Dreams

1

In a moment, the imperceptible transition between waking and sleeping occurred.

Kelsy came to. Her mind was... fuzzy. Where was she? That's right. She was with her family at Disneyland.

Only... wait. No, it was only her three brothers with her.

"Come on," Greg called to her, "we need to go to the Superman ride!"

Superman? What? Disneyland didn't have a superman ride.

But for some reason, Kelsy didn't say he was wrong.

She followed him to Tomorrowland.

"No!" she exclaimed when they got to the ride, "they replaced Star Tours with Superman?"

Greg didn't respond. Her other brothers were waiting in line.

Looming above her, Kelsy saw a massive roller coaster. It was unlike she'd ever seen. It had drops so steep and curves so tight it looked dangerous. The track tangled around itself in a massive lump.

Kelsy walked up to where her brothers were waiting in line.

"Hey!" Rob said, "you can't cut in line! You have to start at the beginning!"

Kelsy began crying, and went to the front of the line. The wait time for the ride said five days.

That's short, she thought. This won't take any time at all.

She was at the front of the line, and her brothers were waiting in the coaster train waiting for her.

As she walked through the gates to get in, a ride operator blocked her path.

"I'm sorry ma'am, but this is the superman ride, only men can ride it."

"But I am a man!" Kelsy cried out. "I'm their older brother."

"No Kelsy," her brothers said. "You're a girl. You can't ride."

The bars on the roller coaster came down, and the train left the station.

"No!" Kelsy said.

She jumped, reaching out for the train, and grabbed onto the last car.

The train boosted up to speed, until it was cresting a hill. Kelsy was flung into the air, and....

Numbness. Nothing. There was no time. There was none of anything. Everything went away and ceased to exist.

******

*BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP*

Kevin faded out of his sleep, and the numbness began to fade. Reality came once again. This was not the world of his thoughts. This was the world where he could see and feel things.

He felt his sheets against his skin. He heard the heater blowing into the room. He tasted dryness in his mouth.

Cracking open his eyes, he groped on his nightstand for his phone, and turned off the alarm just before it finished beeping.

He rolled back into his bed.

Another bad dream.

They weren't nightmares. Nightmares made you bolt upright, they made you afraid to go back to sleep. No, these dreams weren't frightening. They were just stressful.

He'd had more dreams lately. Sometimes he was walking around campus, and then Greg would pull him aside and be freaking out that Kevin hadn't gone to some Science class that Kevin had no idea about.

This, was obviously reflecting his fears about his classes. He knew that. His grades weren't perfect - college was harder than he thought it would be. But then there were the other dreams...