I'm normal.

Except for the dreams.

But dreams are only at night when I'm alone, so as far as I'm concerned, they hold no weight in my level of normality.

No more weight than the odd glowing amber eyes that haunt my thoughts all day after those dreams. Nobody else can see them. Just me and my thoughts.

My thoughts that should be on listening to this lecture. The natural negative pressure found in trees. Thrilling. Even for me, someone who found complete and utter pleasure in all aspects of dendrology, this class was dull.

So perhaps, just this once, it was okay to lose myself in recounting the dream. The eyes. The new way I nearly died every. Single. Night.

Until he saved me.

The lecture droned on and I tried to pretend my notes meant something. They did not. The scribbles looked more like panicked leaves fleeing a forest fire. My eyes drifted shut for half a second. Maybe two. The professor said something about water movement. My mind replied with a polite and very clear no thank you.

Then the weirdest thing happened. I felt watched. Not the normal someone forgot to mute their whisper volume kind of watched. A heavier feeling. Like someone had placed a warm hand between my shoulder blades. I turned slowly, hoping it was not visible terror, and saw nothing. Which somehow made it worse.

I muttered under my breath. Great. Wonderful. Fantastic. Now I was hallucinating in the middle of dendrology. This was a new low. The glowing amber eyes flashed in my mind. I whispered for them to go away. A girl next to me glanced over and whispered back that she agreed and that she also wanted the class to end.

My pencil rolled off the desk on its own. I swore it moved with intent. When I leaned down to pick it up a voice whispered near my ear. Not loud. Not clear. Just enough to make every hair on my arms stand straight up. It said one word. Awake. I hit my head on the desk in my panic and half the class stared at me like I had declared war on the furniture.

I straightened up quickly and tried to look normal. Perfectly normal. Except my pulse was racing and the air felt charged. I sat very still. I told myself the dreams could not bleed into the real world. They absolutely could not. Yet something in the corner of the room shimmered. A familiar amber glow flickered and then vanished. My savior was not real. He could not be real. And yet the room suddenly felt far too small.