Chapter 5- The Research

Rose sat completely still, staring at me, confusion and worry etched into her face.

“H-how d-do you know...” She stuttered, trailing off as she zoned out over my shoulder.

“If I’m not mistaken, we had the same dream, because we have the same tattoo thing, and you look pretty shaken. And my dream was pretty intense.” Rose took a shaky breath, and began recounting her dream. It was the exact same as mine, the forest, the shoulder, the birds, and the mist. The only difference was her mist was a bright green. When she told me about being pushed off the platform, she burst into tears, and barely stammered out the words. After calming her down, she squeezed out that she didn’t wake up right before she hit the ground, like I did, but collided full speed with the ground, and she only woke after trying to move around.

“I landed, and my ribs felt like they were stabbing into me, and my hips were on fire. When I went to sit up, I blacked out, then woke up. I heard you scream, and ran in here,” she finished shakily.

“I want to know what the heck these words mean,” I said, rubbing my forehead. “I think we should stay after school tomorrow, and see what we can find out in the library and on the computer.”

“How would we get home?” Rose murmured.

“I’ll talk to Roxie in the morning. I’m sure she wouldn’t care to wait an hour or so to pick us up. She would probably like the little break.”

“Ok, it’s a plan then. I’ll talk to Mom about it in the morning, she should be cool with it.” Rose seemed excited about the extra time in the library. She loved books; her and dad would spend hours hanging out at the public library during the summer, just reading among the tall shelves.

“We better get to sleep, we have to be up in 3 hours to get ready. You can stay in here if you want, I can’t imagine how you feel after...that,” I said casually, halfway hoping she would agree, because I was pretty shaken, too.

“Sounds good with me, I’ll take the sleeping bag,” she whispered, pulling the bundle from under my bed.

“Goodnight, sleep tight,” I murmured, falling asleep before my head hit the pillow.

The scent of biscuits and sizzling bacon filled my nose, and woke me before my alarm had a chance to. Rose was still sleeping soundly, so I left her to sleep while I shuffled to the bathroom. Rubbing my face, I winced as my hands rubbed my forehead. I saw my eyes widen in the mirror. How would I cover this up? I didn’t have bangs, and my hair was crazy this morning. I wet my hands, and pulled at my hair until it was hanging just over the lettering. I hope that was good enough. Exiting the bathroom, I saw Rose stirring in her sleep. I gently placed my hand on her shoulder, and she woke with a start. When she noticed it was me, she calmed and muttered something incomprehensible. The alarm on my desk began screeching, eliciting a groan from Rose. She rolled about on the floor before stumbling to her room to put on her favorite fuzzy robe.

I followed the delicious scent of bacon to the kitchen, and saw Mom busy stirring a pot of boiling brown liquid. A deep sniff revealed the goop was gravy, and my stomach growled in response. Turning, Mom noticed me standing in the doorway, and ushered me in, handing me a plate and pushing me towards the stove. My mouth watered at the array of breakfast foods spread before me. Bacon, eggs, sausage, pancakes, orange juice, hashbrowns, all arrayed in a professional looking spread. Piling my plate high, I slid into a chair and gobbled down the wonderful food. Rose soon joined me and ate as much as I did. We both leaned back, stomachs stuffed full. As I slipped off to the bathroom, I heard Rose asking Mom about staying after school today.

School seemed to fly by that day. Biology was a breeze, even though Mrs. Crowley gave me a knowing look when I walked in. Mr. Smith’s English class was a drag, as he simply lectured about the same thing he usually does: the importance of commas. Mr. Greene’s explanation of the homework last night really helped. I would never cease to be amazed by how easy he made learning such a boring subject so fun. Mrs. Brown’s history class consisted of an unproductive trip to the computer lab. Mr. Edward gave us another psychology project and I barely glanced at it before shoving it into my bag. And no one seemed to notice the lettering on my forehead.

When the final bell rang, I had to push against a wall of bodies to get to the library. Rose was already waiting for me. She suggested that we find out what the words on our foreheads meant, so we huddled around a single computer, each typing furiously when an idea came to us. After many fruitless searches, I decided to open a translator. I typed in the word on Rose’s forehead, and left the language setting on auto detect. I press enter and we waited as the translator spit out the results.

“Latin? I thought that was a dead language?” Rose exclaimed. I wasn’t so focused on the language, but the translation. Forgotten Huntress. What did that even mean? Was Rose a huntress? Was this some kind of fortune telling? My thoughts were interrupted by Rose prodding me to type in my lettering. Pressing enter, the translator instantly spit out the results. Latin, same as Rose. Forgotten Hunter.

“This seems really ominous,” Rose stated, giving voice to my own thoughts.

“I want to know what meaning it has behind it. Having matching dreams and matching tattoos can’t be a coincidence. You look through the mythology books, and see if you find anything. I’m going to look through blogs to see if anyone else has had something like this.” I directed. Rose nodded and moved off towards the books while I spun back to the computer. After an hour of searching, neither of us had any more than what we started with. We heard a faint honk, and began packing up our stuff. Roxie was here to pick us up. Rose hurriedly stacked the books she had spread about her, and I exited out of all the windows I had open.

On the ride home, we quietly talked through our theories, discarding some, putting some aside to rethink. We were welcomed home by a huge pot roast, and a note from Mom saying she had gone car shopping with the neighbor. We ate dinner quickly then retired to our rooms to do homework. I pulled out the project from Mr. Edwards, and my heart fluttered. Lucid dreaming. I was intrigued as I read through the packet. It gave tips on how to start lucid dreaming. I decided I would try it that night, to get a head start on the project. I showered, said goodnight to Rose and Mom, then began my project.

The packet wanted us to try in earnest to lucid dream at least once during the next month. It gave tips and tricks, like foods to eat, things to do before bed, and what to tell your body before you sleep. I decided to just tell myself to lucid dream, or at least remember my dreams when I woke up. I relaxed my entire body like the packet said, and I was amazed at tired I really was, and how quickly I fell asleep.