Don’t dream

Sometimes I have those weird dreams about a person with a blurry face. Everytime I dream about this person it feels like I've known them since eternity. As if we are more than friends. Naive people would say soulmates, but I would rather say comrades or companions. I dream that we Travel together and that I'm finally free, but when I wake up everything is gone and I realize I'm still in the same room where I wake up every morning.

As I woke up today I dreamed again about this strange dream, but instead of the ceiling I normally see, I see a familiar face looking down at me. I must have fallen asleep on the ground yesterday before I could get home, because the boy who was staring down at me was no other person than Shin.

"Oho the sleepy panda is awake?"

He grins down at me as if he is making fun of how ridiculous I must look right now. I rub my eyes and look up at him. His cheeky smile annoys me so much that I wish I could simply punch it out of his face.

"Sleepy, okay, but why Panda?"

"Because you always have such dark circles under your eyes. You look like a panda with that."

He makes a gesture with his fingers to imitate the dark circles. This kid really gets on my nerves.

"It's not like it's my fault that I have to go to torture almost every day AND recently I also have to babysit a specific someone."

I look at him but he just avoids my gaze and looks away.

"Anyway thanks for not killing me while I was asleep. I'll go now, but meanwhile you could start to make a plan for our escape and how we are supposed to kill the professor. It was your idea after all."

He just stands there and looks at me as if he wasn't sure what to do now.

"Wait you are going?"

I look back at him, but I already made a few steps in the direction of the door.

"I mean I still have a lot to do. And I don't really want to stay here too long. I already accidentally slept here, which wasn't really my plan. I'll bring you food in a few hours if you're hungry."

Now that I look at him he does look thinner than usual, but he just nods and waves me of.

I hesitate if I should ask him if he has eaten in the past few days, but I decide not to and go through the door outside of the room.

As I start to run home I think about the plan and possibilities what could go wrong. It's scary to think of it, because literally everything could go wrong. They could kill him and force me to continue participating on the experiments. I wouldn't really care about his death, but if he dies my chances of escaping would decrease to almost 0%. He is necessary for my escape.

I go to the cafeteria and grab some lunch. Sometimes I forget to eat because of all the stress that are going through my head, but now I realized how hungry I actually was. I sit down at a random table and start to eat the food that they give out every Tuesday. Normally it tastes horrible but today it isn't too bad. Maybe they changed the cook.

I continue to think about the escaping plan and Shin, who still has to figure out how we can kill the professor. He will probably think of something decent, I'm sure about that.

I was so lost in my thoughts, that I didn't hear how a women approached me. Just after the third time of her trying to talk to me I notice her.

"Excuse me? Sir are you listening?"

"I'm sorry- what were you saying?"

Now I look at her. She has dark red hair and and brown eyes but she looks a bit lost. She also looks like she hasn't slept properly in the last few days.

"I am searching for my daughter. I am asking around people if they have seen her. I haven't seen her in almost a week now. She is still so little, I think she ran away or maybe she is lost or maybe-"

"Sssh calm down. What's her name? Or do you perhaps have a photo of her?"

I try to calm her down and surprisingly it seems to work because now she is smiling in a relived way.

"Yes sorry! Her name is Raeliana… wait let me search for the photo."

She pulls out of her pocket a dusty photo of a child. I take the photo and wipe the dust away. As I look at the photo I am speechless. The child on the photo… She looks a bit different, but this child is definitely Ria…