A Dream by Noon.

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 15. WAKING UP.

THE ROOM was blindingly bright. I immediately felt dizzy. Putting my hands down for support, I squinted to adjust to my surroundings. White everywhere. My hands, expecting the hard tile, instead landed on a soft surface that made me retract them just as quickly. In an instant I realized I was being cushioned by the same unfamiliar softness. Underneath me, a bed, clean, with a fluffy white down comforter like the one I had at home, but newer. My heart raced as my brain tried to make sense of this new environment. I quickly scanned the room around me. I recognized the room as the same I had been in but everything about it was wrong. Different. Bright white walls looked as if they had been freshly painted. . A bed with fresh linen that I currently sat on. The windows , with heavy white curtains, and trim boards that showed no signs of wear, and next to me, a bedside table. Atop of it, a lamp.

Sunshine found it's way in through the top of the curtains and danced across the ceiling. I put my hands back on the bed, and felt the soft linen this time as I pushed myself up off the bed. My feet hit the ground and retracted just as my hands had. Barefeet. I had shoes on, didn't I? Barefeet touched another soft surface and I noticed a pale and plush blue rug beneath. I stod up, now starting to reason with myself that this was clearly a dream, bu the panic I could feel rushing through my body was like no dream I'd ever had.

In front of me, the window. Was it in the same place as it had been before? No doubt it had hanged or something about it had, but the room structure, was it the same? It seemed to be. I walked over to the window and moved curtains that I was sure were no there before, half expecting dust to cloud the room once I moved them. Clean curtains moved aside easily and exposed what was behind them. Outside. It was the same yard as before. I was in the same place. But just like inside, it was all different. Bright green vines accented a giant gate that led to the expansive courtyard. Color overwhelmed me. Roses growing around the gates and metal fence attached throughout. The pathways connecting buildings were no longer cement but some type of white crushed stone that sparkled in a speckled patches where the sun hit it. Surrounding the roads was thick, dense green grass that was broken up by bushes filled with pink and white flowers. A strange pattern of red flowers lined the pathway in areas, and collectively made a group at the end to form a large red circle in the middle of the green.

I was mesmerized for a moment. Never had I seen a place so beautiful. So beautiful that within in instant I decided it could not be real, and that this was most certainly a dream. My heart rate slowed a bit at that acknowledgement and the slowing offered additional comfort, though the uneasiness of how off it all felt lingered. I felt lik ethe spectator as I looked back around the white room and then outside again, waiting for something to happen. Outside, wind blew pink willows back and forth in a way that was both hypnotizing and soothing. I remembered the stress that brought me here, a quick flash of what it was before and felt the contrast to where I stood now, trying to remember if walking out here was part of the dream or not. I decided it all was and let the calm of it envelop me.

Sound began to bleed into the previously silent moment so slowly I couldn't remember if it had been there the whole time. I froze, recognizing the sound as voices, so low and so far away I wasn't sure if they were coming from outside or in the building. I kept myself hidden behind the curtain and searched around outside for the source. The white room suddenly making me feel trapped on one side of a bigger thing. I eyed the door across form me, the long rectangular window with plexiglass not giving me any sort of view of what was behind it other than more white.

The voices didn't grow louder, didn't seem to be coming closer, but still I couldn't make out any words, or even if they were male or female, adult or child. Just low sounds, speech patterns from somewhere in the distance. I stayed along the wall and moved toward the door, keeping out of view of the rectangular window. When I reached the doorway, I took a breath and then quickly peaked through the window.

It was just like the room and the courtyard had been. Everything was the same, familiar layout, but completely changed. I took it all in with another quick glance before returning to the wall. Fresh white paint, unsoiled, not chipping. Clean floors. Neat and tidy. New couches and chairs made it look like a place for living... Reassuring myself this was still a dream, I decided to go explore further. In the back of my head though, I questioned and at the same time my eyes looked around in amazement, they also checked for a way out. Either way, I had to leave this room.

Taking the handle carefully, I paused, no longer hearing the muffled voices and then pulled the door open just an inch. As I did, long fingers quickly slid in from the other side, grabbing my hand with tremendous force that sent me screaming back into the room.

I fell hard back onto the floor in a panic, the door slamming shut. My heart was racing again as I stared at the door but with no sign of anything that had been there a moment ago. I scooted back as far as I could get, out of view of the outside of the room and then crawled to the door, pushing my feet in front of it in an attempt to keep anything or anyone that might be on the other side, out. Deep breaths and panic began to overwhelm me and these betrayals of my body started to drop all notions of the dream theory, although logic continued to remind me this could not be real. I turned now, using my back to hold the door shut, and ground my bare feet into the ground to push myself against it and waited. No force pushed back. Instead, even worse, a loud knock that vibrated the door produced just as much panic.

I stayed where I was, my back pushing against the heavy door, nothing competing with me. Again, another loud set of three. Knock. Knock. Knock. Images of the creature that might be on the other end running through my mind. I felt like I might faint when I heard something that I knew I must have imagined. I waited, and it came again.

"Dani." The voice said. It wasn't a question.

"Dani. Open the door please."