1 Was it a dream?

I opened my eyes and found myself lying in my bed.

"Why does my head hurt? Were all of those just a dream?"

I took a deep breath and reached out to grab my phone, which was kept on the bed beside my pillow. It was the same old phone, not the one I was using in my dream.

"September 12, 2017."

So, I had lived a dream which was almost ten years long. It was too realistic to be a dream.

"Sigh."

It was already 10 in the morning.

"It seems like I overslept. Well, it's too late to go to school now. Why didn't Uncle Greg wake me up? And what about Rosaria?"

Uncle Greg was the butler of my family, 43 years old. He had been serving the Rothschild family for more than 25 years. He was appointed by my grandfather on the recommendation of the previous butler, Grandpa Ross. I called him grandpa because my father called him Uncle. I didn't want to mess up the hierarchy. Grandpa Ross was still taking care of my grandparents.

Rosaria was one of the maids who worked in the mansion. To be exact, she was a part-time maid. She was Uncle Greg's daughter, three years older than me in age. She was the only one in the mansion closer to my age, so we got along quite well. She was like an elder sister to me.

"But what happened today? Either I get up by myself or one of them wakes me up. Are they both busy today?.... Well, let's just go down and see for myself."

After freshening up, I went downstairs. Rosaria was waiting at the dining table.

"The food's getting cold. Why haven't you started yet?"

"You woke up at last."

She replied with a sense of worry in her eyes.

"It's because neither Uncle Greg nor you woke me up."

"Who are you kidding? We have been trying to wake you up since 7 AM. You were in a deep sleep."

"I won't deny the latter. I had a weird dream."

"We were here worrying about you, and you were enjoying your dream?"

Saying that, she sighed.

"So, what were you dreaming that made you sleep way past your usual schedule? Don't tell me you were having a wet dream."

She giggled while saying that. I did get a bit annoyed.

"Does a wet dream last this long?"

Alas! I dug my own grave saying that. Her face shone as if she had been waiting for me to say that.

"Maybe they were doing you instead..."

She burst into laughter as she was replying. Then she calmed down after a while.

"Anyways, let's have breakfast first. Then tell me about your so-called weird dream."

We had our breakfast, and then we went to the living room. Sitting on the sofa, I began to tell her about the dream. She was a good listener.

"So you are telling me that you lived almost ten years in your dream, and you had an accident after which you woke up?"

"Yes. That's how it was."

There was that look again on her face. Rosaria always liked to tease me when she got the chance. That face with a weird smile which she was making obviously gave away her intentions.

"25 years old, Adult Jacob. Was he married by then or did he have any girlfriend?"

"I don't remember anything like that."

She noticed me blushing while replying. The look on her face told that she succeeded in what she was trying to do.

"Alright, I won't bother with your private matters."

I knew she was lying because it wasn't the first time she had said that. She had been teasing me about that topic ever since I started high school. She also attended the same high school as me and, as her age suggested, she was three years my senior and would be graduating next year. I was in the ninth grade.

"So, what happened to me in your dream?" she asked suddenly, and I wasn't expecting her to ask that. I couldn't reply to it and had the same reaction as before. Seeing my reaction, she blushed. I knew she would figure it out. She was more mature than me when it came to those topics.

"Ok, enough with your dream," she quickly changed the topic. I didn't know if she did that because she felt embarrassed or because she didn't want to make me feel uneasy. Either way, I got to avoid answering that. It was something I couldn't lie about, and if I were to tell the truth, I would have died of embarrassment.

"Do you think it wasn't just a dream?" I knew it was a foolish thing to ask, but to me, Rosaria was someone to whom I could always open myself up. So, I ended up asking the question that had been troubling me since I woke up.

Hearing the question, she laughed. "What do you think?"

"It was too real to be a dream, if you ask me."

"Did you and I have the same conversation that we are having now in your dream as well?" Her question felt like something I wanted to hear but couldn't think to myself.

"No."

"There you go. Don't waste your time on this."

What a fool I was! If my dream were real, then I would have already felt our conversation as déjà vu. The fact that I didn't prove that it was nothing but a dream.

I sighed, relieved that I had had that talk with Rosaria. Otherwise, I would still have been troubled by it.

"By the way, where is Uncle Greg? I haven't seen him since morning."

"Dad was asked to visit your father. I don't know the details, but he told me he would be back before dinner."

"I think my father is planning to visit my grandparents."

"Don't tell me you guessed that from your dream?"

"Cut it out. Grandpa's birthday is coming, so it's quite easy to make a guess."

She was still teasing me, but the shortest answer to her question would have been yes.

As I had skipped school that day, I was quite bored after our chat. She had to go help the other maids, and I didn't feel like studying, so I started playing games to pass the time. I usually played RPGs.

As I was playing, a thought came to my mind. "If it wasn't a dream, then my life might be something like a game itself."