Author's note: This is the first piece in a series of fics in which the Glee characters live entirely different lives than the ones we are used to, making up the characters we know them as in their imagination. With that said, I appreciate any comments, especially nice and/or helpful ones, and hope to keep being inspired to write these fics, getting to work on the rest of the Glee club.
She was standing in the very center of the auditorium, looking out towards the crowd holding their breaths as they eagerly anticipated the first jaw-dropping note of Celine Dion's "My heart will go on" to leave her mouth.
Singing was second nature to Rachel Berry, and it had been for as long as she could remember. That, coupled with the amount of confidence she had in her own talent , made her sure that it wasn't her nerves that were getting to her, as she stood there on stage in absolute silence, incapable of doing anything but just stand there in the bright spotlight.
No, it was something entirely different. There was something about this scenario that didn't seem right to her, she thought, as she gazed out at the audience. Every little space was filled up by someone, someone whose only reason for being there was getting to listen to Rachel's voice.
Suddenly, a strong feeling of dèjá vu swept over the girl like a tidal wave of emotions, knocking her back to her senses, and it dawned on her; she had fallen asleep during Biology again.
Like being struck by lighting, she woke with a jolt that made the girl sitting right next to her in the classroom shriek out in shock.
"Ms. Berry.", a raspy voice started, as Rachel frantically looked around the room at some staring faces, trying her best to return to reality as fast as her mind would let her. "While I appreciate the irony of you falling asleep while I was lecturing the class on the symptoms of Insomnia, I will have to see you after class."
While every single student in the room was now staring at her, only a couple of them seemed to get Mr. Henderson's attempt at humor, snickering mockingly as Rachel tried her best to look unaffected, turning a couple of pages in her book and pretending to copy down the notes from the whiteboard she had missed during her brief nap.
Soon enough, her classmates had returned to their usual routines, texting each other from under their desks and doodling in the margins of their papers as Mr. Henderson continued on talking, hoping at least the academically inclined students in the front were paying attention to his words.
Only a couple of minutes had passed since she was brought back to reality, when Rachel felt her attention wander from school and actually learning things yet again.
As she stared blankly at the lamp directly above Mr. Henderson's head, praying in silence for its cables to snap, she let her thoughts revisit the very familiar dream she had just woken up from minutes ago, and she felt that familiar knot tighten in her stomach again as she faced the cold and harsh reality of her life; Rachel Barbra Berry was never going to be the star she had always wanted to be.
Ever since she was seven, she could clearly remember her dreams of stardom, her wish to be overwhelmed with praising words from fans across the globe, calling her voice "A gift from above". Nothing felt as good as thinking of the adoring masses, pitching tents outside the sold-out theaters days before, praying to get a hold of tickets to the show in which the lead role was played by none other than the biggest star to bless the scenes of Broadway in decades.
However, these dreams of stardom had long since been given up on, as she had realized early on that her singing voice was nothing short of mediocre. Sure, she wasn't born completely tone deaf, but only in her wildest dreams, the dreams she so often revisited during her sleeping hours, could she belt out the last tone perfectly to the Barbra Streisand classic "Don't rain on my parade". But as her imaginary life was satisfying in so many more ways than her real one, she just couldn't help herself, she just couldn't wait to get out of reality and into her head, to the place where the first people thought of when they heard her name was somebody, not nobody.
Never really having any real friends, Rachel found herself getting through grade after grade, year after year, simply being alive, but never really living. As thankful as she sometimes was that people didn't really seem to pay attention to her anywhere she went, she would almost rather be the bullied one than the practically invisible one. At least maybe then she'd actually feel something, anything, not waking up in the morning with the same numb feeling every single day of her life. Sure, she was in no way immune to weird glances and whispers behind her back, but she couldn't help but sometimes quietly wish for her to be one of those kids that couldn't be within ten yards of their classmates without getting one of those slush drinks aimed towards them, as they tried to make their way through the hallways unnoticed. At least then she'd have some proof of her existence on a regular basis.
No, Rachel Berry was destined to grow up and work with something most unextraordinary, fitting her very unextraordinary life, but that didn't stop her from going to sleep every night, letting her mind play with the idea of Rachel – the girl that burned with the passion of a million dazzling stars.
