No, it was crazy. There hadn’t really been a voice telling me to run. It had to have been some kind of dream or hallucination. Or maybe I had a severe case of food poisoning that didn’t make me vomit, just imagine strange voices.
As I lay in bed, I hoped Aaron didn’t come to see if I was okay. The last thing I wanted was to see him. It would only add to my embarrassment. I knew I’d have to face him at some point, but I wanted a good night’s sleep before I had to deal with it.
The door quietly opened and closed. I remained still and silently prayed its wasn’t Aaron. I kept my breathing steady, hoping he would think I was asleep and leave me alone.
“Shay, are you alright?” Jaden’s voice asked.
I mumbled something unintelligible. As grateful as I was that it wasn’t Aaron, I was still too embarrassed to even talk to Jaden about it. I felt her pull the covers off of me. They fell to the floor, eliminating my ability to hide. The bed dipped as Jaden sat down next to me.
“You must be somewhat okay if you took the effort to answer me at all, even if it didn’t make sense,” she observed.
I covered my head with my pillow and groaned.
“It really wasn’t that bad, Shay. Aaron was more concerned by the fact that he didn’t notice something was wrong until right before you screamed.”
I peaked out from under the pillow and looked up at my roommate and best friend.
“He didn’t laugh at me, like everyone else?” I asked.
“Why would he laugh at you?” she replied. “He was about to follow you, but I stopped him.”
“Thanks,” I said, feeling immense gratitude towards her. “I was hoping he wouldn’t follow me. I really can’t deal with that right now.”
“Of course,” she replied, hopping off my bed.
She sat down on her own bed and pulled a book out from under her pillow. She opened it to where her bookmark was and started reading.
“Aren’t you going to ask me what happened?” I asked, wondering why she wasn’t bombarding me with hundreds of questions.
She pursed her lips thoughtfully and said, “No. If you want to tell me, you’ll tell me. There’s no use asking you about it if you don’t feel like sharing.”
“Really?” I asked, disbelievingly. I sat up and stared at her. “You expect me to believe that you aren’t the least bit curious about why I screamed and fell over like a crazy person?”
Jaden lowers her book and looked at me seriously.
“Of course, I’m curious about what happened,” she said. “I’d just rather not pester you about it and let you decide when to tell me.”
“Thanks,” I said, both stunned and appreciative of my best friend. “I promise at some point I’ll tell you. I’m just really embarrassed and freaked out right now. I kind of want to pretend it didn’t happen.”
“I had a feeling you’d feel that way,” she said with a smile. “Don’t worry about it, Shay. When you want to talk about it, I’ll be ready to listen. Until then I’m going to read my book and I think you should get some homework done.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said with a laugh.
I pulled out my textbooks and notes and began studying as Jaden went back to reading. Part of me was strangely suspicious that Jaden wasn’t more insistant about finding out what had happened. It wasn’t like her not to ask me any questions, but I pushed my suspicions aside and focused on my schoolwork, knowing if I brought it up she would likely force me to talk about the mysterious voice.
The rest of the evening passed uneventfully. I thought I noticed Jaden checking her phone several times, but I was too wrapped up in my math homework to ask her about it. I went to bed worried that for some reason we were drifting apart.
***
The vague dreams of vast foreign landscapes I’d been having for the last few nights continued. Faces flashed through my mind and then disappeared before I could even understand who they were. I’d go from having an argument with a tall dark-skinned man to twirling around on a dance floor. It felt like there was something really important that was supposed to happen, if only I could stay asleep long enough.
I woke up and rolled over to look at the clock. Four thirty. Too early to get up, too late to have much hope of really falling back to sleep. I looked around the room, curious as to what had awoken me.
Suddenly, I heard a faint shuffling noise in the hallway. I got up and looked to see that Jaden was still deeply asleep. I walked over to the door and quietly opened it. Looking out into the hallway, I found no one.
I took a few steps out into the hallway and looked around. I didn’t see anyone in either direction or hear any footsteps. As I turned to go back inside, I heard the sound again, this time coming from the stairwell. I followed it, but when I reached the stairwell it seemed like the sound was coming from downstairs.
Unable to shake the feeling that I had to find the source of the sound if I ever wanted to go back to sleep, I followed it down the stairs and outside. I paused outside the door. The sound was gone. All I could hear were the crickets.
I froze, knowing something was wrong. It was February. There shouldn’t be any crickets. Instead of snow, I was standing on grass, soft beneath my bare feet. A warm breeze blew through the surrounding forest and swirled around me.
I began walking again, unable to stop myself. It was as though an invisible force was guiding me. I looked around and thought I saw someone walking across the campus, away from the dorms. From a distance, it looked like Aaron.
I kept walking, my body ignoring my desire
