<em><strong>Asleep.</strong><br/><br/>Is she still asleep?<br/><strong>Yes, she still sleeps.</strong><br/>And She’s sleeping?<br/><strong>Yes, She sleeps.…</strong><br/>Wake Her up?<br/><strong>Wake Her up…</strong><br/>But not her?<br/><strong>No, let her sleep but wake Her up…</strong><br/><br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;">WAKE UP!</span></em><br/><br/>Kanashii was indeed asleep.<br/>Her eyes seemed to flicker beneath their lids, indicating a dream in progress, or perhaps a fitful sleep.<br/><br/>The dolls were talking again, but of course that was no surprise. When were they not talking after all?<br/>Strange though…They usually had enough courtesy to leave her alone when she slept.<br/>So why did they wake her now?<br/><br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;"><em>WAKE UP!</em></span><br/><br/>Kanashii could hear them, some whispered, others screamed, all of them talking at once, demanding her attention.<br/>This was new.<br/>This was odd.<br/><br/><em><strong>You messed up.</strong><br/>She still sleeps?<br/><strong>And now she is awake.</strong><br/>But not She?<br/><strong>Idiot!<br/>You're so foolish.<br/>You Moron.</strong><br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;">WAKE UP!</span></em><br/><br/>In that hazy moment between dream and wake, Kanashii opened her eyes, though no other part of her yet moved.<br/><br/>If she had had the strength, she’d have probably screamed at the sight before her.<br/><br/>The dolls.<br/>All of them.<br/>Every last one.<br/><br/>They stood or crouched, knelt or sat, right at the edges of her bed, surrounding her entirely.<br/>Something strange was happening indeed.<br/><br/>She blinked a few times, wondering if perhaps she was still dreaming, but the dolls remained where they were. Insistent and unwavering.<br/><br/><em>Wake up!</em><br/>“I am awake.”<br/><em>Wake up!!</em><br/>“I AM!”<br/><em>Not you…</em><br/>What do you mean?<br/><br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;"><em>WAKE UP!!</em></span><br/><br/>“Stop it!” Kanashii shrieked and bolted up in bed, her arms lashing out to knock the dolls aside, only to find, that they had already left. They were back in their boxes, her bags, or their shelves. Away from the bed. Away from her.<br/><br/>”Bad dream…” She murmured to herself before turning and swinging her legs over the edge of the bed until her feet hit the ground.<br/>In a sitting position, she reached for her phone on the nightstand, finding quite a few missed calls as well as some texts.<br/>She scrolled through them nonchalantly, planning to call or text later, as she always did. And as usual, later would turn into tomorrow, tomorrow into the next day and the next into a blatant acceptance that she wouldn’t be responding anytime soon.<br/><br/>Kanashii then stood, her legs feeling wobbly and her body sore and heavy, as if she’d slept for a long, long time.<br/>It was strange really, when she thought about it, she couldn’t seem to remember even laying down to sleep, or returning to her dorm room to begin with.<br/>This caused her to worry.<br/>Forgetting occasional details was alright, expected even. How many people could even remember what they had for lunch four days prior?<br/>But forgetting whole gaps of time, blocks of hours, days even?<br/>That was dangerous.<br/>That was bad.<br/><br/>She glanced at her phone again, checking the date to be sure.<br/>Days had passed.<br/>Whole days. Come and gone.<br/>She’d missed school. Missed her sort-of kind-of friends.<br/>And the dolls…. Had they been trying to wake her this entire time?<br/>Or had they let her sleep?<br/>Had no one come to wake her manually? Or had she simply not been jarred from her slumber?<br/><br/>Confusion and fear flooded her, poisoning her mind with what ifs and worries.<br/>What was happening? What had she missed? Where was Miki and the others? Did they sleep for days as well? She needed to talk to someone, find out if anything odd had happened to them as well.<br/><br/>But no, wait.<br/>What if it was all a misunderstanding on her part?<br/>What if her phone was screwed up and was showing the wrong date?<br/>What if she’d simply been so tired that she fell asleep without realizing she’d crawled into bed.<br/>Yes… yes, that made sense. That would be easier to accept than the possibility of blacking out for days.<br/><br/>And so, with first things first, Kanashii grabbed a change of clothes and hurried to the dorm bathrooms to shower and get cleaned up.<br/>Once cleaned, she’d planned to find someone with the correct date and time to cross check her own phones calendar and hope against hope that hers was wrong.<br/>