Everything is dark. But not the usual kind of dark. Not night. Not a closed room. Not the back of my eyelids.
This is a darkness that has no shape. No edge. Like I'm floating between the pause—between one world and the next. Between life and death.
I can't feel my body. No weight. No pain. No sound, except for one strange whisper echoing from deep inside my head "You're gone." And I believe it.
Maybe this really is the end. Maybe this is what done feels like. The end of everything.
But suddenly… something shifts. The darkness cracks. Light seeps in, harsh and intrusive. A blinding brightness piercing a retina that wasn't ready.
…Sensation.
Like a jolt of electricity. Piece by piece, my body wakes up with pain. A sharp, inhuman pain. Every joint forced violently back into the shape of being alive.
My spine snaps. My stomach churns. The tips of my fingers tingle. I'm alive? I… came back?
My hand moves slowly, touches something beneath me. Rough. Cold. Feels like floor tiles that haven't been swept in months. Sticky dust. Scratches. Reality.
Then I hear sound. Soft. Stifled. But familiar. Laughter.
At first just one. Then two. Then it bursts—spilling like a leak from a hellhole called high school.
I open my eyes. Slowly.
The classroom's neon lights stab straight into my vision. The ceiling is stained with old watermarks. The smell of dry erase markers, teenage sweat, and teacher burnout wraps around me like a moldy blanket.
I'm… on the floor?
My body's tilted. My head feels heavy. The chair next to me is tipped over, legs bent. Like it collapsed with me. My uniform is wrinkled. My knee hurts. There's a bruise forming.
But none of it makes sense. Why am I here? Just now I was—
Dad. The lunge. The shouting. Split lips. Frozen hands. Broken glass. Bleeding.
...Dead? Didn't I die?
The laughter gets louder. Closer. Voices of students. Voices from a world I thought I'd already let go of.
My head slowly lifts. And I see them.
All of them staring. Rows of students. Faces more like masks than people. Their laughter cuts through me like bone saws.
Even the teacher—standing stiff by the whiteboard. Marker still in hand. But none of them step forward. No one asks, "Are you okay?" They just watch. Like I'm a rerun of their favorite comedy show.
"Look! Sleeping during class, and drooling too! Must've been a wet dream!"
That voice drags me out of my head.
Sleeping? I was asleep? So everything before this… the blood, the screaming, the death—was just… a dream?
"She looks so spaced out, bro! hahahah!"
I don't respond. I can't. Still on the floor. Still sideways. Still feeling like my head isn't fully attached to my body. My hand rises, touches my cheek. I pinch it, lightly.
It hurts. It's real. This is real. But… so was that. What happened before… it wasn't a dream.
I can still feel the warmth of blood between my fingers. Still feel the tremor in my chest when my last breath slipped out. Still hear dad's words.
So which one… is the lie?
I'm still in a daze. My head… is a mess. Tangled. Like a long red thread wrapped by trembling hands, set on fire at the end.
I try to find answers, but all I get are questions. Only questions. None of them want to shut up. None of them give me space to breathe. They're all screaming. Inside.
It's only after a few seconds that I feel my spine start to burn. Rough. Aching. Maybe from the fall. Maybe from staying too long on the cold floor, like my body's starting to protest. Or maybe… it's shame. If that's even a human emotion I still recognize.
My hands move on their own. Push against the floor. Until I can sit up. Not fully. Half-collapsed. But sitting. And they're still laughing.
Their voices don't sound like laughter anymore. Not to me. More like the sound of creatures—too many teeth in their mouths, laughing not for joy, but to feed.
No one helps. No one asks. No one checks. They just… watch.
And the teacher. Still standing up front. Frozen pose. Blank stare. Marker still in hand, but unmoving. A statue. A stupid, ugly statue.
Ugly.
As ugly as the world that decided to bring me back.
My hand lifts, wipes my chin. It's damp. Slippery. Leftover drool, half-dried.
They were right. I drooled. But… I don't care. Let me drool. Let me puke blood right here in front of them. I don't care.
What I care about… was that. That dream.
Why… why did it feel so real? Why can I still feel it on my skin? Under my nails, digging into my skirt, the crack of a glass bottle against my head. Why is my heart still pounding like I just ran from death?
It was a dream, right? Just a dream? But… why did the blood feel real?
And if it was a dream, then why do I still feel…
scared? Why do I still want to cry? Why does it feel like I was yanked out of one world, dark but honest, and shoved into this bright, fake, disgusting one?
Everyone in class is still laughing. They think I just fell asleep. Think I drooled, dreamed something dirty, fell like a clown and got embarrassed.
But I'm not embarrassed. I'm angry. So fucking angry. At the dream. At reality. At myself. At this spinning world that never stops long enough to care who falls off.
My hands curl into fists. Nails digging into skin until it stings. I want to say stop. I want to scream shut up. I want to smash every sound in this room with the sharpest rock I can find.
But my mouth stays shut. Because the loudest voice right now isn't mine. It's the one inside my head. And it's looping the same broken sentence, over and over
"If that was a dream… why do I still feel like I'm there?"
My hand's still on my chin, feeling the leftover drool start to dry. Like a small, pointless wound that still refuses to disappear.
They're still laughing. I'm still sitting. And my mind—has already run somewhere no one can reach.
I died, didn't I? Or... didn't I?
But that blood was real. I felt it in my throat, in that final breath. His hand, he pulled my hair so hard my scalp nearly tore. That wasn't a dream. That wasn't a dream.
I remember every detail. The flickering lightbulb. The sound of glass breaking. His breath when he got angry. The stench of stale alcohol. His scream. Something that came out more beast than man.
It was too real. Too alive to be called a dream.
But now I'm here. On a classroom floor. Surrounded by the laughter of kids who still believe they're alive.
What if I've got it backwards? What if I'm the one who's dead? And this is... hell? What if hell looks exactly like an ordinary classroom?
Someone calls my name. Soft. Like a voice at the end of a long hallway. But all I hear is static. Muffled. Like a broken TV. Like a whisper from a world I don't want to hear.
So I stay still. Hands in my lap. Eyes blank. Thoughts stuck in that night—in the screaming, in the feeling of failing my last breath.
"YREN!!"
I flinch. My head jerks. That voice pierced my ear like a nail hammered in. It's the teacher. A real voice. Loud. Angry. Because I didn't hear her the first dozen times.
I shoot up. Fast. Reflex. My hands rush to fix my uniform, even though I know it's hopeless. Wrinkled shirt. Skewed skirt. Tie like a frayed rope. But I still try. Because… I don't know. Because that's the default reaction of people being stared at—pretend to look okay.
I reach to set my chair upright. But before I can sit… "Don't sit." I freeze. My heartbeat stutters.
"Go to the restroom. Wash your face."
I don't get to answer before she adds, "Or take a full shower, if needed. You look like you haven't bathed in a week."
Someone laughs from the back. Then another. The sound spreads like a virus. They're laughing. Again. And I haven't even done anything.
I just came back from death. And they're... mocking my hygiene. Do I smell? Do I look that filthy? Did I do something wrong?
All I did was sit. All I did was sleep. All I did was... dream of dying. But the world still decides I'm the problem.
I swallow. Dry. Like sand.
And then I walk. Heavy steps. Hands stiff by my sides, nails digging back into skin. Head down. The laughter becomes background noise. A hell soundtrack with no mute button.
Each step out of the classroom feels like crossing from one reality to another, worse one. But I walk anyway. Because… I don't have anywhere else to stand still.
My steps are heavy. Slow. Small. Head down, back hunched. Like… a walking corpse. Or the broken shard of something that used to be whole.
All I can see is the dull grey tile beneath me
and the shadow of my bangs across my eyes. My hair forms a curtain, blocking out the world. And I don't want to pull it back.
Was that… really just a dream? Then why did it feel so real? I remember everything. The feeling. The sound. Even the smell of blood.
What kind of dream does that?
My hand lifts. Reaches for my left arm. I rub it—slow, but rough. I don't know why. Maybe to scrub the filth away. Or maybe… to prove I still exist.
My skin… so pale. Too pale. Like translucent white glass. The bluish veins show clearly underneath, like dead roots behind a windowpane. My hand looks like it belongs in a morgue, not on a living body.
People always say it's weird. Creepy. Sick. A disorder. Even doctors once called it some kind of vascular anomaly, but I don't care about the medical name.
What I know is, they look at me like I'm a misprinted monster. Is it me that's wrong? Or was it my parents? Did they do something… so awful that God gave me life like this as punishment?
Or maybe God just… forgot to finish making me…?
THUD.
My head hits something. Hard. I stumble back a step. I thought it was a wall. Or a pole. But it wasn't. My eyes lift. Slow. Painfully slow. And when my gaze finally rises—
I see him.
A guy. Tall. Wrinkled uniform, shirt untucked, unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up, no tie. That smug stare I already know.
One of them.
From that group.
The ones who draw on my desk with permanent marker. The ones who once kicked my bag out the window while I was in the toilet. The ones who wait. Always wait. for me to fall, so they can laugh first.
I see those eyes. Those predator eyes. The kind that just caught the scent of blood in the water.
Haven't I had enough? I already died. I already bled. What now?
I stand frozen. Heart pounding. But I can't run. The hallway's empty. The restroom's still far. And he… he stands there like a doorway to whatever nightmare comes next.