“I don’t understand all of what that was about, but you’re not about to die, your life’s just beginning. Welcome home.” He kissed my forehead, and with that, the confusing character turned and headed down the hallway in the opposite direction.
Wait, where had he come from, what was he doing here? Was he a student here? Always in my dreams he’d seemed older, bigger than life somehow. But nothing could’ve prepared me for the reality of him.
“Hey, how did you know my name?” Of course he was long gone by the time I thought to ask that.
“Azarov.” I tried the name out on my tongue. A soft breeze blew by me just then and tickled my ear and the hair on my neck.
I looked around for the source but there was none. There were no windows in the hallway and the door at the end was closed.
I brushed off the strange feeling as I felt my heart finally calm, only to pick up steam again, but for a whole new reason. What could it all mean?
I headed back to class not quite sure what had just happened. I’d just met the man-boy, I’d been seeing in my dreams since I was a kid.
At one time he’d been my only source of happiness. Lost in dreams of sunshine and wildflowers as he sat and watched, always with a smile.
It was only as I got older that the dreams had grown dark or what I perceived to be dark anyway.
There was always a lot of angst, heart pounding fear, and the feeling of being bound. For the last year or so, since I’d reached the age of seventeen to be exact, the dreams had changed.
Always before they were light and comforting, almost as if my dreams were making up for the crappy life I led.
The change was sudden and frightening, though now that I thought about it, I couldn’t really say why. It’s not like anything ever really happened, just an overwhelming feeling of...something impending.
But how was it possible to see him here in the flesh? Was I hallucinating or something, or did he just bear a striking resemblance to my dream prince? Somehow I didn’t think so.
There had been that feeling of knowing when he’d been dragging me from the room. And he knew my name, that wasn’t such a stretch though was it?
Probably everyone in this school of about three hundred knew the name of the new girl.
I’m pretty sure that wasn’t a regular occurrence here, new students dropping in. Still, I didn’t think that that was it.
I wonder if he had anything to do with the strange feelings I’ve been having ever since I got here?
I felt a tingling between my thighs and rubbed them together to ease the ache. My heart did a little flip in my chest as realization dawned.
He was here, and he hadn’t killed me as I’d sometimes feared, does that mean that he’d carry out what he started in my dreams, in reality?
I reached out and grabbed the wall for support as my knees almost buckled. I felt warmth against my neck and could’ve sworn I heard breathing in my ear, but there was no one there.
Where had he gone to, and why was he here? He couldn’t be a student, though from the teacher’s reaction I took him to be.
But confusingly, he’d always seemed older in my dreams; the man I’d dreamt of for so long was no high school kid.
I blushed as I thought of some of those dreams of late. There was this new undertone of something, heady, something dark mixed with something altogether sensual.
When I was younger, the dreams were a source of comfort, almost like there was someone watching over me while I slept.
Many a time it had seemed that my dreams had followed me into my waking moments, or at least the feeling of comfort had, and always when I’d needed it most.
As a teen they had changed and there was an added element of something just beyond my grasp.
The dreams started when I was too young to understand them.
At first they were a great source of comfort and security to a young girl who had no sure place in the world.
Though for the first few years, I had no real memory of what they entailed. I only remember awakening in the mornings, ready to face the new day with unbridled excitement.
My first real recollection of my life is at the age of about four or five. I know nothing before that, which, as I grew older, seemed strange.
There were no pictures around of my mom or me, no family mementos, nothing. I didn’t understand the significance of that at such a young age. It was only as a teen that I started to question the strangeness of my upbringing.