Sleep

"Welcome to your ninth day of detention, Miss Chasey," Ms. Jones said flatly as I walked into the room. "As you can see, you are the only one. Again."

I rolled my eyes and sat down in my usual seat. Ms. Jones was always so dramatic. Why was I the only one she gave detentions to? Maybe because she hates me beyond reasoning for dozing in her class.

"Eleven more days of this, hopefully," Ms. Jones muttered to herself as she graded papers from the day. "Then I can go home to my cat."

This statement was not a big surprise. Of course Ms. Jones had no family. And if she did, they would have left her by now. No one would want to be associated with the Torture Chamber Master...I-I mean Ms. Jones, my evil English teacher.

I set my chin on my hands and sat there silently watching the evil woman, both fictional and not, grading the endless papers that her victims were forced to write. Her red pen sliced along the page like slashes in flesh. The red ink on the papers looked like the marks that a whip would make on the bare back of a condemned victim. There was absolutely no doubt that she made the perfect Torture Chamber Master.

Boredom crept through every part of my body and my eyes suddenly felt heavy. I felt my mind trying to slip into sleep but I forced my eyes open. I did not want to go into my dream, not during detention at least. There was no need for a shaking, raging Ms. Jones again. I did not want nor did I need more detentions.

I sat up taller, forcing myself awake. The sudden movement caused Ms. Jones to look up from her grading and give me a quick glare from above her glasses. She returned to her grading only seconds later still marking up the poor students' paper. I decided to avoid making any more quick movements to keep Ms. Jones attention away from me.

My mind turned to the book that had started all of this chaos. Somnium Libri...what a weird name for a book in English. I had tried to Google the name to see what would come up but all I found were pages in the same foreign language and a book review that was just about as good as the back cover. None of the information was helpful at all.

But it wasn't the minimal online information about this book that worried me. It was the fact that I still hadn't found the book. I had torn my room apart all the way into my closet and I came up with little more than a dust ball. I had even retraced my steps and asked all of my teachers if they had seen it. Well, all of them except Ms. Jones. No one said they had seen it or had even heard of the book. I wasn't quite sure what was so important about having this book but I knew that somehow, the book was necessary to have in my possession. Even without the book, I was still having dreams. I guessed that the book did not seem to affect what I dreamt about.

The clock ticked slowly behind me and the scratching of Ms. Jones pen was slowly lulling me to sleep. It took all my strength to keep my eyes open and my senses awake. Even so, my eyes kept drooping down and I had to keep forcing them open. They felt like they had weights on the lids and my eyes had no choice but to close. I didn't think that I could hold them up for much longer until my mind slipped into another dream. My neck muscles ached and were weak and my body felt heavy. I propped my chin back on my hands to keep my head steady, but it didn't keep my eyes from dropping still.

I had literally not slept in days. I was so determined not to go back into the dream that I had been pulling all-nighters for four days. I wanted so badly to lay my head down on a pillow and sleep for the days I had missed. But I did not want to have to dream the dream that had been forcing me to want to stay awake.

"Dismissed," said a voice in front of me. My head and my eyes shot up and I realized that Ms. Jones was talking to me.

I looked around and then behind me at the clock. Detention was really over. My three hours in this cursed room was over. Already? I quickly gathered my backpack and my jacket and walked briskly out of the room before Ms. Jones changed her mind.

How were the three hours done? It felt like little more than 30 minutes. I didn't fall asleep either because I didn't have a strange dream. I always have a strange dream as soon as I leave consciousness so I was definitely not asleep for more than 2 hours. And besides, if I did sleep, then why didn't I get caught by Ms. Jones? She catches everything. I can't scratch my finger without her noticing.

Maybe I was just getting used to the time. Three hours seems shorter after you deal with it for nine days. There had to be a reasonable and obvious explanation for why this detention seemed so short. Right?