I woke with a startle. I’d been working on The Wishing Stone when I drifted off. A liar called Cha Eunwoo had never returned from his break. I gathered my stuff and shuffled my childish drawings together. Convinced I’d done the bare minimum I was surprised to see a series of pages drawn out. I grew perplexed. Had Eunwoo really done some work? I shook my head. Impossible! He doesn’t even know what The Wishing Stone is about.

Without thinking I stuffed my work into my bag and left the library. Eunwoo could have at least woken me. I shook my head. I was constantly surrounded by idiots.

I threw on my coat and my scarf, tossed on my back and paused.

I’d had a really weird dream. My head wasn’t feeling right. My stomach turned uncomfortably. Were those egg rolls I’d had for lunch gone off?

I put this thought away too. I didn’t like the idea of getting sick, having weird dreams or the fact that I had a ton of work to do and the semester was just kicking off.

I was the only nerd left in the school. At least no one was there to witness my embarrassment, or so I thought.

I left the school building with a muddled head. It was getting dark outside. The days were slow to get bright. Each spring day had a fine sky of fine dust. I pulled my face mask from the pocket of my coat. If there was one thing the entire country was paranoid about it was the fine dust from China. No one really knew what was in that factory induced yellow film that blocked the blue out of the sky. Rumors said it was cancerous.

I sighed into my mask. Melancholy took over my thoughts. The weight of my bag didn’t stop me thinking why everyone worked so hard when the country was dying because of the fine dust. Pollution was what it was and the only way to counteract pollution was to plant trees. I smirked sarcastically, why would anyone plant trees when they could put up skyscrapers? Why should we try to stop a problem that evidently belongs to China? This, I thought, was why our country was so backward, we were self-righteous and stupidly stubborn.

Continuing this deprecating tirade against society I left the school premise and made my way to the bus stop. No one else was here. Looks like everyone had already left. I was going to get an earful from my sister for staying in school for too long.

Yes, this is a thing. My sister didn’t like how long I spent cooped up in the library. She thought there was something wrong with this. She worried I was either a social pariah or that I was slaving myself instead of enjoying my youth.

Shame, we never really thought on the same page. I wasn’t really into dating. I’d heard all the horror stories related to girl’s who dated and it was a total put off. I was more of a homebody than a party girl or a boy obsessed girl. I knew them and knew I didn’t want to be like them. There was no significant other in my life that could potentially make me think otherwise. You could say I was a bit of a snob who thought I was better than others, Hana did, when I told her she’d get an unwanted pregnancy some day.

The bus wasn’t scheduled to show up for another fifteen minutes. Had I lived close by I’d have walked the distance. I wasn’t really up for a two hour hike when the school bus was still operating. It was 6 p.m.

I fished for my phone, wondering if Lisa was home. I usually spent my days at her place. Mine was too full of people, sibling, half-siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins. No one really noticed if I was home or not. It seemed to me that my entire apartment complex was home to my step father’s family.

I prefered Lisa’s quieter home. She was an only child, doted on by her parents and her cats. Her family was a little hippie, they believed in superstition, alignment of chakras, meditation and deeper human connection, whatever all that meant. All I knew was that I could concentrate on homework and stuff when I was there better than I could at home.

Maybe I’m really a nerd? I questioned this seriously. I’d never really considered myself to fit in with all those other misfits. I wasn’t up to par with them. They were all destined to head for SKY universities. My grades weren’t always high, they fluctuated too much for me to hope for SKY. Not that I liked the uppity attitude associated with SKY.

Did I even want to go to college? My mind suddenly stopped working. A new crisis began. What do I want to do with my life? I’d asked this before but back then things were more lax. There had always been time to think about it. Now I wondered if I was doing the right thing by putting it off. Supposing I left it off till too late and college admissions sat on the cusp of reality, what would I do then? Was there anything I really liked?

There’s always that family restaurant to fall back on.

I shuddered thinking about it. Did I really want to work in that family restaurant and smell like fish for the rest of my life? I needed to find something I wanted to do. Pronto. My own parents would’ve be useless to consult but I was sure Lisa’s could ask their fortune teller and find something compatible for me.

A hand fell upon my shoulder. A scream caught in my throat. I was twisted around and Eunwoo was staring right into my face.

“What happened? You look like you saw a ghost.” Mock concern plastered his face. I could see a fresh patch of BB cream settling into his skin. Did he leave me by myself to touch up his make-up? He shook me a little more to knock me out of my stupor. At this point I was a rock and I believe that frustrated him.

“Where did you disappear off to?” Eunwoo wanted to know.

Something in me snapped. “I’m the one who disappeared? What about you?”

“You weren’t there when I got back. I waited, thinking you’d be back since all your stuff was around but you never showed up. The work looked like it was done too.” Here he sneered and gave me a contemptuous look. “Since when were you a character in our group project?”

“What are you babbling about? I’m not a character anywhere.” My cheeks roasted, remembering that weird dream I’d had.

“You’re really weird, you know that. I think you should see a counselor or something. You’re not right in the head. Why’d you cut up your scarf like that?”

“My scarf?” My hand automatically flew to the article wrapped around my neck. I found holes in it and frowned. Unwinding my scarf from my neck I surveyed it. Eunwoo was right. It was cut up and if I had to be honest I thought I spotted a fleck of blood. The colour drained from my face. I looked up at him for an explanation, as if Cha Eunwoo could solve my problem at that very moment.

“What happened to me?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You said I disappeared, I don’t remember going anywhere. I had a dream…” I trailed off, drew the back from my bag, upzipped it and pulled out the drawings.

“Did you not draw these?” I asked him dumbly. Eunwoo shook his head, affirming my suspicions. I felt faint as I flicked through the drawings. At the time I didn’t stop to admire how well everything had been portrayed, now I was concerned about how freakishly similar it was to my so called dream.