Violet was wandering through a dark, dank, low-ceilinged room that seemed to stretch on endlessly. She kept calling out, Is anybody there? Is anybody there?? but no one ever answered her. She could hear screams and explosions going on in the distance, but she couldn't get to a door or window to get out or see what was going on. She felt like she would be trapped there forever, wandering endlessly, alone.

Suddenly she woke with a start, the way you feel when you suddenly start to fall from a great height, and she sat up, scared, disoriented. She was in class. It had been a dream. The teacher was talking and she tried to listen over the sound of her pounding heart.

They were putting things in their dreams? Violet hoped they hadn't been putting those things in herdream. If they had, she'd like to give them a piece of her mind! But no, she figured it was just the memories of being locked in The Room last year, coming back to haunt her.

And now they were going to have a long-term project on dreaming? Violet hoped all her dreams wouldn't be like the one she'd just had. Still...she'd read in a text on writing technique that some writers got ideas from their dreams, so she figured she'd start another journal, this one just for dreams, and see if she came up with anything useful.

She picked herself up, tried to straighten her robes and her hair (when had she started caring about that stuff?), gathered her things, and exited the class. "Thanks for the class," she muttered without enthusiasm, and ducked out of the door before anyone could ask her about her dream.