I was not in my bed last night. I know that at one point I had a real dream, but beyond that, I was somewhere else entirely.
First of all, the actual dream. I was in high school, but I only saw the bus loop where the buses take the students home. I got on a bus, talked to a few people and did something (though I don't remember what I did) then got off and jumped on the right bus just as it was about to pull away from the school. Unfortunately, all my normal seats were taken and so I had to go to the back of the bus... which in most circles is the "bad boys" and "druggies" and all the people you DON'T want to associate with.
I was sitting next to a darker skinned boy, one that I didn't recognize from my school though he still seemed familiar to me somehow. He was starting to bully me a bit, picking on me for various things, and I was fighting back with comments and sarcasm, occasionally pushing him away from me. It was getting quite a bit of attention from the other students, and I'm not sure that was a good thing. Thank god nothing bad happened by the time we arrived at my stop. He reluctantly moved out of the way so I could escape the seat and rush off the bus.
I walked the short distance to my house, which was within viewing distance of the bus stop, but hesitated at the front yard. Even though the time was set back in my high school days, my parents' divorce was already taking place and I was already unwelcome beyond the threshold. I very cautiously avoided stepping in the grass of the front yard, and glanced up toward the front door. It was open, and I could see people moving about inside. My sisters were rushing to the dining room, and my grandma was sweeping the living room. My stepmom was moving about purposefully, most likely in the middle of something important. I did not want to interrupt or anger anyone, but I also wanted to come home.
My stepmom saw me and appeared frustrated and angry, but allowed me to enter. She told me that if I was going to be there then I might as well babysit my sisters for a few hours so her and my grandma could get their shopping done. But then for the next [what seemed like an] hour, she bustled around the house, not needing me at all. Not acknowledging my existence, either. I had left some important schoolbooks at my dad's house, which even though in real life is half a country away, in the dream it was close by. I went over to his house, got what I needed, and went back to my stepmom's. But somehow, the five minutes I was gone had turned into several hours, and when I arrived back in the living room I was met with yelling and accusations. "How am I supposed to get my shopping done if you aren't even here when I need you?!" She said. "I had to take the girls with me to the store and practically crawl through it, without the space to get everything we needed for this house!" She was very angry with me, and even though I did not understand why, since she hadn't left the house for a long time after asking me to babysit, and I knew I was only gone for a few minutes. Time just did not add up, and I was the one being punished for it. I hung my head down and let her scold me, knowing that any work I had done to get her approval was long since forgotten. Even though the reason I had left (for that short time) was to better myself through learning, something that I needed to do for myself, she would never forgive me for it. It was disappointing, but I had no choice. She did not kick me out of the house, however, and so with a heavy heart I dragged myself down the hallway to my old room.
Back in my room, schoolwork was suddenly finished and I found myself in front of a large mirror, one that I didn't actually have in my room back then. There were a few sets of earrings on the top of the dresser, and I decided to put on a few pairs. I looked at the clock and noted that it was morning, just fifteen minutes before I had to be at the bus stop again. I picked out a pair of crocheted roses, a pair of small pearls that weren't pearls, and a pair of something else, slightly dangling but not too big, that in a way matched the roses but were not crocheted. I don't remember exactly what they were beyond that description. I do know, however, that the pearls that were not pearls were not even from our planet. Some sort of moonstone, perhaps? I'm not sure. But I picked them specifically because they stood out against the rest, as plain as they appeared, and I knew I should be wearing them.
Of course, there were a few problems. The backs of the earrings kept coming off. Specifically the ones on the roses. I kept having to reach down and pick them back up, or occasionally some of them would be lost entirely and I'd have to steal the backs off of other pairs that I wasn't wearing. Then I realized that some of the backs to the roses had gone through the hole and were pressed up against the back of the rose earrings themselves. I wasn't sure how to keep them on if they were going to come off that way, but I just grabbed another set of backs and attempted it anyways. It was time for me to get to the bus stop now, so I prayed that what I had would stay on, and I headed out the door. No one else in the house was up at this point.
It's at this point now that I believe my dream transferred to somewhere else. Something was out of place for the next few events, and I think I knew it while it occurred.
Here is the transition, the journey, out of my mind. I think I was wearing a different outfit than the day before, but I'm not sure. I heard the sound of the bus as I was walking out of my door, and by the time I got to the bus stop there was no one there. I thought for sure I had missed the bus, but then I started to see other people walking toward the stop as well. The ones I looked at, however, seemed to be appearing out of thin air. They slowly materialized in a blue haze before fully forming and stopping in front of me. A few of them had boxes of stuff with them, mostly books or projects.
A couple people said hi, then we turned to watch someone walk up, quite different from the rest of us. It was four people in one, though now that I think about it I don't think they were separated. I think it was all one person, with four separate visible personalities. Each of the four were dressed as a different superhero. I remember seeing Batman and Spiderman, though I don't recall who the other two were. A small group of us were laughing about it as the bus pulled up. One of the guys at the bus stop was leaning over to pick up a few books that had tumbled out of his box. Their titles caught my eye and I walked over to talk to him. I helped him pick up the books as the rest of the people got on the bus, and he asked me if I was interested in what he was teaching. I said that I was, and he asked me to sit by him on the bus and he would explain everything.
I got on the bus and sat in the very first seat behind the driver. I never once got to see who the driver was. The guy got on behind me and sat in the seat just behind mine, to give us both a bit more space to be comfortable as we discussed the topic of his books, but another boy kept trying to sit by me and I had to keep asking him not to, trying to tell him that my seat was taken, but I didn't want to sound mean. So the guy with the books sat next to me instead, and I sat cross-legged on the seat with my back against the window so I was facing him. He began pulling books out of the box, and handing them to me one by one. The first book was about Time. It was about the angles, direction, movement, flow patterns, literally the key to unlocking the secrets of Time. There were a few creatures involved, nothing I remember. I actually don't remember any of the details... There was something in either the first or second book that went into detail on how to manipulate time, and how to map it out the way you want. There is literally a grid pattern, you can plot it out in 2D, with specific points a precise distance apart.
The guy was telling me how he was planning out a virtual world, in a way. He had a computer on which he had graphed out that grid, and was texturing it and raising certain points, some big creation he was working on, and that if I was interested I could check it out myself. I was very interested, and I said so. I was so lost in all these amazing books. There was one on evolution, too! It was going into DNA specifics as to how and when something would evolve, what it took to start such a process, and the changes that were made each step of the way. Some creatures had it written into their DNA exactly what they were to gain from the process, as if the complete end result was planned from the start! There were pages on animalistic conversing and the creation of languages, pages on oceans and the mysteries contained within (of course, they weren't really mysteries so much as things that we do not know about yet, though these books talked about it all as if it were common knowledge).
The ride soon came to an end as the bus pulled up to the school. It was far too short of a journey and I wasn't ready to put the books down. The guy laughed at my disappointment as I stacked them neatly back in the box. He told me that I was more than welcome to read them anytime, and he looked forward to the next time we met. Hopefully then, he told me, we would have more time together.
That was the end of my journey. I arrived at the school, and got off the bus. As I walked up to the building, I knew I had reached my destination and the following events take place somewhere far from home--far from my consciousness asleep in my bed.
And now, my experience at school, though I think I should more accurately refer to it as the Library. I have been here before. I can't say when, or why, or for how long, but I have been here before. The outside of the building I know is very intricate and overwhelmingly beautiful. I didn't take the time to admire it today, as I went directly inside with a sense of purpose. I felt as if I was there to attend a specific class, and I knew that of the times I had been here, I had three classes that I attended. I believe one had a lot to do with math, and another had a lot to do with creativity and thinking outside the box. The third one was much more serious and seemed to cover a variety of topics.
I went to the classrooms that I normally went to, but the first two were empty and although my teacher was in the third room she was conducting a different class with students that I did not recognize. I asked her if she knew where my current class was taking place, and she said that it had moved to a new location, and that if I wanted to attend I would have to manage my way to it on my own. She pointed across the hall to a very heavy metal door, and told me that my destination lay beyond that door. She said I would have to go downstairs, around a corner, and down some hallways. She gave me directions, though I knew I was forgetting them as she was telling me.
I was a bit skeptical about going through that first door, since it looked like the kind of door they put as a fire escape to leave the building. I trusted her judgement though, and slowly turned the doorknob and pushed the door open. I was greeted with bright sunlight, and knew that I was outside. It didn't feel like I was outside of the building though. Like perhaps there was a garden indoors? Once through the door, I turned back towards it and saw that there were cement staircases to either side of the door. I walked down the one on the left, and the lighting changed from bright sunlight to that dim darkness of a room lit by candlelight or dusty lanterns. The stairs went just underground, then came to a platform with a wall in front of me. The staircase continued downwards behind me, right beside the staircase I had come down on. I leaned forward to glance down the stairs before I took that first step, and I was completely amazed.
As the room below came into view, I saw the most incredible library I had ever seen in my life. There were books from ceiling to floor, lining every wall. The staircases were made of bookshelves, the windows were surrounded by bookshelves, tables were created from bookshelves--and each shelf was packed with books. Old books, new books, just hundreds of thousands of millions of books. Never in twenty lifetimes could I ever read all those books.
I was wandering up and down staircases, in and out of rooms, trying to find my class. Everywhere I went there was nothing but bookshelves and books. I wandered up a staircase at one point, but was stopped dead in my tracks when I noticed a large wildcat on a higher platform in the room, pacing in front of a bookshelf. I rushed back down the stairs, only to run into the first person I had seen since walking through the door. They told me not to worry, that it was just the Principal, then they left me. I stayed at the bottom of the staircase looking up, and saw the cat walk to the top of the stairs where it transformed into a man! He was very tall and I believe he was mostly bald. He appeared to be a middle-aged man, though I knew he was very very old.
He looked directly at me. I began running, and for a while all I did was go up and down different staircases, across halls and through doors, feeling as if I was being chased. I ended up in a room full of shapes. There is no better way to describe it than the fact that there were shapes in the room, and they were colorful. A few people in white coats (like nurses or doctors) knelt beside me and told me that it was going to be okay, but that I was in the wrong wing of the library and I wasn't supposed to be there yet. They started to lead me out of the room when I woke up.
