2 Her Dream

"Hey Kima. You and Misaki were taking forever. So, I just came here by myself." Tetsu says while changing into his gym clothes.

We are in the boy's locker room changing, while Misaki went to her other class. Tetsuya is extra excited today because we are going out on the school's track. On the other hand, I don't like running at all. I prefer to relax and just not embarrass myself with my low stamina.

"Sorry for the wait, I took my time telling the story and I have a surprise for you." I look at him with a smirk.

"What? You guys finally hooked up?" he laughs. I'm not laughing.

"Oh, come on! It was a joke, what really happened?" he says.

"After I told her about my dream—she said that she thinks we had the same dream. But it was in her perspective. She told me that we will talk about it later." I start to change out of school uniform and grab a white tee from my bag, with a pair of shorts. Tetsu replies, "Well, I didn't really hear any of your conversations. The classroom still had other students, and I was just getting hungry. Plus, Misaki obviously did not want me there. So…you're going to have to retell it to me, buddy." I finish changing and I nod to him. We start walking out and I explain the dream once again, but a bit briefer since I did not want to waste too much time.

~At the track~

"That's when I woke up shook." I'm on the floor stretching across from Tetsu.

"Whoa, I never had any dream like that before. It sounds pretty cool, except the 'almost dying' part ha-ha. Where do you think it all happened?" He asks.

"Wait, what do you mean?" I'm confused.

"Like the location, you told me that you saw a huge monster, but where? Town, city or the woods?" Before saying anything, I thought about it. Now that I think about it, that's a good question, but I honestly don't have a clue.

"If I had to name any of those, I guess a forest since the fire kept burning. It also felt as if I was laying on dirt." I tried to give him a logical answer.

We finish stretching and I start walking as Tetsu follows. The girls in our class start staring at us and giggle, but it's mostly at Tetsuya. I forgot to mention that he is kind of a handsome fellow. He has it all really—wealth, a strong body, the looks, and his personality. Tetsuya waves back and they start to blush, he is very oblivious to this type of thing. They don't know how he really is if they actually tried talking to him.

"Well, I wonder how Misaki's dream played out. To be honest, I wish I had a dream where I could fight a monster, even though you didn't, but I would destroy him with a sword or maybe even a gun! OH, BETTER YET..." I just speed walk away while he has his fantasy. I just laugh quietly.

"Hey wait! You jerk why I didn't even finish." He says from a distance. My stomach growls loudly and Tetsuya hears it. "Dude, you didn't eat?" I nod no and he shakes his head disappointment. "Alright, I will just walk with you instead of running with the others. You could pass out without any energy." I smile slightly and say, "Thanks, bro. I forgot to mention the fact that Misaki is paying for my food after school." Tetsuya in awe has his jaw open slightly. "Misaki is treating you to food? Are you sure you guys aren't dating?" I punch him in the arm. He backs up and tells me that he is only kidding. We laugh it off and talk about other stuff, for the rest of the class.

~~~~~~~~

The school day finally ends, and we are off the school grounds going home. Out of nowhere, Tetsuya says, "Sorry guys. I can't walk with you both today. I have to hurry home, my parents want to speak to me as soon as possible." Misaki and I look at each other with concerned expressions. Tetsuya's parents are not people you want to mess with. They are rich and have a lot of power in this town.

Misaki says, "I hope everything is ok, Tetsu."

"Yeah, remember what we both said before. Don't let them make you do things that you don't feel comfortable doing. If you need anything, give us a call." I recall a quote from the past. Misaki nods with a smile and Tetsuya's face softens, "Thank you, guys. I'll see you tomorrow then." He runs off and waves goodbye.

I look at Misaki and say in a curious manner, "I wonder what happened."

"Maybe they need his help with something," Misaki concludes.

"Perhaps, but I doubt it. They are very capable people, like why ask their son if they can just get someone else to help them." Misaki nods in agreement.

~~~~

Misaki and I arrive at a local diner for our little chat. She orders a small coffee with strawberry cheesecake. As for me, I ordered two burgers, with water. Once the waitress left, I said, "The burgers here are huge, but I am so hungry." I chuckled a bit. Misaki responds, "I know but they are so good, I am not gonna lie."

Misaki then takes a long deep breath and says, "So um…about my dream." I nod as a confirmation that I am ready. She continues, "The very first thing that I remember was that my body was aching in pain. It occurred to me that I was severely injured—the amount of blood on the ground was definitely mine. I had cuts and bruises all around my body; the worst part of it was that I had an open wound on my side. In the distance, I could see a few people within this firewall and one of them was fighting a huge monster. In my case…" Misaki squeezes her phone that was already in her hands tightly.

She took a slight pause before continuing, "I was all alone with a beast of my own. It had huge claws, all black fur with horns, and a sword in its right hand. It had chain marks from its neck going down to its body and its pupils were slit like a cat. It stared at me…waiting for the slightest hint of movement. I didn't know what to do." Her dream so far has been so vivid. I have never seen her like this before. "I noticed that I was wearing some weird clothing/equipment. These metal glowing gloves on my fists and metal glowing shoes." As I get drawn into her dream, the waitress comes back with our orders.

"Enjoy!"

"Oh, thank you," I say and Misaki thanks her before she leaves too.

Misaki continues, "It was really hot due to the huge forest fire near me. There were so many horrible things happening at the same time. People were screaming, dying, and so much blood."

As Misaki spoke, her tone of voice had this sense of terror and panic to it. She's very strong-willed, brave, and independent. The only time I could remember her like this was when we were kids.

I haven't touched my food yet, and I checked the time to see if it was getting late but Misaki beat me to it. She then sighed and says, "It's getting late, I'm going to be late for my martial arts class. So, I'm going to have to wrap this up with one more thing." I paid close attention to this.

"This dream felt so real, I am not saying this to be extra dramatic or anything but…" Misaki took another slight pause, "My movement, breathing, the wind, the pain, the emotion I felt, and even the smell of blood. It was too much for me. I woke up in a cold sweat; shaking with no explanation of what just happened."

"I know exactly how you feel, Misaki," I reply.

"If what you told me was true earlier, our dreams could be linked somehow. The people within that firewall could have been you and that girl. What do you think?" She asks.

"I don't know. If our dreams are linked, what do you suppose this means? A premonition?"

She looks away to think and looks back at me to say, "I should get going."

"Oh yeah. You go do that." I say.

I was stunned; I didn't know what else to say to her. She was obviously uncomfortable. "Welp, I'm off! Thanks for hearing me out, Kima!" She got up very quickly and drank all of her coffee in one shot. She took the donut with her and left.

"Wait!" I said hoping she would stop, but she didn't. I ate my food while processing what she told me. I wonder if our dreams are connected. First, the fire was the biggest coincidence. Second, the monsters. It could be possible that the huge monster in the distance was the beast from my dream. Lastly, her dream happened last night.

"Here you are, sir. I hope everything is going well." I nod in satisfaction. As she walks away leaving the check, I realized that Misaki didn't pay.

"SHE DIDN'T PAY!" I shout to myself, and the couple next to me looks at me a bit disturbed at my little scene. "S-sorry..." I apologized.

~That night…~

"HA! HA! HIYA!" We all kicked the air with quick precision in sync.

"Low! High! Roundhouse! Low! High! Roundhouse!" My instructor yelled out the commands in repetition. I'm sweating profusely.

"Stop! Take a break everyone! Misaki can I see you for a moment please?" My friend Mina tapped my shoulder and teased me, "Ooo, Misaki you're in big trouble." I rolled my eyes. She laughed and went to get herself a drink.

I approached my instructor, "Yes, Sensei?" He smiled at me and asked, "What's wrong, kiddo? You're not giving it your all today either? You usually have this 'oomph' to your attacks. Is there anything I can do to help my student?"

There is nothing I can hide from Sensei. He is very sharp and loves all of his students. I can understand his concern for me…but I don't want to talk about that crazy dream.

"I'm fine! I just feel a little sick. I think I might have caught a cold." I smiled as brightly as I can to convince him. "Oh! I thought it was something serious! Hahahaha!" He lets out a haughty laugh before wrapping this conversation up. "Make sure to take care of yourself now! We can't have our ace sick during the competition."

"No, Sensei!" I kept the smile up.

"Good! Now everyone come back!" He calls everyone back into line to start training again. We start doing a variation of punches and kicks. Suddenly, the voices from the people dying and getting hurt from my dream pounce at me. I shake my head to fling them away.

~The next day...~

BzzzzzBzzzz. My phone alarm goes off and I roll over to turn it off. I get up to fix my bed and get ready for school before Misaki can come in. "It's weird not having Misaki barge in every day." I just realized what I said, "Ew never mind, why did I say that." Bzzz, my phone vibrates from a text message. I walk towards my nightstand to unplug my phone and see what's up.

"I won't be in school today, please don't call me or reply to this message. I already told Misaki. Talk to you soon." I locked my phone after reading that.

What the hell is going on with Tetsuya? Him saying not to call him, makes me want to call! I sigh in frustration, but I leave it alone. I go downstairs expecting Misaki at the kitchen table, but she's nowhere in sight. "Mom, where's Misaki? Is she in the bathroom?" My mother sets my breakfast on the table and has a concerned look on her face, she says in a confused tone, "I don't know, sweetie. She always comes here. There has never been a day where she hasn't shown up. On her sick days, she would notify me to wake you up."

What on earth is going on today? First Tetsuya and now Misaki?

"I will call her." I put in her number and the phone keeps ringing. She doesn't pick up. I leave her a message hoping she will reply later.

I go on with my daily morning routine and depart for school.

"Bye mom, I will see if Misaki is at school," I say on my way out.

"Alright, it's supposed to rain today. Don't forget your umbrella! Take care!" She says.

"I know," I say. I try to feel for my umbrella in my bag and realize I have it.

I let a long sigh out, and just hope for the best…