Hedgehog at School

A/N: This isn't really one dream it's more of a series of recurring dreams with alternate endings.

He was in school again. No matter which school he went to it was all the same. His subconscious agreed with him and when he dreamed about schools they would meld together, forming a giant building where even the students seemed to blend together. Not that they were very different in real life. After he moved in with Misato, the only difference was in the number of people. Shinji was unsure if this was a good thing. On one hand it was good since it meant less noise and crowding. On the other hand it meant he could not disappear.

His last school had been very large. Due to some recent earthquakes, two schools had been combined since one had been damaged beyond repair. Each class often had 30 or 40 people and most of the time it was easy to sit in the back of the room and be completely ignored by both the teachers and the students.

Except when he dreamed.

Even though in the waking world his teachers hardly ever called on him to answer a question, it seemed to happen quite often in the dream world. All of these dreams started the same. He would be sitting near the back of a classroom. Sometimes the classroom was small. Sometimes it was as big as an auditorium. And sometimes it was an odd combination of classroom and auditorium. In whatever sort of room he happened to be sitting in, he would be called on.

When he was called on several things could happen. He might know the answer, but his muscles would refuse to work and he would be unable to speak. Or everyone in the room would turn to look at him and he would freeze, overcome with the intensity of their stares.

Sometimes he would wake up from the dream with a dry mouth and the sheets soaked with sweat.

Sometimes the dream would continue.

When Shinji was in elementary school a teacher had once called on him to answer a question which he did not know the answer to. After a minute of Shinji's blank silence, the teacher had sharply chastised him for being unable to answer the question. Shinji's unfortunate answer to this had been to start crying.

If Shinji did not wake up, then he would inevitably start crying in the dreams. His fellow students would jeer and point at him, which only made Shinji feel worse. No one ever came to his rescue; not even the teacher who would stand silently and watch. When Shinji could bear it no longer, he would get up and run from the room.

In one of his more memorable school dreams, after he had run from the classroom he had entered a hallway packed with people. Before he could avoid a collision several people passed right through him. He gasped and backed against a wall which was fortunately still solid to his touch. He watched people pass him for several moments then tentatively reached out a hand to see if it would pass through people. It did and Shinji looked at his hand in amazement.

Instead of being frightened by this new development as other people may have been, Shinji was very relieved. After the harshness of his outburst of emotion back in the classroom he had exactly what he wanted: the ability to be invisible to others, but still be among them at the same time. Shinji's relationships with others had often suffered because of his overly conscientious nature. Being invisible gave him the power to be himself among others without their judgment.

His invisible dream self wandered among the halls of the school and listened to conversations at random. This was entertaining for a while, but Shinji eventually grew tired of it. Just as he started to notice his waning interest, everything started to fade and he woke up.

After every dream about school, the same thought always crossed Shinji's mind. Why,he wondered, did he have to go back to school when he had just left it?