall to her back. Vastria has never felt comfortable with others at her back as sometimes she feels she is being watched. It would give her a creep vibe.

To her left, Meagan rambled on about how terrible her presentation project had gone for her Religion course. She was presenting the similarities of religious beliefs with paganism and satanism and how over the centuries it had been molded into contemporary beliefs of what is truly sin and what people believe is sin. “You know, it took me all fucking night to complete this presentation and the stupid video I created would not play.” Vastria nodded, listening to her dear friend remembering how long it took since she did not get to sleep until one in the morning. She had to literally run away saying she had to pee, but in truthfully, she just wanted to sleep already. Listening to Meagan’s project presentation exhausted Vastria, but the content was interesting, and she would have listened longer if it were not so late at night.  Vastria cut into Meagan’s ranting, “Well did you at least get a passing grade?” Meagan stopped short as she was describing how she had wanted to choke the life out of some guy in class who chuckled during her presentation then laughed when her video would not play. “Well… Yes. In fact, I got the highest score. Of course, perfect score, but that is not the point. That asshole, he did not even have his presentation ready and had the decency to laugh at my presentation. Seriously men in this university are complete annoying beings.”

“So… Was it the same guy who trailed after you that night we went to that party?” Vastria asked. “Yes! That very same creep.” Meagan responded while stuffing her mouth with some chicken tenders. Vastria had to laugh, which caused Meagan to scowl. Vastria never cared to try relationships. Meagan had a few boyfriends who at the end of the break ups left them crying with them on the floor holding their manly hoods. Yes, Meagan definitely was a ball crusher.

There was that one time the two girls went into a gothic café after some shopping at the mall. The guy at the counter would stare intently at Vastria. The guy was dressed all I leather, piercings and tattoos galore. It was not a “hot” sight. Especially his black hair greased to one side of his head. It made Vastria shutter at the sight. Seeing how Vastria never liked the feeling of eyes staring at her, Meagan scared the guy nearly to death with “sweet” talking as she kindly explained their order along with how she would shove a fist in his skull if he continued to be a creep staring at her friend.

Then Vastria remembered her dream again. She was determined to figure out what the words meant, but she did not know where to start.

Vastria sighed feeling slightly defeated looking down at her plate with a half-eaten pizza on it. Meagan who noticed the sigh slapped Vastria on the back. “THE HELL MEAGAN” yelled Vastria as she dropped rice in her lap from her sushi she was holding. Meagan laughed flipping her short wavy black hair with her pink with back tips manicured fingers and says, “You are the one sighing there Vassy girl.”

“You didn’t need to do that. Look I nearly lost my sushi. Jeez!” Vastria exclaimed as she tries to clean up the mess giving Meagan a murderous glare for nearly losing her favorite dish. “Pfft, you always eat sushi when they have it. They literally make it every Friday.” Meagan rolled her eyes. Vastria huffed ignoring Meagan’s remarks about her sushi as she salvaged the crumbling piece in her hand stuffing it whole in her mouth. Meagan chuckled knowing how well Vastria loved her sushi.

Meagan has been Vastria’s friend since the first semester of school when they both ended up being partners for the new student orientation. Meagan being girly to Vastria’s quiet reserved ways, they became friends right away when they found out that they both enjoy similar things. Over time both girls would go to watch scary movies, especially the goriest of them. They would be the only ones laughing at the scariest parts enjoying the dark and mysteries of the world they live in. Meagan was the only person Vastria felt herself with. Hence, Meagan was the only one allowed to call Vastria by her little nicknames Meagan was so fond of using. Being in their third semester, both girls stuck together, even sharing dorm suites. Vastria wanting to achieve a career in writing and Meagan who wanted to be a producer of horror flicks. 

Meagan was someone Vastria depended on as her only close friend as she first enrolled at the university. Vastria was always alone at home with no friends to think of. Her mother has passed away during her junior year of high school. She never had a good relationship with her mother, but, nevertheless, she endured and was grateful she was able to achieve what she had gotten. Thankfully, after her mother passed away, she inherited a lump sum from her mother’s savings she never knew her mother had kept. Her mother even left behind a letter stating how much she loved her. Contradictory because her mother was always coldhearted to her and with everything she did. This had started ever since Vastria turned the age of thirteen. Her mother would always question where she was going and who she was going with. Her mother demanded for Vastria to never go out, to only go to school and come home. This caused Vastria to lose her friends and ended up being labeled as the odd girl. At times, her mother would accuse her of cheating when she would come home from school with perfect grades. It was hard for Vastria during those times, but she never could hate her mother for that. She knew her mother had it rough, being her only parent raising her. Vastria never knew who her father was and never cared to ask about him. Her inheritance from her mother was a blessing. Vastria was able to move on and enroll into a university she sought; she was inevitably grateful to her mother, who did in fact support her in her own strange way. 

“Well what is up with that sighing anyways Vass?” asked Meagan watching Vastria intently. “Nothing, just a long day,” replied Vastria as she stood up and threw the trash away at the nearest trash opposite of the table the sat at.

“Right…. Yes, your two and only classes of the day was so dreadful” Meagan did not seem to believe her. Thus, tried to lighted the mood. “Well did you hear?” asked Meagan as she slapped a big poster onto the table.

Vastria looked at the poster in front of her, “Wait… You serious?”  Vastria grabbed the poster, “It’s coming here tonight? The carnival of ‘Fright Night’?”

The carnival of 'Fright Night' the two girls was excited over was a well-known carnival in the goth community. It was of course a vampire themed carnival. The image or mascot of this carnival was a bear. This bear was an angry/grumpy looking bear giving off an evil grin of two-toned various colors. The difference with this bear was that it had fangs and claws to match the theme of the carnival. The two girls had waited a long time for the carnival hoping it would come to town. The carnival would visit various places once, then go on to the next. It was a one-night carnival. They could not pass it up. 

Vastria studied the poster a bit then tossed it on the table precariously ending up with a papercut on her forefinger, “Crap! A paper cut.” She grabbed a napkin and had put pressure to prevent bleeding even though deep down she would have just licked it till it stopped bleeding, but this was in public. She did not want people looking at her weird. A weird girl sucking on her bleeding finger looking like she was enjoying every bit of it.

“That’s your fault there Vassy girl,” stated Meagan as she put the poster into her bag.

Ignoring Meagan, Vastria analyzed the paper cut. A tiny drop of blood revealed itself. Vastria flashed back as she stared at the blood remembering the dream, she had the night before and dropped the napkin.

“Hey,” Meagan poked Vastria’s shoulder and asked, “What’s wrong?” Grabbing the fallen napkin Vastria responded, “Oh nothing. I just remembered a weird dream I had last night.”

“Oh?” Asks Meagan. “What was it about Vass?”

“I don’t even remember all of it. It was just a weird dream,” replied Vastria.

“How weird was it?” Urged Meagan trying to nudge Vastria to continue. “What do you remember from the dream?”

Vastria sighed, “I just remember seeing my own face in the dream. I do not even know the meaning of it. Like I said it was weird.” Vastria shifted in her chair then continued, “That was all to the dream that I can remember other than I think I saw blood. I do not know.” Vastria shrugged.

“Okay… I guess that is weird, but blood?”  Meagan uneasily said. Vastria could only nod in response.

A chill ran down the back of Vastria’s spine while thinking about her dream but shrugs it off as Meagan stared in her direction. “Let’s just forget about it for now and look forward to this carnival.” Vastria said as she gathered her stuff. Meagan changed her expression to excitement, “Hell yea!” The two headed back to their dorm to get ready for the fun they were hoping for at the carnival.

As the girls were getting dressed, Vastria realized and asked, “Hey Meagan, your run this morning was longer than normal. I was waiting to head to our classes with you, but since you never showed up, I left without you. What happened?”

Meagan turned from the mirror she was using to put on her eye shadow to look at Vastria, “Oh…. I had lost track of time this morning and ended up running farther than usual. I am so sorry, I should have texted you, but yeah I did also leave my phone on my bed…”

Vastria huffed, “Even so, you still ended up reaching school before me”. “Well yeah… caught an uber….” Meagan turned away slowly hiding her face.

 “Bitch.” Vastria glared at Meagan since she had to walk all the way to the university from her dorm. Even though it was not a far walk, the only killer was it was all up hill to the entrance of the university. Feel the burning thighs.

Meagan was a morning runner and never missed a morning to do her run, even in the rain. Vastria never dared to try it with Meagan, not just because she could never keep up with her, but because Vastria hated to run if she did not need to. 

The two girls continued to get ready for their night of fun talking about what they were to do first at the carnival. Deciding that it was their mission to do as much of the events as possible at the carnival. They could not wait in anticipation.