sleep.

Chapter VI: The Dream

     Malcolm opens his eyes only to find himself laying in a field of grass in the middle of the day. When he opens his eyes, he looks at the sky. The sky is blue, bright, and cloudless. But there’s no sun. Malcolm sits up slowly and keeps looking at the sky. Still, no sun. He looks behind him, and he sees his high school. The sign at the front of the doors reads “Berryfield High”. He sees a group of teenage girls playing basketball in front of the school.
     He looks in front of him and sees in the distance a steep hill that he didn’t recognize. His school isn’t on a hill. It’s on the side of the street.
     Malcolm stands up, and slowly walks over to the girls playing basketball. “Excuse me.” Malcolm says, raising his voice a bit to be heard over the loud sportsmanship yelling from the players. When they heard him, they stopped playing and looked at him in unison. “Oh.. kay.. Not creepy at all…” Malcolm thought, and to him, his thoughts sounded like God speaking from above. Although nobody else seemed to have heard it. “If you don’t mind me asking, where am I?”
     “You’re at Berryfield High, doofus.” One of the girls responded. The girl’s voice was deep and masculine. Malcolm looked at the sign again. That wasn’t his school. It looked exactly like it. The basketball court, the blue exterior walls, and the same font used in the sign. Except his school is called Berryfield High School, whereas this one is just called Berryfield High. Maybe it’s some dumbass pun his brain made up since the school is on a hill.
     “Yeah, but, I’m pretty sure this school shouldn’t be on a hil-” he gets cut off by the girl passing the ball to him. He instinctively catches it. “Listen, dude.” the girl says, “This is Berryfield High. It’s on a hill, and it’s always been on a hill. Now shut the fuck up and join us.”
     “Oh, um, I actually don’t know how to play basketball.” Malcolm said, smiling awkwardly. The girl stared at him, then spit out her gum onto the grass next to the basketball court. “Yeah you do.” She responds, pulling Malcolm onto the court with her.
     “Woah!” Malcolm yells before being handed the ball. The other girls try to steal it from him, but he holds it away from them. He runs around the entire court in a full circle. Then another. Then another. “What the fuck are you doing?!” The girl asks with a face that says “are you stupid”. “I told you I don’t know how to play!” He yells, and blindly throws the ball in the air, running away. The world around him glitches out, and he wakes back up.
     Malcolm sits up rapidly, his heart racing and his mouth dry. “Woah. That.. that was.. so fucking awesome!” He thought, smiling but still out of breath. He looks out his window. It’s morning. He looks at the time on his phone. He’s late.
     He gets out of bed and starts packing up for school. He goes downstairs, opens his backpack and takes his reusable water bottle out. He fills it up with coffee that he made last night. He puts his bottle back into his backpack and zips it up. He quickly gets his shoes on then walks out the door, running as fast as he can so he could get to school on time. He was already dehydrated and out of breath, so this run was torture for him. But if he was late again, his dad would for sure kick him out.
     “Almost,” gasp “there” he makes it to the entrance of the school, but his body got so weak that he faints from exhaustion. Everything goes black. A few minutes later, he wakes up in the parking lot, lying on his back. He looks at the sky. Blue, bright, and cloudless. But one thing shocked him the most out of anything.

There was no sun.

     Malcolm quickly stands up and runs toward the school. When he ran by the basketball court, he heard a familiar voice call out “Hey, doofus! Catch!”. The basketball hit his head and made him fall over onto the ground. He grunted in pain before getting back up again and holding his head. “What the hell?! I could have gotten a concussion, you asshole!” He looked to see who threw the ball at him. It was that same girl from the dream. Was this real? Did that girl even exist before today?
     The girl spit her gum onto the grass next to the basketball court. She looks at Malcolm, crossing her arms. “You play?” She asked. Malcolm, still shaken by the thought that he might’ve just created someone, shook his head. “No. I.. I don’t really know how to play basketball.” He responded. The girl walked toward Malcolm quickly and angrily. “Yeah you do.” Malcolm whispered to himself. “Yeah you do.” The girl said before grabbing Malcolm’s arm. Malcolm pulled away and started running into the school. Running through the hallway, up the stairs and into his homeroom class.
     He looked outside his window. Still no sun. “What the fucking shitting fuck is fucking happening right now?!” he thought, grabbing his hair in frustration. “What the hell just happened?!"