The Dream

I walk upstairs and sit down at my desk. I stare down at its contents: uncompleted math homework, my book club book, textbooks and broken pencils. My backpack hangs from a hook on the wall and my laptop lays closed on my bed. I get up and flop onto the bed, sending my laptop bouncing a few inches. I listen to the soft rain pitter-pattering on the tin roof and the refrigerator softly whirring downstairs. The familiar sounds of my quiet little house lull me to sleep. My mind is blank and black. And then, all of a sudden, a dream comes tearing into my brain. I'm walking down a brightly lit corridor--wait, I'm not me... I'm someone else. I'm seeing through their eyes, but what? Where am I? My thoughts are interrupted with the dream again... sunlight is pouring in through the high windows and at the end, there's a door. A beautiful door, made of what looks like gold. Shiny, sleek and soft-looking, I push through it to find a dark, cold room with no windows. The door shuts behind me, and I look around. There's nothing in the room except an empty fireplace. As soon as my eyes land on the fireplace, I feel an extremely urgent need to get out of the room. So I turn around and push the door, but it's locked. It won't open. It's okay, I think. I'll find a way out of here. I scan the room once again, only to find the fireplace and the need to get out. I start to panic. How will I get out? I think. But my mind is completely blank. It's like someone took a giant eraser and erased my whole brain. I do the only thing that comes into my head. Call for help. I yell and yell, screaming and begging for someone to hear me and release me from this room. Then I hear someone calling my name. Lily! LILY!  someone says. Help! I yell. I'm in here! I'm in here! someone is shaking my shoulders. I open my eyes. My mother's face is inches from mine, yelling my name over and over. Mom! I collapse into her arms. Lily, honey, what's going on? You were yelling, screaming in your sleep! I tell her about my dream in detail, how it felt more real than any other dream I'd ever had. I told her how it interrupted my blank mind because usually, dreams settle gently into your head and they're far-fetched and unrealistic but how this one seemed so real, how this one tore into my brain like a firecracker. I thought about my dream all week and tried to figure out what it meant. On Sunday, as I was scanning the newspaper, an article popped out at me. Some explorer had gone missing and was last known to be investigating the Golden Palace, a place that no one had found and survived to tell the tale of what it was like. Some hikers climbing a near-by mountain had heard screams for help from about a mile away but by the time they started in the direction of the noise it had stopped abruptly.  This sounded just like my dream. I must have been seeing through the eyes of this explorer! But HOW? My mind is spinning. I don't know what to do. But I don't have to. My mind suddenly goes blank and I fall off my chair.