Peggy smiled ruefully. "I love you Claire, and I get that you had a very terrifying nightmare last night." Letting go off my hand, she looked genuinely worried for a moment. "But it was just a dream babe, that's all. We all get nightmares from time to time."

"But it seemed so-" I shuddered.

Peggy's groan instantly made me feel stupid. "You're overreacting Claire, get a fucking grip on yourself." She slapped my arm. "I'm alive, you're alive, Sin-Jun is alive...no one is dead."

But everything had seemed so real.

"I need to submit my assignment to Miss Anna, that bow-legged woman's been breathing down my neck for days. I'll catch you later okay?" Peggy said, charging at me and hugging me in a tight squeeze. "Stop trying to kill yourself with worry," she said and breezed away.

The strong rain winds blew an empty tin of milk across the pavement, causing it to make loud clinking noises. Brushing my hair away from my face and slipping my hands under my sweater, I walked to my dorm, the nightmare I'd had refusing to stop replaying itself in my mind.

My room was empty, some soft country music played on the radio.

I was about jumping into bed when the door clicked open from behind me, causing the nape of my neck to prickle.

"Hey Claire," Aspeth smiled, bending to take off her shoes.

"Hey."

Our conversation ended there and then, Aspeth proceeding into the bathroom and I, trying to coax my system into sleeping. It didn't work. The nightmare was making sure of that.

Later that evening, Matron conducted a roll call of the scholarship girls left on campus.

"Is it just me or has Claire been awfully quiet the whole of today?" I overheard Sin-Jun ask Peggy from the dining table behind me. She didn't make any effort to keep her voice low, implying that the question was more for me than Peggy.

"Ignore that scaredy cat my friend," Peggy chuckled, "and brief me on the party going down at Saint Patrick tomorrow!"

"Hey Claire." Emily scooted closer.

"Mhm?"

"Did you check out that Wattpad thing I told you about?" She pushed in her glasses.

There was something so uncomfortably similar about the question that caused me to gape at her like an idiot. A déjà vu?

"Are you alright?" She asked.

"Huh?"

"You look stunned, and-"

I sighed and feigned a laugh. "I'm just tired I guess. Long day."

Emily nodded emphatically and lit up. "Well I can help you set up your account this evening."

"Awesome," I said, hoping that she wouldn't notice the insincerity that backed my words.

Few minutes passed and no one said a word.

"Are you sure you're alright Claire? You don't seem yourself. Is something wrong back at home?"

The booming laughter of some girls behind us echoed throughout the Dining Hall.

"Are you sick? Should I take you to the infirmary?"

I hesitated, finding a way to describe the nightmare to her without sounding crazy and stupid.

"What?!" Emily sounded horrified. "I truly understand how you're feeling Claire...I used to have scary dreams like that sometime ago. My Grandma said those dreams are as a result of the manifestation of evil spirits. You should -"

Matron announced that the roll call was over, unleashing loud voices all over the dining hall.

"Do you still want to set up your Wattpad account?" Emily asked and quickly added, "It's okay if you don't feel up to-"

"No no," I interjected quickly, "let's go. After all, it's only some stupid dream right?" I asked, though I didn't believe what I was saying myself.

"Right."

***

With almost all the girls gone home for the Mid Term break, the computer room was almost empty.

Emily and I sat at one end publishing all six chapters of my book whiles Molly blasted music at a rather loud decibel on the far end.

Molly's music had suddenly gone up a hundred decibels when Emily began to tap my knee in urgency.

"Claire look," she clicked on the notification button. "You have one follower."

I shifted closer and squinted at the screen. "Let's see, who's it?" I was excited.

"It seems someone has..." she trailed off and suddenly let out a loud theatrical scream, causing my heart to skip two beats and a third.

"Oh my God Claire, you lucky girl!"

"Why? What is it?" I blinked in confusion.

"Look-" She returned to the screen. "-he has 34k followers and you're the only one he's following."

"Really?" I breathed out a 'wow'. "But how do you know that it's a guy?"

"He.She.They.We. Who cares?" She shrugged and chuckled airily. "He must have gone through your book or something."

"Wait Emily," I held her hand. Something felt off.

Still smiling, she turned to me and hugged me before allowing me to speak.

"Doesn't it seem weird to you? That he has so many followers and I'm the only one he's following?"

Emily's smile didn't falter. "No?" She snorted in a way which made me feel silly for voicing out my paranoid concern.

"And he has published only one book." She adjusted her reading glasses. "Murder Files. Wow, two million reads? This guy is fire!"

"Wait...I've got another notification, no a message." I pointed to the message button.

"You're a blessed girl Claire, I swear! Just one and a half hours on Wattpad and you're already a superstar." She shook her head as if she couldn't believe what she herself was saying.

"It's a read for read request," she stated after she'd opened the message.

"Isn't that the same username of the person who just followed me?"

Emily returned to his profile. "Yeah it is. I think he's interested in your book so he wants to make a read for read deal."

"Read for read deal?"

"Oh I forgot to mention it!" She slapped her forehead. "A read for read deal is when two wattpad users agree to...like...read each other's stories."

"Oh...right. So, what now?"

"We're going to agree to it." I could feel the 'obviously' hanging at the end of her sentence.

The message simply read: 'Read For Read?'

Emily typed : 'Yeah sure! I'm in!"

Another message popped up :'48 hours'

"Wait Emily, even if he reads my book, I can't read his in return because his has 92 chapters and we've got less than 10 minutes to lock up and return the keys to -"

"Holy fucking cow!" Emily exclaimed, cowered backwards and gripped her heart. She looked rattled, frightened even.

Thinking that she was experiencing a sudden heart attack, adrenalin shot through my veins, causing me to jump up and rush to her side. But she made a chaotic throaty noise, waved me away and pointed to the screen.

When I saw it, my heart practically stopped.

"Impossible!" Emily exhaled sharply.

"Come out girls, out! Out!" Matron's voice accompanied by a loud clap came from the corridor. "Emily, lock up the computer room and bring me the keys this instant! The girls in the Arts gallery, out!"

I laughed, a confused laugh. Everything that was happening had happened before, I could swear it.

"Girls! Out!" Matron stepped in and started banging her fists on the door. "Emily, Claire, Molly, Out! Out!"

Without switching off the computer, Emily pulled out the plug from the main socket and for a moment, I worried about the computer getting damaged. But I suddenly realized that I didn't even care. The number of reads on my book had mysteriously shot up from 0 to 1.42 million within ten seconds and that was something to worry about. Or maybe not.

Call it a Déjà vu, or maybe not. What was happening had definitely happened before.