The grass was a bright, emerald green that sparkled in the sun, glistening while it danced in the wind. Overhead the sun shined so large it took up most of what seemed to be blue sky. Cierra tried to imagine what the colors the sky must burst into if the sun ever set, imagining a deep navy that spread from purple to blood orange to pink. In her dozens of trips here, she had never seen the sun set or so much as waver from its position on high.
She closed her eyes and breathed in; the air sweet and fresh as it filled her lungs.
This place welcomed her; she knew it without anyone having to tell her. It was obvious in how even with the sun so large, she never broke a sweat, and even as the wind blew her raven hair into tangles behind her, she never once felt a chill. The only minor inconvenience was how the grass tickled her legs as she stood looking over the one place that always made her calm.
Down in the valley below her a streak of tigers gathered. In her world tigers were solitary creatures, but here Cierra only ever saw them in packs. Maybe this was because they were tigers in shape, with their massive bodies and confident strides, but their fur was too long, like a lion's mane, and grew out white and orange. Cierra had noticed years ago that the larger the tiger, the more white could be seen in their coat. She had never thought of renaming these off-brand tigers, instead choosing to take them at face value. Off in the distance stood the forest of white trees Cierra assumed the tigers naturally lived and hunted in, their bodies blending in more easily with the pale trunks than out here in the grass. This assumption was one of the main reasons she had never ventured into the woods. That and the fact that the trees never bloomed, never offered any semblance of a leaf, suggested if she walked in, she may never walk out again.
Looking out over the woods now, she felt a chill creep down her spine. It was as if the woods were looking back at her, trying to peer into her soul and see what kind of truths they could divine. She tried to tell herself how silly that was, how trees were only ever trees, but she knew that was a lie. She had dreamed of places where the trees were ents, freely moving and singing and had even once come across a small orchard of what seemed to be fruit tree bandits. They had never bothered her, but they did hold up what could only be described as the world's largest rabbit, hopping by on only its hindlegs. The trees had sharpened many of their branches into fine points (Cierra had always wondered how they had accomplished such a feat when they had no real hands) and forced the rabbit to give up all the fruit and vegetables stuffed in its cheeks.
Cierra almost laughed at the memory of it, even now, all these years later, but at that moment she saw movement in the trees. Or maybe on the ground flowing between the trees. She wasn't sure. It looked like something in the woods was moving, like a black ink slowly working its way through the trees, stretching out, trying to reach the grasslands.
There was a flash of white at her side, snapping her attention back to the area directly around her, but it was already too late. Suddenly time was moving too fast for her to do more than cross her arms in front of her face, bracing for the attack, and yet too slow for her heart to pump.
Before she knew it, she was thrown back first onto the ground, gasping for air, her chest heavy with the weight of her attacker.
Two paws easily the size of her face pinned down her shoulders, claws sharp and near translucent taking up all of her periphery vision. Her heart suddenly restarted again, sending blood pounding in her ears. Her breath came in jagged gulps, while her back cried out in pain.
Above her loomed two eyes, pupils and whites missing. Where eyes should have been, were a set of miniature galaxies glaring down at her. The only saving grace was that the behemoth's mouth was closed, hiding what Cierra assumed were the spiked teeth of tigers she had seen in nature documentaries and that one time her and her best friend, Dawn, had gone to a tiger sanctuary.
"Who are you?!" The voiceless demand echoed in her skull.
"Cierra!," the girl behind her hissed, poking her with her pencil, "Wake up!" Cierra started, throwing herself back in her chair. She was shocked to find herself once again in class, the claws just a few moments ago threatening to tear into her now nothing more than a memory. She was so relieved she didn't even notice that all eyes in class were on her, the scraping of her chair grabbing everyone's attention.
"I know it's hot, but you better not be sleeping in my class Ms. Park." The teacher in the front of the room, Mr. Dresher, said, sending Cierra a withering look that screamed 'If I have to suffer and be here you all must suffer and be here.' Cierra nodded quickly, knowing that Mr. Dresher was allowing her a small mercy by not asking her any complicated questions about whatever new math problem they had been looking at while she was sleeping. Once the teacher had turned around, she glanced behind her and mouthed a silent 'thank you' to her best friend, Dawn.
Dawn was petite, her small frame peek-a-booed a clavicle that stretched out to her slim shoulders, and her legs were slender, giving the impression that they were longer than they actually were. Cierra had long thought that Dawn had the delicate bone structure poets the likes of Byron wrote about. In contrast, her friend's face was almost round, baby fat still clinging to her cheeks, giving her the appearance of innocence. Another trait Byron would have loved, Cierra was sure.
Where Dawn was blonde, standing at only 164 centimeters, Cierra was a giant; 179 centimeters at seventeen years old, Cierra was used to towering over most people her age. Cierra also had what she was told was her mother's raven hair, not that she had ever seen it in person that she could remember. Her parents had passed away in a housefire when she was three, taking with them any and all memories of their time shared together. She had been lucky enough to be visiting her grandparents at the time, or else it was likely she wouldn't have made it either. She lived with her mother's sister and her husband since the fire.
Of course, she had seen her mother's hair in photographs, but photos could never catch all the different angles Cierra wanted to explore to see if their hair was really the same. Until now she found she was unable to bleach her hair like she wanted, unable to give up one of the few remaining things that connected her to her parents, even if it could grow back.
Another major difference was Dawn was white, her skin carrying more pink undertones, while Cierra had proudly inherited her parent's more Asian coloring and bone structure. She liked to think that it was partially their differences that had first brought them together. They had both been trying to skip out of P.E. class back in freshman year; Cierra being the obvious first pick and Dawn being the last, they had both decided to try and find a way to be excused from the game. Cierra had moved first, pulling the coach aside and explaining in a roundabout way that she was "having a woman problem," and Dawn, overhearing, had offered to walk her to the nurse's office.
After that they were inseparable.
Cierra decided to take the moment to steady her breathing, the air thick and humid. The contrast was so different that for a moment her lungs felt heavy, like the feeling of stepping from a well air-conditioned room to a storage shed at noon in summer. Normally she would have been embarrassed from being called out in the middle of class, but she simply felt relieved. She was not about to be torn apart by a strange creature in what had until this moment felt like a world designed for her specifically.
She spent the rest of fifth period thinking about what had happened, feigning interest and notetaking whenever Mr. Dresher looked back at the class. Usually creatures actively avoided her, though once or twice over the years she had been approached by sentient beings. None had ever seemed to wish her harm. Never had any creature she encountered in the dream world tried to talk to her before, let alone attack her. Not that she was sure that the tiger was talking, it was more like he had been speaking to her mind. Half of her wanted to pass a note to Dawn as Mr. Dresher went on to talk about the importance of passing his class, but how crazy would it sound to write about a dream as if it was real?
She decided it was best to keep this to herself, she didn't need anyone thinking that she was somehow insane, or even worse, lying for attention. This didn't help her much though, it just left her with more questions. What if she wasn't insane? What if lots of people dreamed as vividly as she did, and no one ever talked about it because it was already a universal fact? All her life, whether it was a daydream, a nightmare, or just a regular dream, they had always been wildly interactive and real. There was no real way that she was the only person who experienced this. Every now and then she was even able to think of places she had dreamed of before and go back, like she had subconsciously done earlier. It was fun for her, but never something she talked about with her friends. Sometimes she thought that if she shared any of it the dreams would stop and fade into nothingness, leaving her with nothing but the tedium of day-to-day life.
Cierra turned her attention back on Mr. Dresher, he was going on about a math problem that looked like it was more a disgruntled sentence than an equation. He was a mousy man, and it was obvious he was feeling the heat with the dark sweat stains growing under his arms and down his back. Sighing, she looked around at everyone else in the room. No one was looking at her anymore, instead they were either staring forward vacantly or puzzling out formulas in their notes. They were all in summer school for failing calculus during the school year and they all looked the way she felt: tired, confused, and hot.
Numbers and math problems were never something Cierra could easily understand, and when it came to calculus, she found the problems brain numbingly challenging. One time she had been trying to solve an equation half a page long, only to suddenly break down in tears, crying.
For her, math felt hopeless.
Her and Dawn had tried their best to work out the problems last semester, but neither were mathematically gifted. Their conversations easily gave way to popular TV shows and the latest manga releases. By the time they admitted to themselves that they were failing calculus, it was too late, the damage was already done. There was nothing else to do but join the summer school class and vow to study every school night together. Unfortunately, the school was short on funds so the AC would not be cut on till school started again in August.
Mr. Dresher sighed, "Okay, that's it for today. Don't forget to study for the test next week!" he said before sitting down at his desk. He looked like a man ready to give up, rubbing the bridge of his nose between his eyes, and fanning out his shirt to dry himself before organizing his papers to leave. Cierra almost felt sorry for him.
Cierra put up all of her notes and stood up.
"Hey, ready to go?" Cierra asked, looking down at Dawn to see Dawn beaming at her, nodding.
She always loved Dawn's perpetually happy persona, no matter what happened Dawn always saw the positive side of things. Her look even matched her personality, with her honey blonde hair and light blue eyes that seemed to only see the bright side of the world. Her name seemed very appropriate now that Cierra thought about it, she was always like the Dawn of a new day, full of possibilities and cheer. Smiling to herself, Cierra walked with Dawn outside to the parking lot.
"What happened in class? Did the heat getcha?" Dawn asked, nudging her friend with her elbow. Dawn tended to connect words together, simplifying things so that they could be said as fast as possible.
"Yeah," Cierra tried to force a laugh, but sounded more like a bad infomercial, "I must've been hypnotized by Dresher's numbers." She tried to change the topic, "Is it just me or is calculus starting to look more and more like English lit?"
She felt relieved when Dawn let out a long "Ugh, I know!" They both walked in sympathetic silence for a moment.
The hairs on the back of Cierra's neck stood up suddenly. It felt like there were eyes watching her, trying to worm their way into her back. In her mind, she imagined those all too close galaxy eyes staring at her from behind. Before she could stop herself, she spun around, wanting to face whoever or whatever it was head on. To her dismay, there was no one there except the few stragglers like themselves who had headed out of their respective summer classes a bit late.
"…Are you ok?" This time Dawn sounded actually concerned, the lighthearted tone of her voice turning inquisitive and worried.
"I'm," Ciera fought to find the right word. Paranoid? Scared that a mystery tiger from my dreams is stalking me in real life?
She settled on fine.
"Just thought I saw someone I recognized." Even as the words left her mouth, she realized how fake they sounded. They had known most of the people at this school for over a decade, of course she had seen someone she knew.
Luckily Dawn kept any comments to herself.
"So what's the plan for tonight?" Dawn asked, voice back to its regular upbeat tone, following Cierra to her 2005 white Pontiac Vibe. Cierra side eyed the pollen that was now starting to change the white to a musty yellow and made a mental note to take her car for a wash over the weekend.
"Not sure, it's movie night, right? So, I guess the real question is—horror or comedy?" She unlocked the doors and they got in. Secretly she hoped Dawn would choose comedy, but they both knew that Dawn's bubbly personality was in direct contrast with her favorite movie genre. Every Friday night her and Dawn went to Cierra's home and had a movie night. This had been their routine since Ceirra got her license, and Cierra had quickly realized that when Dawn had told her she loved scary movies, she had been under-selling how much she liked them.
Dawn laughed, "I say we go with a horror movie, if I watch one more rom-com when Jeremiah won't even look at me, I'm going to scream."
Jeremiah had been a staple in their high school classes and was considered a troublemaker. When the school doubled down on their 'no boys having piercings' rule and forced him to take out all six of his earrings, he came back with eight, one of the extras decorating his bottom lip, pulling it into an even larger pout than normal, and the other crossing through his left eyebrow. The principal had pulled him out of class until he removed all of his piercings, and then Jeremiah had come to school with a petition to remove the principal. It was only when a few teacher's names had found their way onto his list that the principal had relented. Since then, Jeremiah was legendary. If anyone had a problem at school, they went to him first.
Cierra swore sometimes Dawn looked for problems 5o start with faculty or within the student code of conduct to try and approach him. It was unfortunate that Dawn herself never found herself on the opposing end of a faculty member's wrath, instead teachers quite liked her enough to even excuse some late work without penalties. One time she had even dyed the under part of her hair pink thinking she would get in trouble and finally have a problem to draw his attention, but no one had said a word even though it broke the school's dress code. Now that Cierra thought about it, Dawn must have done horribly in calculus to find herself in summer school.
Dawn sighed, patting Cierra on the back as if consoling her, "At least we can death grip each other during Clown Chainsaw Massacre V."
Cierra groaned, "Another clown gore film? At this point you've given me a phobia!"
"I could be convinced to show you and your supposed phobia mercy if In the Depths with Channing is streaming yet," Dawn teased, reaching for the radio, turning it to their favorite rock station. They both exchanged looks when they realized Five Finger Death Squad came on.
One of their first bonding moments after that P.E. class had been dissing Five Finger Death Squad at lunch. Dawn's little brother, David, loved them, a sore spot they would use against David forever. They had both quickly agreed the band sounded like a bunch of near middle-aged that had started making lyrics out of their middle school diaries.
Dawn quickly turned down the music and synced her iPhone to the car radio. They sang along to Sandstorm for a little bit, both ignoring the fact that they sounded like screeching parrots when they tried to copy the lead singer's high pitched vocals, before Cierra decided to turn it down for a second.
"Have you ever had dreams you could actually touch and feel before?" she hesitated, trying to guess Dawns thoughts from her face, but Dawn gave nothing away. "As if everything around you was real?" she glanced at Dawn, nervous as to what she might say.
Dawn shrugged her shoulders in nonchalance, "Hmmm...," she paused, and Cierra knew what was coming next. If she couldn't answer 'yes' immediately, then there was no way she was having the same type of dreams Cierra was having. "Not really, I mean, I had a dream a week ago that I remembered, but that's about it." She laughed, looking over at Cierra.
"Why do you ask? Have a vivid dream about some boy lately?" she taunted, laughing at Cierra when she turned bright red. She knew Cierra had never so much as sat in the same room alone with a boy her age before. "It's okay. I'm just playing around, but you should see your face!"
Dawn started talking about how she wished she had a boyfriend and how they were going to get guys this year. Cierra, pretending to be present, nodded along at the appropriate points and laughed at others while she thought back on her daydream earlier today. Was she really alone in seeing places so clearly that she could literally smell them? Was no one else able to interact with the things around them as if they were actually there? She felt like she was going to need to see a therapist if this kept up. She almost snorted, as if there was anyone, therapists included, who would listen to her.
Almost always she could smell, feel, hear, and see everything around her when she slept. It wasn't lucid dreaming, she was never floating over her own body like she'd read about people doing. In fact, most of the time she wasn't floating at all, she was, for as far as she could tell, physically present in another world. She had no problem sitting, standing, or thinking; she had even interacted with animals in some dreams, though they never touched or attacked her before today.
Today had been a totally new experience for Cierra, and she wasn't sure how she felt about it. Once, when she was five or six, having woken up after seeing what she could only describe at the time as pure darkness trying to surround her, she had asked her aunt and uncle if they shared her experience.
Her uncle had tried to placate her, suggesting that nightmares were normal, but he had no explanation for how she was able to smell and describe the rot in the air, like the time the power had shorted out one year for days, and all the food in the fridge had gone off, gathering flies. Or how the temperature had suddenly dropped to below freezing, leaving her then, even in their bedroom that she had run into, shaking, feeling like a popsicle.
Cierra sighed just in time to hear Dawn ask if she would be joining the track team again this year, even though it was their senior year and it would definitely cut down on their hang out time.
Cierra nodded, "If I do well this year, I might be able to get a scholarship." she explained. Not that she knew what she would do with a scholarship, for the life of her she couldn't think of any specific career or study she wanted to pursue in her future. All the regular options, doctor, writer, film director, financial advisor, just sounded so dull compared to what she had in her dreams. In her dreams she didn't need to pay gas, buy food, worry about putting a roof over her head. Living was easy enough that she didn't need to think about how profitable her time was or what career would offer the best work-life balance.
Dawn sighed, "I figured you'd say that, but this will still be the best year ever! We get to graduate!" Dawn exclaimed excitedly, pumping her fists in the air only to hit the car's ceiling. For all Dawn's excitement, she had never heard Dawn talk about what she wanted to do after high school.
"Hey! Be careful with that, my baby is already pretty old!" Cierra laughed as she pulled into her aunt's driveway, parking just before the garage, behind her aunt's car. Technically Cierra's car was also her aunt's, but her aunt had handed the keys over once Cierra got her license, and then gone out and bought herself a more modern Nissan Juke, proving that her aunt had a thing for eccentric looking SUVs.
The two stepped out and walked up the four concrete stairs leading to the mahogany front door. "Hello girls!" Aunt Ernǚ, Cierra's aunt, called from the living room as they entered the house.
"How was summer school? Feel you're going to pass this time?" she asked, sending a fierce look to Cierra that was at odds with her naturally soft features. Normally the set of her eyes suggested she was open to talking about anything, good or bad, but ever since she had flunked calculus, her aunt had started making subtle remarks implying that if she didn't bring her grade up to passing this time, she would be in for a world of grounding.
Cierra rolled her eyes in Dawn's direction, her aunt's nagging getting on her nerves. She knew it came from a place of love and from wanting to see her succeed, but she was tired of being reminded daily that somehow passing this class defined her future. When was she going to use calculus anyway?
"Yup, we should be set for that test next week." She forced her tone to sound pleasant.
Dawn nodded in agreement; Cierra had long since confided in her about her aunt's new habit.
"We've been studying like crazy, and we are definitely going to pass that test!"
Aunt Ernǚ sighed before turning back to go into the kitchen. "I hope so," she paused dramatically, "I got off work a bit early today and grabbed some wǔ rén yuèbǐng from Auntie Guo's."
"Yes!" Cierra raced to the kitchen. Wǔ rén yuèbǐng, or five nuts mooncake, was her favorite. There was something about the buttery crust that Auntie Guo made from scratch and sweet but not too sweet filling that had won Cierra over all those years ago when she had first tried it.
"But why did she have any?" Cierra asked, curious. "It's not mid-autumn festival yet." Mid-autumn festival wouldn't be until September 10th.
Part of the reason Cierra was so excited was because of how seldom fresh mooncakes were around. Typically, they were only eaten in China for mid-autumn festival, and that was still a few months off, in September, near the autumn equinox.
"Well, I mentioned to auntie how much you liked them, and she gave me a call earlier today saying that she happened to make some, if I wanted to pick them up."
That sounded like auntie Guo. She was a kind, older woman from the Sichuan area in China who had moved over to Georgia when her son had gotten married here. While she could have lived a leisurely life with her son and daughter-in-law, she had decided to instead invest in a small Chinese bakery.
Cierra made a mental note to thank her the next time she stopped by.
Aunt Ernǚ and Dawn joined Cierra in the kitchen.
"I figured they would be good brain food, especially after all that math." Aunt Ernǚ said jokingly.
"They're perfect!" Cierra gave her aunt a hug before turning her attention back to Dawn.
"So movie night! Is mooncake enough to convince you to forego with the clown gore of 'I'm going to chainsaw slice you and your crew in the middle of nowhere' and go with the 'handsome actor on the sea' thriller?" Cierra asked, grinning at Dawn.
"If it's available, I'll let you off easy, just this once." Dawn said, taking a mooncake from her friend.
Aunt Ernǚ rolled her eyes. "You girls are so weird. Just remember studies first, and then you can watch all the handsome-clown-chainsaw murders on the sea you want."
Already the events from earlier in the day were fading into obscurity. They made their way to the stairs to Cierra's room when they saw Uncle Trev, short for Trevor, Cierra's uncle, coming through the front door.
Uncle Trev looked nothing like Cierra or his wife. Where they were both tan, a reminder of their southeast Asian heritage, while Uncle Trev was a few shades darker, with midnight eyes and thick hair he kept cut close to his skull. Dawn had been sure to tell Cierra on several occasions how handsome her uncle was, something that intrinsically made Cierra gag.
"Hey girls," he gave Cierra a quick hug and nodded at Dawn. "What are ya'll up to?" He spoke with a slow southern twang that gave him away as a born and bred true Georgia native.
"They were just on their way upstairs to study." Aunt Ernǚ put a hard emphasis on 'study.'
"Yeah, yeah!" Cierra tried to mentally wave the word off like it was ghost coming to haunt her, "We'll be down later tonight, if you hear screaming, just ignore us."
They bolted upstairs before they could further guilted into math homework.