Birthday Blues

Chapter 5 : A dream in a dream?

The day somehow comes to an end.
Diane managed to attend the rest of her classes, attend Jake's play and get back home and have dinner with her family.
She has done more things in this dream than she has in her reality for the whole year.

Now, Diane's finally back in her room.
She still struggles to believe that she did all that and still hasn't woken up from her sleep..
It is clearly no longer normal. She has never experienced such a long dream her entire life and has never heard about anyone who did. She's starting to worry.
Everything is starting to feel real to her, though she tries not to get her hopes too high.
She sits for hours and hours thinking, a lot of whats ifs and if onlys crossing her mind.
She holds her phone as she curiously goes back and forth between social media apps.
She even has a lot of followers on instagram. In reality, she only has like, twenty followers at most.
The most surprising thing to her though, is still her looks.
She couldn't help but gasp loudly when she first looked at her reflection in the mirror. No sight of all her insecurities!
She looks the best she could ever look..
She still can't believe it even now, as she scrolls down through her own feed looking at her selfies.

Through her old stories and pictures, she discovers a lot about what's going on in her life here. A lot of beautiful experiences that she doesn't remember living.

Despite thinking for way too long, she still can't figure out any clue. It's as if she was living in some mysterious tale.
A notification sound snaps her out of her thoughts.
"Hey." It's a text from Gilbert.
"I've been seeing you around at college and thought you looked cute and thought maybe we could get to know each other. Don't hesitate to say hi next time you see me." He follows up with another text.
Diane stars blankly at her phone.
Staying away from social media has highly impacted her social skills, she forgot how to actually communicate with others, well that is assuming she ever had that ability in the first place.
"See you around, Gilbert." That's what she ends up texting him back.
She lays on her bed and yawns loudly.
And that's when it hits her.
Assuming this was a dream, and she goes to sleep.. will she experience a dream in a dream?
Where is she gonna find herself when she wakes up, here or in her reality..?
She panics just thinking about what could and could not happen. There are millions of possibilities. Her anxiety intensifies.
Everything is starting to feel weird and her intrusive thoughts are spiraling out of control, this dream was a very pleasant experience that she wishes could last forever, but all this confusion is frankly making her uneasy.

She keeps thinking and thinking for hours until she gets too tired, her eyelids start to slowly drop out of her control.
She soon drifts off to sleep, having no idea where she might end up the next day.

Where is she gonna end up tomorrow?