Memory of pain

This Monday's classes were strangely peaceful. No one was whistling a tune, no one was secretly throwing paper airplanes, and no one was coughing or yawning loudly on purpose.

Of course, it wasn’t entirely quiet. People were still whispering to each other, talking about all kinds of topics. From time to time, people coughed or yawned but tried to do so as quietly as possible. But overall, the class behaved as it was supposed to, mostly focused on studying and not trying to disrupt others or the teacher.

The bell rang, announcing that class was over. Next was a class on classic literature, which was being taught in a different classroom, so the students were all packing their bags and preparing to head out after a short break.

Suddenly, the door opened, and someone walked in from the hall.

It was a young boy, with medium height and pale skin. His brown hair was even more disheveled than usual, and his eyes of the same color lacked their usual mischievousness and delinquent vibe. Instead, they looked... weary. And scared.

Without looking the room over, he walked in and sat at an empty table in the middle row at the back, ignoring the stares everyone else present was giving him.

Most people decided to simply ignore him, but three brave boys, all of them much better built than the frail teenager, walked up to him instead, surrounding his desk from all sides. The one right in front of him spoke, his voice openly mocking and hateful.

“Hey there, Imp. So, you actually decided to show up after all. And here we all thought that you finally gave up and died in some ditch.”

The boy smirked, expecting the pale youngster to fight back somehow, but instead, he flinched and looked further down on his legs, not even meeting the bigger boy’s eyes.

The three boys all seemed surprised, taken aback by his unusual reaction. After a moment, the boy in front of the pale young man laughed and spoke again, this time with even more mockery than before.

“What, have you finally realized that you’re a no-good weakling, and that fighting back is pointless. You really should just go ahead and die. It’s not like anyone is gonna miss you anyway.”

The feeble boy showed no further reaction, prompting the three stronger boys to only try harder to provoke him. After a few minutes of not succeeding, they shrugged.

“Whatever, this is boring. Let’s just go to class.”

The four of them were the last ones in the room, so with the three of them gone, the weak young boy stayed behind alone.

After not moving for a long while, the boy got up silently, picked up his backpack, and left the empty classroom behind, as well.

*

Four months had passed since Vrak dreamed of that empty and strangely harrowing meadow... for the first time. It was now December 22nd, the last day before the winter holidays. Vrak stood outside the school gates, staring expressionlessly into the distance, soft and cold drops of snow landing on his head and shoulders.

He put his right foot in front of his left, listening to the sounds of snow crunching under his boot.

The streets were covered by a thin layer of white, reflecting blinding light under the cold sun.

Vrak always hated the snow. It represented winter, which in turn represented the cold. And he despised the cold. His flat wasn’t well isolated, so he was always freezing in his bed, with only a thin blanket to cover himself with.

He was on his way to the bus station, since his school paid for the students’ travels within the city. If he had to pay it himself, he would rather walk to school and back, freezing in the winter weather instead.

Vrak got to the station just in time. Stepping on the bus, he showed his student ID, and the bus driver let him through. He sat on the first empty seat he found, not caring about the reproachful look the person sitting beside him was giving him.

He simply didn’t care anymore. Roughly once every ten days, he found himself in that strange and abhorring meadow. The second time he dreamed of that place, he panicked and irrationally tried to find a way to escape. But there was no escape. The green meadow was simply endless. He remembered how he got out the first time, reliving that more than unpleasant memory. Not knowing what else to do, he decided to walk to the distant dot that always remained unreachable, as if mocking him for even trying.

After what felt like days, he honestly couldn’t tell anymore, since even the sun remained unmoving and ever-present, he finally woke up in his familiar bed in his room.

The third time, and every time after that, he simply waited until he was sent back to reality, not bothering to do anything anymore. He lay there for days on end, unable to fall asleep in that strange land.

He eventually began to doubt that it was a normal dream, or even a dream at all, but there was no point thinking about that. Knowing that information wouldn’t do him any good, and nobody would believe him, even if he told someone.

After learning what caused him to freak out and yell in agony, despite only having a swollen nose at the time, the school sent him to their personal therapist.

The therapist was an old man in his late fifties to early sixties, with a bald head and gray eyes, with a little bit of his belly poking out of his clean and ironed white shirt.

Vrak was reluctant to speak openly with the old man at first, but after a couple of sessions, he decided to tell the whole truth. He felt hope. Hope, that the man who had been patiently listening to him rambling about meaningless topics, always smiling and asking an innocent question at times, would actually listen to him. Truly listen and not judge and not simply condemn him to being mad.

But, alas, his hopes were crushed.

Even though the old man didn’t show it at all, he could somehow tell. His face was genuine, his smile was genuine, even his body language was genuine. But his eyes were not. Somewhere deep in those eyes, Vrak saw it. He didn’t know exactly what he saw, but he knew. That man’s eyes were fake.

Maybe the therapist actually tried to help him. Perhaps Vrak was simply being paranoid. But, somehow, he doubted it.

The old man was telling him how to cope with the situation, offering actual helpful ideas on how to deal with his trauma. But deep down, Vrak knew that he was just another crazy person paying the man’s paycheck. That his own troubles were just work and money.

So, he stopped going soon after, pretending to have recovered.

But he didn’t recover. At least not completely.

Every time Vrak saw a bird flying by, he flinched, feeling his back itch. Each pane of glass reminded him of that endless, dreadful meadow, sending shivers down his spine. And every night, when he was preparing to sleep, he tried to stay awake as long as possible, hoping to never fall asleep again, knowing it was pointless, and yet still trying. Because each time he closed his eyes to sleep, there was a chance he would find himself in that strange dream again, unable to escape it for days, sometimes weeks. Worst of all, by the time he finally woke up, it was as if he had slept normally, only a couple hours having passed, with his body rested, but his mind exhausted even more than before going to bed.

The bus reached his stop. While getting off, he heard the person he was sitting next to sigh quietly in relief.

Before, he would have rebuked somehow, but today, he ignored it, pretending he didn’t notice it.

*

Vrak stood in front of a brown wooden door. The door was simple, dark brown in color, with nothing especially notable about its appearance, apart from a small crack at the bottom, currently letting cold air inside. It was also missing its lock, the hole covered by a small piece of wood nailed around it with rusty nails.

Not needing a key, Vrak pulled on the handle, pushing the door in. What greeted him was not a warm family, but silence instead, broken only by the creaking door. Not bothering to take his shoes off by the front door, he walked further inside.

It was dark, so Vrak relied on memory instead of sight to navigate his home.

He went to the kitchen, grabbed a piece of bread from the pastry, poured himself a glass of water, and went straight to his room. Closing the door behind him, he pulled out a protein bar from his drawer. They gave these away in school for brunch, and since a lot of the other kids didn’t like them, they usually threw them away. When no one was looking, he always fished out the unopened ones from the trash, stuffing them secretly in his backpack and saving them for later.

A piece of bread, a protein bar and a glass of water. That was his dinner.

He bit down on the bread without complaining, diluting it with water. He broke the protein bar in half and put the second half on his nightstand.

His room wasn’t really spacious, so only so much furniture could fit inside. There was his bed, a nightstand, and a small, but mostly empty, closet.

All of them were made of the same type of dark colored wood. Vrak didn’t really bother to think from which kind of tree it came from, caring only about having the furniture to begin with.

His bed had an old, but still somewhat comfortable mattress, with almost no stains on it. Vrak was very careful about not dirtying his bed.

Both his nightstand and closet didn’t store many things, but they each had their uses.

The nightstand was mostly for storing Vrak’s saved up food, but he also used it for his schoolbooks and various school supplies.

The closet was, of course, used keeping clothes. There were the white T-shirt and grey shorts, which he had managed to summon in his first visit to the dream meadow. Next to it was another unicolored T-shirt, this one green, its color similar to fresh grass. He had not worn that one for more than four months. He thought about throwing it away, but ultimately didn’t, having been taught to never waste usable things. Lastly, some underwear and socks were positioned on the bottom of the closet, scattered around without order.

Vrak finished his dinner, putting the empty plate and glass on the top of the wooden nightstand, he took off his shirt and pants, threw them unceremoniously on the ground, and collapsed on the bed, its weathered wooden structure creaking under his weight.

All of the day’s exhaustion and tension was released into his whole being, body and mind, and he felt his eye lids slowly closing. He was too tired to even struggle against it, too drained to even think.

And so, he fell asleep.

*

Without even opening his eyes first, he knew where he was. Even though he went to sleep in his underwear, he felt himself being naked once again.

His body was resting on an unfamiliar, well not completely unfamiliar, surface. Instead of the soft and firm mattress, Vrak was laying on hard, yet not uncomfortable earth, covered by thin and moderately long blades of green grass, without a single flower in sight.

The sun was pouring light and heat on him without mercy from the cloudless clear sky, even though it was currently winter.

Not even bothering to open his eyes, he rolled on his back, not even making the effort to summon clothes to cover himself.

By now, he knew that no matter what he tried, it would be futile.

The second time he came to this horror of a dream, and a few times after that, he still tried various means to reach the distant dot, hoping it would somehow forever free him from this appalling nightmare.

Pushing through his fear, he attempted to summon various kinds of items, not daring to even think about modifying his body in any way, but to no avail.

At some point, Vrak just gave up trying. Simple as that.

So, each and every time after that, he did the same thing... Nothing. He just endured, only rolling over occasionally to get into a more comfortable position. And that is what he did this time, as well.

And so, he laid there, waiting...

But this time, no matter how much he waited, he wasn’t waking up.