Back to reality

After enjoying a hearty breakfast, Emma knew it was time to leave. She had gotten her advice and had a plan of action for how to deal with Mr. Long. She had visited Auntie Sun, and assured herself that the old lady was doing well. Now it was time to return to her daily life, back to reality.

She left that very afternoon, and headed to the the train station, her bag in slung over her shoulder. As she entered the village she saw that Old Madam Li and Old Mister Wang were at their stalls as usual, but afraid to be coerced into a date with either of their grandsons, she simply waved at them as she walked by.

As she reached the end of the market place, something caught her attention which made her halt. The same two men, that she had noticed the day before, were standing not far off looking at a collection of handcrafted jewely, but without displaying much enthusiasm. Apparently they were still hanging around the village. Emma thought that was very strange, most of the tourists only came to the village on a day trip and to visit the old temple ruins.

One of the men cast a furtive look over his shoulder in her direction. For a brief moment, their eyes met. The man's eyes widened in panick and he hastily looked back at the the trinkets. He seemed to mumble somthing to his companion, and they quickly moved away.

'How strange', Emma thought. Then she glanced at her phone and realised she needed to hurry if she was going to catch the train. By the time she reached home, she had long forgotten about the incident.

The next few days passed in a blur for Emma. She was very busy with her studies and work.

The first few times she showed up to work, she had steeled herself to give a firm refusal if Mr. Long called her into his office again. But to her relief, her boss seemed to have lost interest in her already. She was left alone to go about her work, and felt increadibly relieved that the situation had resolved itself so quickly.

When she thought back at how worried and scared she had been, she had to laugh at herself. She had blown the thing way out of porportion, and now felt a bit guilty for bothering Auntie Sun with the whole thing.

Something else was now bothering Emma. Ever since returning from Auntie Sun's cottage, she had been plagued by vivid and confusing dreams, every single night. They weren't excactly nightmares, but still made her so unsettled that it was starting to affect her sleep.

Each dream was totally different from the next. She only remebered bits and pieces when she woke up, but her stressed mind seemed to be dragging her through many different places and times of history. Every dream seemed to contain a lifetime of experiences and suffering, and completely drained her of all energy, so that she now felt more exhaused after waking up than she was before going to bed.

Because of her lack of proper sleep, she became unfocused at work, and she often had to fight with herself to stay focused enought to not make any major mistakes.

Another thing was making her unsettled at work was that she kept feeling like she was being watched. She would frequently look around to see if there indeed was anyone that was observing her, but there was never anyone apart from the causal glances of the customers. Nevertheless, she could not shake off the unsettling feeling.

The combination of stress from work and studies with the lack of sleep was really getting to her, because in addition to feeling watched at work, she kept imagining that people were following her. That she couldn't stop herself from being so paranoid, was also incredibly frustrating.