Surrendering your awareness of the real world and allowing yourself to fall fully into the world of this dream, you heave your hand up with a surge of strength and willpower. You grasp the woman’s wrist and a tug on your shoulder.

  In a few seconds, you are firmly back on the ledge above the gorge, sweating profusely. As a team, you work your way up the rocky slope to more stable ground, until you can finally plop to the ground out and stretch your aching limbs. The woman props herself up next to you, panting with the effort of the climb. “Haven’t known you to forget to fix your anchor wrong,” she eventually says.

  Her words are muddled and distant, and you find yourself almost sinking into the rock beneath you. That can’t be right. “Everyone makes mistakes,” you reply, and your words sound like they’re coming to you through a thick wall of foam.

  “Like falling asleep in class?”

  Her voice sounds wry, sharp and out of place. Why is that? Why is any of this? Where are you, and how did you get here?

  Awareness returns to you in a flood, and the worry of being caught while asleep slams into you like floodwater. Mr. Euss isn’t exactly the observant type, but, well. Best to be safe.

  As you begin to slide towards wakefulness, you hear the woman’s voice chase you out of this reality. “Some story you’ve cooked up here. I wonder where you got it…”

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