Chapter 1 - Dreams and the Exchange Student

The alarm went off. The dream ended. Reality came rushing back to me.

I woke up and turned in my bed to face the alarm. It was Wednesday–just two more days until long awaited summer break. As if I'll be having anything to do then.

I layed on my bed for a bit longer, waiting for the dreariness to wear off.

It never did.

I got up and walked to the bathroom.

While brushing my teeth, I thought back to the dream. It was nothing really, I barely remember it now–though there had been a cute girl in it–I think. I can't really remember. There was something special about this dream that made it stand out amongst all the others.

It made me wonder if I was really awake.

I finished brushing my teeth, and got my clothes on for the day; a monotone sports T-shirt, and a pair of short sweat pants.

Next, it was time for breakfast. I wonder what granps has prepared this morning. Hopefully not green beans again.

"Arthur. Sonny, how are you?" granps asked from kitchen counter, twisting open a can of tuna.

At least better than green beans.

He scooped out the pieces of tuna meat into a bowl of salad and began to stir. Finally, he topped it off with some ranch sauce and set it at the counter.

"Thanks." I said and sat down at the counter.

He grumbled a response and strutted out the house.

Just like any other day, I was left alone. With only my thoughts for company.

I carelessly ate away at the tuna salad with my dream.

Just thinking about the dream got me jittery. It's almost like a memory, a memory of something that happened but which I know never did. And above all, I don't even remember dreaming. Just the girl, that may or may not have even been in it.

My spoon hit the bottom of the bowl and I realized I was finished.

Time for school.

On the way, I began to drift off in thought watching the sun rising over the coastline. Nothing interesting ever happens here with granps–not that I'm expecting, much less hoping for much to happen anyways.

Life's getting tiresome here in Oakhaven, which is unironically by the sea. Going through the same things every day with nothing to really dream about–except what you actually dream about.

Life here's so peaceful, nothing news worthy ever seems to occur, except the local news reporting about lost bicycles. Nothing new to come either, and as said; nothing interesting.

Everything that big city kids might dream about for their future retirement is already what I live–not that I have any complaints about it–it's just different, hopelessness, despair? Not that I'd even have a reason for feeling like that. Taking care of granps is something quite meaningful already–but something's still missing… Who am I kidding, life's beautiful here, and I'm being a bum for thinking like that.

Now as I watched the sun rise, I went back into thinking about the dream, mainly making it up as I walked.

Then I was interrupted by Jacob.

Even though I noticed him behind me a bit earlier, I didn't bother looking back; I was still caught up daydreaming.

"Arthur! Wait up!" He called, out of breath from running the whole way down street. "Arthur, have you heard? A new exchange student's coming here!" He sounded excited, for someone completely out of breath and panting between every few syllables.

"Oh, neat. What about him?" I replied, dismissively.

He looked disappointed, as if there were something wrong with me.

It didn't really matter to me, if a new student came to our school. Especially a foreign exchange student. No one would ever stay that long if they weren't born and raised in the town. And when something like this happens, it's usually an extended vacation of some rich person. It was nearly summer break anyways.

"Her," he corrected, "and I heard she's cute."

"J, I'm not interested in dating right now, and I just don't really care. Besides, what kind of exchange student would ever want to come to some school in the middle of nowhere, and at the end of the semester?" Although as I said that, a part of me wondered how she was.

"C'mon man, you've gotta see to believe, am I right? Of course I am." He answered himself, "And who knows, she might be the one." He said, bumping his eyebrows. "There's still two days left of school anyways."

By now, we had already crossed the corner to school.

Seeing the old school building, killed off any merry thoughts that may have entered my head about any long-term exchange student.

We got to our lockers and I took out my phone from my bag, leaning onto the locker for support. All in good favor for getting ready, of course.

No notifications. Expected nothing more.

The halls were pact with students; packed as in spread out like chickens, taking up a lot of space.

Hm, long-term exchange student, funny–and a girl at that, a girl that Jacob bumped brows about–although he bumps brows for just about any girl.

From behind me in the coop of students, I heard excited and chattering and greetings from the students. They had begun to gather at the school doors and stood close together.

I stuffed my phone back in my bag and stood a bit on my toes to look over the group.

And I saw her–or her scarlet hair blazing under the sunlight.

Well then, an exchange student from Ireland. A red head. That's a bit unexpected.

"See? I told you she was hot." Jacob nudged me with his elbow.

"You never said anything about her looks." I said.

"I never saw her." He shrugged, "But I did bump by eyebrows, didn't I? That's body language dude, get it. Might help you in getting her."

I scoffed and shut my locker for first period.

Social studies. I never do get social studies. Sure, there's history some of the times, natural sciences, maybe a bit of law there and then, but not with Mr. Duess.

You see, Mr. Duess used to be a professor at Yale, but he left out of interest of retirement and ended up here. Oakhaven probably did its job at being boring, so Duess decided that he was still young enough to teach. He's probably fifty something, if not in his sixties. Eventually our school hired him.

Yale or not, old age gets to people. Mr. Duess is now more like a hippie than a professor. At least from what I gather through his looks, choice of clothing, and way of talking.

So of course, he teaches conspiracy theories and Facebook gossip.

I took my seat by the window.

Mr. Duess sat in his chair with his legs crossed, meditating.

I don't really mind being taught by a crazy person. It's not like I would use any historical information in the future anyways. Besides, Mr. Duess' lectures and assignments aren't that bad.

After a bit, the rest of class filled in. Jacob wasn't one of them.

Sometimes I feel like I study at a private school for the insignificant amount of people in each class.

Mr. Duess opened his eyes. "I've expecting you." He said, looking at no one in particular.

He took in a deep breath.

Everyone was now either on their phone or dozing off. But Mr. Duess didn't pay them any attention and continued.

"Last class. We talked about the voices inside our heads. The way of our consciousness. However, I realized, not many of you were ready to go deeper into that study." He paused and took another long breath. "So today. We will have a short lesson and discussion about Deja-vu.

Well, what is Deja-vu? Deja-vu means 'already seen'. So. As its name suggests, it's when one experiences what they have seen already. A feeling that they'd been there already. How do people actually get that feeling of Deja-vu, you may ask?"

It was rhetorical, but at that point it was just sad. No one bothered lifting an ear for the poor hippie. I usually won't either, but today, I don't know why, but I sat to attention.

"Dreams." He said. The word lingering on in the air almost physically from the heavy smell of the air humidifiers lavender mist.

"In dreams people dream nonsense, or so we think. Nightmares, or the desires of our subconscious–in fact, many a time, the nonsense in our lives originate in the subconscious. But more on that sometime later. And through all of our nonsense, we may see the future; at that point, a future we don't yet know is the future. However, when we reach that point of our lives, we have a sudden realization that we've been here before! And you know that through your dreams.

Scientists have said and said to have proven, that Deja-vu is really just an anomaly in one's memory. So to speak, an malfunction.

That's absolute doodoo."

At the word doodoo, some of the long-gone students snickered.

"The human brain cannot be proven by science. It is the evolution of hundreds of thousands of years! The most advanced life form–albeit the lizard people and aliens–but for the brain to malfunction like that, to have it be called a malfunction, is an insult to that many years of evolution!

Though, I'll say, some hallucinations do also come as a part of Deja-vu, but those hallucinations are of another sort, not of dreams. But the specific types we typically may see are through dreams.

The dreams which we have of certain 'prophecies', may be days or even years from when you dreamed it, but so is the dream, much to be learned. A whole life, a story experienced in moments so clearly, yet obscure… But that's the dream, as in dreams, you know the details.

In Deja-vu dreams, they are very much dreams, which you experience almost as if you aren't experiencing it; in your subconscious as we've talked about. There is also another sort of experience in Deja-vu, where the person getting Deja-vu in their dream is getting Deja-vu in their dream. To them it feels just as real as you and I here today

Alas, that's the many levels of dreaming–but, ah, looks like our time has come, class is almost over now.

Isn't all that interesting? And for your project over the break, a simple log of your dreams, as much as you can remember; whether it be nonsense, dull, nightmares, sleep-paralysis, or even better–what we talked about today."

I rubbed my eyes and face. Then I noticed that beside me, was the red head exchange girl. She was looking at me humorously.

"You." She said. Surprisingly, her accent wasn't Irish, but looking at her instead of just her hair, I realized that she couldn't possibly have been Irish. "You are za only one listening." She laughed. She had a slight Russian accent, although quite feminine, and even a little cute.

Her scarlet red hair looked wet, like she just had shower. It only barely reached the collar of her short-sleeved dress shirt, tucked into a black skirt that couldn't have gone over her knees. Her legs were crossed over each other and wore thigh-high black, laced stockings. "Zat is, what you call it? Interesting? No, lovely." She finished.

I blinked rapidly, still gathering my thoughts from the lecture. How'd I not even notice that I was sitting beside the new, kinda hot, exchange student? And was this new Russian girl flirting with me?

"Uh, yeah, I guess I was." I said.

"My name is Zindaia." She reached her hand out.

I shook it. "Nice to meet you Zindaia. I'm Arthur."

"Arzuh?" She asked as if the name was strange. I guess not many people were named that way in Russia.

"Like za Arzeh King? King Arzuh?" She asked.

I laughed. "No, I was named after my grandpa on my mother's side."

"Oh. Okay."

"But being named after King Arthur, that'd be interesting."

She laughed.

The bell rang and we got up.

I left first, but Zindaia followed. She followed me all the way to next period as well.

On the way, Jacob and I got together.

When he saw Zindaia following me, both his eyes went wild, and he quickly shuffled over to my side. "Mind giving me some context?" He said, tilting his head back to Zindaia who was waving at some other students in hall.

"She and I talked back in first period. I guess she has the same classes as me in the morning."

Jacob whistled. "Lucky you." He said, as he sized up Zindaia.