I smile as twist a large blade of soft grass between my thumb and pointer finger. After it breaks apart from my constant attention I release the bits and let them float away in the gentle breeze. My attention shifts down to the red-and-white blanket underneath me. In the center of it rests a large, woven basket packed with all kinds of treats and a bottle of what I assume is wine. My hands fly up and touch my hair which is tied in a tight bun. My ears and neck are draped with diamonds and I'm wearing a dress that is made of a fine silk that resembles the colour of water.

The scene around me seems almost fairytale-like, and I have to take a moment to breathe it all in. Bright and colourful birds sing their sweet tunes as they fly into the trees covered in pink flowers.  A ladybug flies down and lands on my leg. My smile gets bigger as I let it crawl on my finger for a while before it flies away. 

"You are so beautiful." a man says to me, his voice breaking the fantasy around me.

Gasping, I look up at the faceless boy sitting across from me. "Who are you?" I ask him growing desperate to know who my mysterious visitor is.

"You know who I am," he says with a slight shrug and in a tone that shows the hurt he is feeling at my inability to recognize him.

"Dude, if I knew who you were I wouldn't be asking!" 

He sighs and shakes his head. He slowly gets up and with his head angled to look down at me, he snaps his fingers. The serine meadow is gone, floated away just like the blades of grass and I'm once again standing in the cold bedroom in the tower. 

My red dress and jewellery are gone and I'm wearing the snow-white nightgown that hugs the floor again.  My hair isn't tied up and is flowing down my back like it was before. However, my appearance isn't the only thing that has changed, resting my hand over my heart I feel all the hurt, sadness and frustration return to me.

"Vanessa!" the faceless boy calls out to me again with his hand outstretched. 

Turning around to face him my eyes land on the bright orange flame symbols on his arm, only this time it looks as if the flame is alive and moving. 

"Why am I here again?" I ask even though I know he won't answer me.

"Vanessa." 

I scoff and shake my head. "I told you the last time I was in this damn place my name is Vega. I don't know who this Vanessa girl is but obviously, she isn't here. So why don't you leave me alone and go find her." 

His hand drops and resumes its place at his side. We stand in awkward silence for a short while before he takes a few steps closer to me. He doesn't stop until his body is almost touching mine. 

"Maybe I already did," he whispers, and not even I can deny how much love is in his voice. 

"I think someone dropped you on your head as a baby," I laugh.

Even though I can't see his mouth I have an innate sense that he is smiling. 

"Look at you always with the snarky comments." 

Neither of us speaks, instead we stand still looking down at the floor our hands hovering in the air so close to one another.  After a while, I look up to the spot where his eyes would be if he had any. "Please just tell me who you are," I cry, my frustration has suddenly turned to sadness and tears are running down my cheeks.

"You know who I am."

I scoff. "You are useless." I take a few steps back and rub my forehead with my fingers.

"Vanessa," he calls out to me desperately.

I turn back to face him. "Please stop calling me that," I snap.

He slowly walks back toward me and cups my face in his warm hands. "Why don't you remember me," he whispers thickly as he leans closer to me so that our lips are at the point of almost touching.

Suddenly I feel an intense urge to close the small gap between us. I know nothing about this man but I want him to kiss me. No. . . I need him to kiss me. I allow him to gently brush his lips over mine, but before he can deepen the kiss the door to the room bursts open and another faceless man barges in.

My faceless boy swiftly pushes me behind him and conjures two balls of fire with his hands!

"Get away from her!" the second man yells.

"Stay behind me," my faceless boy says to me.

I want to protest, but then the second man creates long ice stickles with his hand and aims them toward us.

"You should have never come here! People like you don't belong here with our kind!"

As he raises his arm to throw one of the ice stickles a wave of adrenaline rushes through me and I push my faceless boy out of the way. The ice sickle flies through the air and drives straight into my heart.

I scream in pain as I wake up. My hand flies toward my heart fully expecting to find some sign of a wound. A small puncture mark, a bruise, or even blood. There isn't anything there. 

The cafeteria is packed and the constant buzz of the students around me provides a type of white noise that I use to help concentrate. I think back to my dream. So many new elements surfaced and each brought with them a new question. 

My train of thought is suddenly broken when I notice Jade, Nicci, and Kim all carrying trays packed with food take a seat at the table with me. They suddenly stopped acting strange this morning and actually talked to me at my locker. I tried to spark a conversation as to what happened but they didn't want to talk about it, so, even though I didn't want to, I dropped the conversation and went on pretending that they haven't been avoiding me for a few days.

"You look horrible," Jade says to me as soon as she's comfortable in her seat.

Both Nicci and Kim shake their heads and sigh while I chuckle slightly at her bluntness.

"Way to not say anything, Jade," Nicci sarcastically mumbles.

"Yeah, we said we wouldn't say anything," Kim hisses.  

"Well, I couldn't help myself, and besides you all agreed with me." 

Immediately a fight broke out between the three of them. They yell, hiss, and spit hurtful words at one another. The only way to describe it is like watching cats fight.

Eventually, I had enough. "Could you all please just shut the fuck up!" I yell at them.

The three of them mutter strings of apologies as they shift away from each other. Meanwhile, the loud echo of my yell is causing everyone else in the cafeteria to stop what they were doing and look over at me. Their eyes actively burn holes into my soul, and it takes everything I have not to curl into myself from embarrassment.

"What the hell are you all looking at go back to whatever the hell you people were doing!" Jade yells at them, and all out of pure fear of making her angrier, they do as they are told. 

"Vega, are you okay?" Nicci asks me with her hand resting on my arm.

I nod. "Yeah, I'm fine. Listen I'm sorry for yelling at you guys I just didn't have a good night."

Catching a glimpse of myself in the reflection of my spoon I see that Jade's comment, even though it was crass and abrupt, was true. I do look horrible. My hair which I thought I had tied into a bun is messy and long strands are trailing down my neck. My clothing doesn't match and I have dark rings under my eyes that make me look like a raccoon.

"What happened?" Kim asks me.

Looking into each of their eyes I start to wonder if I should tell them about the dreams. But how would they be able to help me? There is nothing either of them can do to stop my dreams.

I shrug. "Nothing much, I just had a bad dream."

The bell rings and we all collectively get up and start walking to our next class.

Math class was the worst for me because by that time I was exhausted and looked even worse than I did this morning. I was a zombie. My brain was so preoccupied with my dream that I barely took in a single thing that Mrs. Fallen was saying. She yelled at me twice which amused a few of the boys in the class.

The bell rings and while the class starts to leave Mrs. Fallen calls out to me, "Ms. Kate come to the front of the class."

I silently wait for the rest of the students to leave before I quickly walk over to her desk. "Mrs. Fallen I am really sorry about today—"

She holds up her hand to silence me. She remains in that position for a few seconds before she starts to speak, "Ms. Kate, normally you are one of my best students. You listen attentively and do your work when I tell you to. But, today. . . today you were so unfocused which honestly makes me very worried. Is there something going on in your home life? If so I am offering my help if you need it."  

Her warm, motherly tone instantly comforts me and without even thinking I find myself blurting out what is distressing me, "A few nights ago and again last night I had a strange dream and it has been bugging me." 

Her eyebrows purse in confusion and she seems very interested in what I have to say. "What kind of dream?" She gestures to the closest chair beside her, and I take a seat.  

I remain silent for a few seconds as I think about how to phrase the explanation. I take a deep breath and say, "I don't know how to describe this and the more I think about it the more I'm convinced that I'm either insane or. .  . or I don't know what."

"I'm a very open-minded woman, Vega. I'm sure I can handle whatever you're about to say."

I take another deep breath. "They didn't feel like normal dreams. They almost feel like. . . God this sounds insane; they feel like memories. I feel like I've been to that place before. And the boy. . . the more I think about him the more familiar he feels to me even though I can't see his face."

For a solid half an hour, we talked back and forth about my dreams. Eventually, after she felt as if she had heard enough she says, "Well, I am not an expert in dreams, but oddly enough my sister studied dreams and their meanings when she was doing psychology. She once told me that some people believe that dreams can be our subconscious remembering our past lives and showing them to us."

I don't mean to scoff at her theory, it is interesting no doubt but it is just so far-fetched.

"I don't know if I can believe that."

"I'm not asking you to, I'm just relaying a theory that some people believe. I would suggest going to the library and talking out a book on dreams and their meanings. There might be something in there that could help you."

I smile at her and take off to the library where hopefully I can get some answers to the multitude of questions burning in my mind.