Library pandemic secret

Date: 6/24/2020

This dream had a creepy feel to it. I had joined with a few of my friends— only some of whom were actually my friends in real life— and our group was going undercover. It was Ella, Marybeth, another girl I don’t know (but was my friend in the dream), and I all planning together. I remember there was some secret, something huge, something bordering on horrific or creepy, that we somehow had caught onto. It was something to do with the pandemic. I can’t quite remember, but I think it had to do with the fact that (in the dream) the whole pandemic had been fabricated by the United States government in an attempt to nudge us closer to war with China, who the government wanted to go to war with for some reason in the dream. Whatever it was, the secret felt urgent, it had my nerves on edge, had me fidgeting and my heart racing. The other girls seemed worried too, but not nearly as worried as I was, which makes me think that I knew more than they did about the huge secret. The dream started with our group going to our school at dusk. There was a special COVID-19 library thing going on, where they were selling their remaining books for cheap prices; since there was no way to sterilize them otherwise, giving them away was one of their only options. A lot of kids went, almost half of our school— which is like 600 kids— mostly because I think they wanted an excuse to see each other again. The school insisted on enforcing social distancing and stuff but pretty much none of the kids listened. They had opened all entrances and cleared the room so there was lots of empty space, but the kids still crowded around one another, chatting as if it were an assembly or something. A few teachers were there, wearing white reusable masks and looking tired as hell. The principal was there too, running around trying to make kids follow the rules and yelling at anyone without a mask, but he was outnumbered and knew it. My friends and I were looking for a book. It was a specific book, only in our school’s library, where someone had incorporated a key part of the secret into the text somehow. I don’t know how or why, but the modified book was only in our school’s library; if we bought it somewhere else it’d just be a regular book. I was the one who knew about the book, since I’m the ‘nerd’ AKA the bookworm of the group, and in general the bookworm kid in our school. I’d read it before and thought it was weird, once we (the group and I) put our information together though, I realized that the book contained secrets, and so our ‘mission’ was to find this book. We dressed up like normal, although tried to blend in. I wore a black sweatshirt and dark jeans, had my hair tied back so it was less noticeable (usually it’s super long and super blonde, which can draw attention). I also had a black mask on. My friends were more casually dressed but had black shirts and/or pants as well, and two of the girls had dark masks as well. We were wandering around through the library, going slow to look casual, but we were on the hunt for the book. We talked in low voices about it; I constantly went “shh!” or “lower your voice, someone’s gonna hear...” I wasn’t really nervous that someone would take it, because the book— back when I’d first read it— had collected dust like nobody’s business. But I was worried about our group’s ability to go in, find the book, and go out without being noticed. As we walked, we were all very nervous. The crowd had gotten unbelievably thick considering the pandemic, so we were all grabbing onto one another as we worked out way through the crowd, making sure we weren’t separated; if one of us got lost or was separated from the group, something bad could happen. The fact that we knew the secret was bad enough, and it meant that there was a high chance of somebody knowing that we knew— aka we were afraid that the government had somehow found out what we knew. We didn’t want to risk anything. One of the other girls, Marybeth, lead us through the crowd, since she had the best eyesight out of all of us and she was also the tallest, so she could kind of see other different tables and shelves of books. We all formed a sort of line. The girl in front of me, Ella, had taken my sleeve (which was too long) and was pulling me after her. I had grabbed the hand of the other girl behind me and was pulling her. We stopped at several tables and shelves, not finding anything. For some reason, whenever we went back into the crowd, I ended up holding hands with the one girl who I don’t know in real life. I remember thinking that it was weird, and I wondered if the girl knew I was a lesbian; and if she did, I wondered if she was weirded out, or anything. I didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable, and I considered trying to change my hold, maybe grabbing her shoulder or shirt or something, or switching places with someone else, but it was all too much effort, so I just hoped she was fine with it. (She seemed like she was). Eventually I hear the girl in front say something like, “oh, I think that’s it.” She dragged us through into a slightly less crowded area, right in the middle of the room. There’s a few small tables forming a square around a small space where a teacher stood, managing a cash register on one of the tables. There were books on the tables with little signs and there were a few cups full of pencils or bookmarks. Next to the tables were open-backed wooden shelves, looking like someone had just taken the back from a medium-sized bookshelf. Several of these shelves had entire series on them, organized with each new book next to the previous one. When we got close to the shelving unit to the right of the cash register tables, the second girl (Ella) pushed past the first girl (Marybeth) and said something like, “that’s gotta be it!” I told them once again to lower their voices, and in more hushed tones they asked me if the books were the right ones. There were several series on the shelves that I recognized. There was the Maze Runner series on the top shelves, which were just above my head, organized somewhat randomly; there were two of the first book, three of the second, one of the third, so on and so forth. Then there was a second series organized the same way— the Fifth Wave series. Apparently, the Fifth Wave book was the one containing the secret. The only problem was that there were two. The girls asked me which one it was and I scanned the shelves, checking for more copies. Luckily there were only two; from those two I narrowed it down to the one we needed by examining the edges of the book. The one I wanted was newer and less beaten up. I checked quickly to make sure it was the right one, and it had the secret inside, printed in a strangely different font. I quickly hid the book in my jacket and we left. I think it was that we didn’t want any records or receipts or anything to show we’d bought the book, in case someone (ahem the FBI or some shit) went looking for it. On the way out of the library I was very stressed: my anxiety was kicking in and I was convinced someone would notice that I’d stolen the book, and then a ton of attention would be drawn to us, which would be doubly bad because not only do I have social anxiety, but the secrecy and urgency of the book itself was enough to be dangerous. Once we got to the exit of the school, which was an open wall where there’d once been a window, we all separated and it was much cooler, I felt much less sweaty and less stuffy. Ella lead the group, and the girls chatted casually. I didn’t join in, my nerves were still going crazy. Then they started talking about what to do next. We would all need to go somewhere, they said. I offered my house, since my parents were the only ones who knew anything at all about what we were doing (even then, they didn’t know much; but they knew enough to let us all stay at the house, to turn off all devices with cameras, etc.). However, we couldn’t drive to my house, because we walked to the school after we had all met at the 7-11 nearby, and didn’t want to draw attention by having a car roll up an hour into the event and pick us up. They all agreed, so we walked away, starting towards my house. It was night by the time we were out of the school, and it made quite a dramatic (yet fitting) scene: the orange-yellow lights of the school’s library spilled out only to the grass just outside, leaving the rest of the parking lot pitch black. The street lights / lamps were on but provided only the meek, ghostlike impression of light, just barely illuminating the cars directly below. The parking lot looked barren in comparison to usual, with only a few cars spread throughout the hundreds of spaces. Towards the road was even darker. The stars and moon were blotted out by dark clouds, yet no rain or thunder seemed imminent; it seemed as if it had the sky holding its breath, waiting for the storm that was building. The air was dry, but something about it prickled your skin. And there were no birds or crickets that I could hear, even away from the school. From the school itself you could see all of the kids, though most of them had left by the time we started to leave, so there were only a few dozen left by the end. Most of them were pouring out of the school through the same wide gap as we had gone through, although a few went out through other exits: sliding down the grassy hills by the side of the school, sauntering down concrete stairs to the sidewalks leading to the parking lot; and soft chattering could be heard, growing quieter the farther away we walked. It was hushed talking, not as loud and reminiscent of assemblies as it had been when we first got there. It was like the kids, by an unknown instinct, brought their voices down to respect the unusual silence of the night, perhaps not to disturb it. Or maybe they were just tired. We walked farther and farther from the school, and a feeling of dread washed over me. Even the other girls had grown quiet, not talking as much as they had been the entire time, so I knew they had to be feeling it, too. The farther we got from the school, the more anxious I got. The light and the chatter of the school was like safety, a little beacon in all of the darkness, and as we walked away, the darkness around us seemed more suffocating than usual. I knew I was being stupid, although then again, girls walking home, alone, at night, was never a good idea. Rape and kidnapping were things to be afraid of, even if my anxiety was telling me to fear FBI agents who were bound to come for us at any moment, now that we were separated from the crowds; or creepy things, unnatural things, slithering from the darkness; I tightened my hold on the book as if it were trying to escape. I remember one of the girls told me not to hold it too tight, because I might hurt the book, and I felt bad and immediately loosened my hold, telling myself to toughen up. The pit of unease remained in my stomach, though. The unusual silence also scared me. It wasn’t right, everything felt off. Our group walked faster, an unspoken agreement to get to my house as fast as we can, and get the hell away from the blanket of night that was dragging us into its depths. I wanted to get home, where I could just see the lights, and hear the noise of a TV and my family, all of which was so much better than the nothingness around us. It was weird, too, because normally I love nighttime. The darkness seems easier on my eyes, less bright, less harsh, and the stars and moon are much preferable to the unbearable sun. And the cool air of the night, the quietness, crickets and cars, all are usually soothing. Then again, the night in this dream was nothing like a night should be. It was false, almost. No moon, no stars. No crickets or cars. No cool breezes; just still air, and nobody— nothing— anywhere. It was nightmarish, almost; but more than anything, this dream was filled with anxiety.