A New Subject

Waking with a start, Jasmine shot up in bed panting as if she had just run in a cross-country track meet. Her dream was more of a nightmare as the details seemed ever so vivid and left her chest feeling tight with panic.

It wasn't like she never had a nightmare before, but she had never dreamed of murder before. Yet the details were so real, and the direction things were going in that dream made her hope that she wouldn't be dreaming of those angels any time soon.

She got up to wash her face and stared at the reflection in the mirror and recalled how in her dreams, Levana had golden eyes like hers. The black-winged angel also had dark brown hair like herself, but their facial features were not the same. It was these differences that helped calm her.

'It is just a dream,' she repeated silently to herself as she looked at her reflection and began to force herself to practice a breathing technique. It was something her brother had taught her when she was young and was upset.

"Sometimes things don't happen the way you expect them to, but you have to remember that there is not much that you can control. So, it is better to just breathe, calm down, and focus on the things that you can do something about," he would tell her and then taught her how to force herself to slow down her breathing and heart rate.

By the time she returned to her room, she had gotten over the initial panicked feeling she had and looked at the time. It was only 3AM in the morning. Way too early to give up on sleeping and prepare for school.

Still though, she hesitated at the thought of trying to go back to sleep, in case it was still too soon, and the nightmare continued or worse, repeated.

Being restless, she decided to draw and drug out her sketch book with a pencil. But draw what? 'Nothing with wings,' she silently answered and started with a circle.

The hours ticked by and what started with a circle, first turned into a face, then a body. It was a sketch of a girl and around the time her alarm clock went off, she had drawn a girl in a kimono sitting on a floor that she had yet to draw.

Stuffing the sketch book into her backpack, she yawned and drowsily started getting ready for school.

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The lack of a proper night's sleep impacted her day in minor ways. Mostly in her non-responsiveness to her friend or classmate's attempts to draw her into discussions.

Thankfully, there were no quizzes or tests to be taken or she would probably have bombed them.

Even when it came to lunch, she was listless and escaped to the library so she could snooze for a bit. The class warning bell seemed to come to soon though, and she ended up attending her afternoon classes with just as much enthusiasm as her morning classes.

No one complained about it though and even more fortunate, Alan hadn't started anything that day as the events yesterday were still fresh in both the students' and teachers' minds. To start something would have invited the school to take action this time.

So, the day went by with nothing eventful or noteworthy, and ended without any homework assigned. Her lessons at the dojo were reserved for Mondays and Wednesdays during the week, with Saturday afternoon classes in kendo during the weekend. Leaving Jasmine lucky enough to be able to just go home and catch up on sleep.

Other than waking for dinner, she slept through the whole evening and night in dreamless peace.

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Wednesday morning, Jasmine was well rested and out the door early enough to catch the bus to school. It arrived at the campus early enough that she was able to sit in the cafeteria and doodle some designs on the kimono of the girl she had sketched the morning before.

Liliana caught up to her before she had to pack it up and head to class. Earning the chance to catch a glimpse at the drawing. "Oh, what is this? It's pretty!" her friend commented.

"Something I drew when I couldn't go back to sleep," she calmly replied as she put away the pencil and went to put away the sketch book.

"Hold on a moment!" Liliana exclaimed as she quickly snatched it away and looked at it a bit more.

"You don't draw people very often. It's kind of a new subject for you," she said as she studied the designs that Jasmine had been adding and then asked, "Cherry blossoms?"

"It seemed appropriate for a kimono," Jasmine replied.

"Are you going to color it by chance? If not, could you let me?" Liliana asked.

Jasmine just shrugged in response as she didn't know if she would even ink the sketch so she could photocopy it for her friend to color. This wasn't sufficient of an answer for Liliana, so she begged, "Please?"

Sighing, Jasmine acquiesced, "Alright, I'll copy it so you can color it, okay?"

Pleased, Liliana's blue eyes twinkled, "Thanks! As soon as you are done. Don't forget!"

She wordlessly nodded in acknowledgement as she took the sketch book back and stuffed it into her backpack before they headed to their first class.