Dream of No One

By carriage

The stranger arrived in Westhaven by cavalry. Gigantic and blocky black cars drove up the winding, dirt roads, spitting out rocks from their tires. The evening was falling when he came. The shadows of tree branches danced along the dimly lit pavement leading into the courtyard of Westhaven University for Extraordinary pupils when he exited the second car in the line-up. The expected rolling of suitcase wheels, that had become a familiar sound in the summer months when the new pupils moved into the campus on the Westhaven University terrain, didn't follow the click of his shoes onto the grey cement. Instead, other clicks followed, and out of the cars came men holding brown trunks with gigantic ornamental locks on them. The stranger stretched his body, a watch peeking out from under the sleeve of his navy sweater, and then turned back to the men to -presumably- delegate the task of getting the trunks to his dorm room. Eve momentarily considered the spiral staircase that led to the dorm rooms in the women's halls, and felt sorry for the suit clad men.

You see, Eve wasn't a stalker or something. There was good reason for why she saw this entire scene unfold in front of her. She had simply been studying, and since her hardwood desk was placed against the large double windows in her dorm room, she had noticed the cars pulling up to the dormitory terrain. And, she was quite sure, she hadn't been the only who noticed. The thing about Westhaven University, and Westhaven the same, was that strangers never came. The people who lived in Westhaven would leave sometimes, to explore bigger cities and more unreachable dreams, and would inevitably find their way back as they got older, but no one ever came to Westhaven. No one sought the town out. Which, in its own way was strange, as Eve had always thought it was quite beautiful. With its seaside cliffs and foam filled beach, the ominous woods and historic buildings. But it was a blessing in disguise that so few people arrived to stay longer, that only the residents of Westhaven went to Westhaven University and that the people Eve grew up around, were still the people watching her grow.

The girls who were Eve's dormitory neighbours, had practically been her neighbours her entire life. Everything was familiar, everything was planned out. Every tree along the path up to Westhaven University, had been there since the very first time she drove along the road. Every dent and every quirk was a constant. Even the church bells, which rung every Sunday at twelve and for some unknown reason every Thursday at half past four, had been ringing her entire life. They were the first sounds she had ever heard, as she was born in the small church on a Thursday, at half past four.

The stranger was moving again. He walked over the courtyard, his posse of stereotypical businessmen following him, holding onto the trunks with their fingertips. He walked with a certain aloofness. His feet in steady rhythm as he strutted past the carefully pruned bushes, hands in his pockets and his chin held high. As he came closer to Eve's window, she got to observe him more carefully. He was beautiful, that was all she could truthfully say. The other girls were probably hanging out of their windows as well by now, seeing a man who wasn't their cousin, their brother or their ex, a rare and inspiring sight. She imagined what he would have been seeing that evening, girls clad in white staring at him from their brightly lit rooms. She imagined Mathilda and Alexandra directly below and above her, sitting in their windowsills and observing in silence. That was maybe the most damning and ominous part, the deafening silence. Nothing could be heard, except for the creaking of floorboard and the steady, defined steps of the stranger and his followers. When he got closer to the building, he passed under one of the building's arches. Never once in those two minutes it took him to walk into the dormitory, did he look up.

That was the first night she dreamt. In her sleep she saw his face, in her sleep she caressed his sharp cheekbones and tousled his brown hair. His eyes were green, yes, they were green. And he was afraid, god he was afraid. His body was trembling and covered in dirt, his mouth slightly ajar. His forehead was dripping with sweat, causing his hair to stick to it. Eve wasn't scared as she stroked him. He was trying to say something, but she couldn't hear him properly. Everything that came out of him was a jumbled mess. A long cut ran along the palm of his hand, she felt the red skin around in and the blood on her fingertips. Everything around them was dark except for them. She could see every part of his face perfectly, as if he was a wax statue, as if he wasn't real. His eyes drifted away from hers, fell onto her neck and the past her shoulder. His face was as if he had seen the devil as he opened his mouth further and screamed.

Eve didn't eat breakfast. Hadn't done so in years. So the fact that she was stood in front of the door of the dining hall the following morning, had a painfully obvious reason. The eyes of her fellow students were permanently burned into her back by now.
"Subtle," Alexandra murmured in such a way that everyone around them would be able to hear. Westhaven was a tiny university, only 50 students roaming the halls. 51 now, she presumed.
"As if you aren't here for the very same reason, you burning hypocrite." Alexandra's pale cheeks turned a strawberry red at the unexpected retort. General sniggering could be heard around the pair. Alexandra and Eve weren't enemies, necessarily, but they had never been friends. Even in childhood they threw sand into each other's eyes and left each other out of groups. It was simply how it went. The doors to the dining halls were gigantic and brown, with black iron details thrown in, and when they opened, they made a creaking sound, as if the building was letting out a deep sigh. There weren't any assigned seats in the dining hall, but everyone sat in the same place every single morning anyways. All the groups could easily be told apart and everyone had a designated hole to fill in each of them. Eve sat down at the table in the middle right. A table meant for four that had Mary, Ophelia, Mathilda and Aoife sitting at it normally. Very occasionally, Eve would steal a chair from a table in the back, and squeeze herself into a spot between some of the girls. These girls were the very same she had been friends since the day they were born. A comfortable dynamic normally existed between them, but today everyone seemed especially tense, even Ophelia holding onto her fork with tight fingers.
"So," Mathilda started as she picked at the standard slice of brown bread with cheese and cucumber, "are you guys ready for midterms?" Mary and Aoife were still staring at the door expectantly and didn't even seem to hear Mathilda over the general morning chatter.
"Yeah, I think so. I hope so I guess," Eve responded, still tightly squeezed between Mathilda and Aoife. Eve was still holding one of her textbooks tucked under her armpit when the door to the dining hall opened once again. Every single head, male and female, in the dining hall turned to see it, the talking started in a whisper, and evolved into a bellowing as the stranger sat down at the empty table in the far right corner of Westhaven University dining hall.