Even after the years of the week-long dreams, he still didn't know when had he become able to tell the difference between the individual days. He only knew that once, his dreams were normal, and he himself no different than anybody else, if you were willing to overlooks his wings, and that that was where everything had started-many of the kids, and even adults, he was living with in the orphanage were not. And on the first day of his week-long sleep in the William's dorm room, he dreamed exactly of that: the merciless teasing in the long, dark corridors, and the first sleepless nights during which he taught himself not to need sleep, as the sleep was dangerous in the small room full of small boys who wanted to hurt you simply because you had, at that time, a small flock of feathers at your back; he dreamt of long, long days of hunger, as the trained his body not to need food, as food, and the rooms food was served in was also dangerous; and in the end, he dreamt of how that didn't help, as it turned out that every room you could be found in was also as dangerous as those.
But those dreams ended quickly, a memory half forgotten by the time he was twenty-one, and soon out of orphanage, on the half-way to college before the clock even signalled midnight on his last birthday there. He then dreamt of the trip there, a feeling of freedom he felt only one time before in his life, on the day he turned eleven, and noticed that his wings had started growing. He remembered, and his dreams dreamt of that remembrance, the sudden feeling of shock that washed over him that morning when he realised that one day he will be able to fly, in the sky, and go somewhere far, far away... Like he was doing now (or than, as he was remembering all of this in this deep, deep, week-long, dream).
He dreamed of the night sky over the road for the next night, the bright shining starts, and the feeling of air in his hair (that was the night he decided to allow it to grow long, he loved the feeling that much, even though he wasn't flying, just sitting on the roof or the bus, enjoying the ride... until the driver realised what he was doing).
The college itself was even fuzzier in his memories than the orphanage, the faces of his classmates nothing but blurry spots of colours here and there, colouring the still gray corridors. He remembered the knowledge, though, and for the fourth night, he dreamt of classes and long lists of names important for history, strange reactions from chemistry and dissecting a frog in biology. Some classes were from high school, some from college, but he sat (or slept?) through all of them once again, knowing that he will need them once he woke up, and started studying again.
He had only one memory he was really fond of from college, and that was helping one of the younger students find his way around the dorm, as well as studying with him for some future test in the silence of the library (that was before the said boy realised that Michael was different, that he had wings along with the half of the male population in college, but still, the warm feeling of helping the other learn made him realised that he wanted to be a teacher, no matter how inadequate his problems with talking made him for it).
It happened one night in the dorms, during a drinking party some of the older students organised in honour of 'them leaving this wretched hell in a week, and heaven help anybody who tried to stop them'. Michael only rolled his eyes at them, mentally, as by that time he rarely expressed anything physically, let alone with words (something that also happened in the orphanage, as he learned that words were as dangerous as sleeping and eating, as the other boys turned everything he said against him, making him seem evil, making him seem a demon; because of that, he learned, that it is better to not speak, that silence was indeed golden, and that his body language should be his only language, if he ever felt a really strong need to speak-which he didn't), and went for a really long shower. By the time he got out, drunken bodies were lying everywhere, some sleeping, some throwing up, and very few actually managing to find enough strength to make out. He was without a shirt, his necklace still glittering on his chest though, as he needed to keep his wings hidden. As he walked through the corridors, others somehow noticed this too, even though they were drunk enough to forget everything else, even their own names, and they used the young boy he had helped study to trick him, to stop him, and tare the pendant from his neck. His wings unfolded, long as he was tall, breaking the windows on the both sides of a dorm corridor.
The last dream was quiet, as this was the only word he could describe the rest of his days in the dorm. Nobody would talk to him, nobody would so much as look at him. The director simply gave him the envelop once he entered his office, not even bothering to raise his head from the newspaper he was reading; inside the envelope was a plane ticket to a place he had never heard of before: The Starlight Academy, and a short letter that explained why he was suddenly transferred there. He said nothing, simply packed his things, and left.
And by the time his flight there ended, his knew he was awake, and in the William's room, covered with something more than his wings. He was warm, and comfortable, so he yawned and opened his eyes, hoping that he also wasn't alone.
But those dreams ended quickly, a memory half forgotten by the time he was twenty-one, and soon out of orphanage, on the half-way to college before the clock even signalled midnight on his last birthday there. He then dreamt of the trip there, a feeling of freedom he felt only one time before in his life, on the day he turned eleven, and noticed that his wings had started growing. He remembered, and his dreams dreamt of that remembrance, the sudden feeling of shock that washed over him that morning when he realised that one day he will be able to fly, in the sky, and go somewhere far, far away... Like he was doing now (or than, as he was remembering all of this in this deep, deep, week-long, dream).
He dreamed of the night sky over the road for the next night, the bright shining starts, and the feeling of air in his hair (that was the night he decided to allow it to grow long, he loved the feeling that much, even though he wasn't flying, just sitting on the roof or the bus, enjoying the ride... until the driver realised what he was doing).
The college itself was even fuzzier in his memories than the orphanage, the faces of his classmates nothing but blurry spots of colours here and there, colouring the still gray corridors. He remembered the knowledge, though, and for the fourth night, he dreamt of classes and long lists of names important for history, strange reactions from chemistry and dissecting a frog in biology. Some classes were from high school, some from college, but he sat (or slept?) through all of them once again, knowing that he will need them once he woke up, and started studying again.
He had only one memory he was really fond of from college, and that was helping one of the younger students find his way around the dorm, as well as studying with him for some future test in the silence of the library (that was before the said boy realised that Michael was different, that he had wings along with the half of the male population in college, but still, the warm feeling of helping the other learn made him realised that he wanted to be a teacher, no matter how inadequate his problems with talking made him for it).
It happened one night in the dorms, during a drinking party some of the older students organised in honour of 'them leaving this wretched hell in a week, and heaven help anybody who tried to stop them'. Michael only rolled his eyes at them, mentally, as by that time he rarely expressed anything physically, let alone with words (something that also happened in the orphanage, as he learned that words were as dangerous as sleeping and eating, as the other boys turned everything he said against him, making him seem evil, making him seem a demon; because of that, he learned, that it is better to not speak, that silence was indeed golden, and that his body language should be his only language, if he ever felt a really strong need to speak-which he didn't), and went for a really long shower. By the time he got out, drunken bodies were lying everywhere, some sleeping, some throwing up, and very few actually managing to find enough strength to make out. He was without a shirt, his necklace still glittering on his chest though, as he needed to keep his wings hidden. As he walked through the corridors, others somehow noticed this too, even though they were drunk enough to forget everything else, even their own names, and they used the young boy he had helped study to trick him, to stop him, and tare the pendant from his neck. His wings unfolded, long as he was tall, breaking the windows on the both sides of a dorm corridor.
The last dream was quiet, as this was the only word he could describe the rest of his days in the dorm. Nobody would talk to him, nobody would so much as look at him. The director simply gave him the envelop once he entered his office, not even bothering to raise his head from the newspaper he was reading; inside the envelope was a plane ticket to a place he had never heard of before: The Starlight Academy, and a short letter that explained why he was suddenly transferred there. He said nothing, simply packed his things, and left.
And by the time his flight there ended, his knew he was awake, and in the William's room, covered with something more than his wings. He was warm, and comfortable, so he yawned and opened his eyes, hoping that he also wasn't alone.