I was walking down a busy street on a sunny day, my hands in my pocket and one ear bud softly playing my favorite tunes. My outfit consisted of dark wash jeans and a jacket with the hood pulled loosely over my head to block my view of the sun.

I looked up, trying to take in the world around me. It took me a few seconds to blink away the sudden contact to sunlight before I realized that I was lost. People around me walked around me, rushing to get to wherever yet nowhere at the same time.

Turning to the closest standing stranger, I asked for location. “Excuse me. Could you please tell me where I am?”

The stranger didn’t move, and their eyes continued to stare endlessly at the dim phone screen.

“Excuse me, I-” I was cut off, abruptly as the stranger looked up excitedly. It seemed as if they were looking straight into my eyes, but instead she waved at someone past me in the distance. She continued to ignore me, running straight through me as she continued to wave at the other stranger.

The feeling was weird. One second, I feel so solid, but as she ran through me, my body dissolved, shaking my insides as if I were just gelatin. I am more confused than I was before.

“Excuse me!” I yelled. No one was brought to a halt or appeared to have heard me. “Can someone please just tell me where I am? What is this place?”

I looked around pleadingly for anyone to give me the answers to my questions, but with no result. I sighed and decided to continue walking. As I continued with my unusual trek, people continued to walk straight through me. Am I dead? Did I die in my sleep?

Nothing is adding up.

Looking up again, I spotted two eyes staring at me. The big brown eyes of a little girl that looked vaguely familiar to me were opened wide as if shocked. I wonder if she can see me.

“Hey!” I called out to her. Her mouth parted letting out a small gasp, her eyes growing wider by the second. As I neared the small girl, she started to shake out of this awkward trance and ran in the opposite direction.

“Wait! I just want to know where I am!” I called after her, starting a chase. I weaved in and out of the strange on goers, the crowd seeming to lessen as I drew near.

She stopped short in a small field, holding onto her knobby knees, back hunched over as she caught her breath. Turning around again, she checked left and right, but never found whatever she was seeking. Shrugging her small shoulders she skipped off to another side of the open field and sat in a petite patch of daisies.

I stopped too, just a few yards away from her. If she had seen me, she couldn’t see me now.

“Ana? Where are you sweetheart?” a middle-aged woman called out from behind me.

“I’m right here, mom!” the little girl shouted.

“Ana, I told you not to sit on the ground! We’re going to be late now. Come along, we have to go,” the woman scolded the little girl, who I’m assuming is her daughter. Their faces were blurry to me, but the voices were clear.

“Coming!” she called back, jumping up with a new edition to her outfit. Daisies linked together crowned her head to match the frilly gown she wore. I laughed as she ran off to her mother atop of the hill, the back of her dress having the slightest trace of brown because of the dirt.

The image of the two walking off together slowly started to fade away until everything went black.

I slowly blinked my eyes open, the darkness of the room blocking my sight of any solid object. Soft snores filled the room along with the silent sound of a single branch brushing up against the second floor window.

Though I couldn’t see my placement, I knew that I was still in bed having just woken from my strange but sweet dream. A million questions clouded my head. I didn’t know what to make of the dream. It surely wasn’t a nightmare, but why did I wake up?

Dreams usually occur just before you wake up and, like most times, leave you wanting to know more. The little girl with big brown eyes, is it possible that she is me? It couldn’t have been, for I was witnessing the moment of her in the meadow.

And that woman. She was definitely not just another face. Her features may have been blurry, but her voice rang through my mind as if I was trying to remind myself of where I had heard it before.

Maybe the dream meant nothing… Maybe I’m just working myself up over a simple dream the may not even have meaning to me. I just can’t convince myself that that’s the case here…

As I lay my head back onto the pillow, letting my head sink into the shallow canyon created by my head, I tried to get back to sleep. I pushed back all thoughts of the dream and allowed myself to finish off the rest of my night.

~

The feeling of cold finger pads gently caressing the side of my face awoke me. I shivered at the touch, groaning inwardly as I sat up from my laying down position.

“You’re hands are cold…” I whine.

Harry chuckles deeply from beside me; my eyes stay closed. Using the backs of my hands, I wipe the rest of the sleep from my eyes and blink several times to take in the bright rays of sunshine that illuminate the room.

“Good morning,” Harry smirks at my weird wake up reaction. I roll my eyes nonchalantly and flip my legs over the side of the bed to sit upright next to him. “What was that?”

Perplexed, I raise my eyebrows. “What was what?”

“You rolled your eyes. Did someone not sleep well?” His hands reach forward to check my forehead to check for a temperature. Strangely, I don’t feel the slightest bit ill, so I wave off his worried hands.

“I’m fine. I feel a whole lot better. I just woke up earlier, but I got back to sleep…”

“Did you have a nightmare? Is it anything you want to talk about?”

“No… It was just a dream…” I say still unsure of what exactly to make of it myself.

“Okay,” he says as if he wasn’t too convinced. “Well, I’m glad your feeling better, but don’t do anything stupid. You tend to do that a lot.”

I scoff, “As if!”

He chortles. “I’m off to work now. I’ll text you when I’m off for lunch and maybe we can grab something together, okay?”

“Okay. Bye,” I say.

“Bye.”

Harry quickly kissed my cheek, giving me a small smile before exiting the room. I sat with my legs dangling over the edge of the bed, my toes barely reaching the floor. I wasn’t sure why I didn’t tell Harry about the dream. After all, it was just a dream, wasn’t it? Yet something inside of me was telling me that these images meant so much more than I think of them.

Sighing in defeat, I decide to force myself to take another shower because of all the sweat residue I had from getting worked up early this morning over this… ‘dream’.

I walk out of the bedroom feeling clean and refreshed; a whole lot better than I had been feeling yesterday. Usually, the medicine doesn’t start to work for another day or two, but I feel like I had never been sick in the first place now.

“Good morning. Coffee?” Diane asked.

I shook my head. “No thanks.”

Hailey gurgles from her spot in front of the television set where some Barbie movie was playing. I giggle at the little toddler, soon to hit her “terrible two’s”.

“You look a lot better,” El remarked.

“I feel a lot better too. It’s like the cold just went over night.”

“You must have great luck, but seriously, don’t do anything stupid any time soon.”

“Why does everyone keep scolding me? ‘Don’t do this. Don’t do that. Don’t do anything stupid!’ I mean, seriously? I’m twenty-one years old! I’m legal in America now!”

“It’s nothing. We just don’t want you to be in any sick conditions any time soon… I mean, with Perrie and Danielle coming back and all…” Diane said. Her words said worried, but her look yelled out lies. Something is up, and I’m getting very skeptical about how things work around here. Nothing gets by without me knowing, so whatever it is everyone is hiding, I’m going to figure it out.