The beginning of a restless dream#

Today, I had a dream in my sleep… a dream that felt very long and detailed, as if I was living another life parallel to my own reality.

It all began in the familiar setting of my school. The morning atmosphere seemed normal, yet there was a hidden tension beneath the surface. There was a classmate I had known for some time; physically he appeared ordinary, but his mental state was unstable. Without anyone knowing, he had just committed an act of harassment against a girl. Because the case had not yet been uncovered, he still came to school and acted as if nothing had happened.

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Disclaimer: How do I know he’s the perpetrator and the entire back scene is like a theater? Because in the dream, it felt like watching a movie that shows events outside the main character while also being the main actor.

However, in the midst of the school bustle, he suddenly did something unexpected. He twisted reality and pointed his finger at me. With a narrative that somehow sounded incredibly convincing, he incited those around me until they began to look at me with suspicion and judgment. I stood there, silent and confused, because I truly knew nothing about it.

In the middle of this cornering situation, this classmate approached me and looked at me with an unburdened face. He said lightheartedly, “Just take the fall in prison; it’s only for a short while anyway. Later, it’ll be my turn.”

Whether due to intense pressure or a certain innocence at the time, I simply nodded in agreement. I allowed myself to become the scapegoat for an act I never committed. To make a long story short, I was processed and scheduled to be sent to a juvenile detention center.

The day of the pickup arrived. A car was waiting to take me to the detention facility. Behind the wheel sat a man named Graven. He was the officer assigned to escort people like me behind bars. His face was serious yet calm. I got into the passenger seat, and the heavy journey began.

As I sat silently in the back seat of the sedan, I vaguely saw Graven (his name)‘s appearance as if he looked like a more mature version of myself, hmm, maybe around 28-30 years old or so, maybe my feelings felt like there was a mysterious connection.
while I looked in the reflection of the car window, I looked the same as I am now, like a teenager in real life.

Midway through the trip, our car slowed down as we passed a roadside area. Through the window, I saw the parents of the actual perpetrator working as vendors. Our eyes met. They stared at me with pure malice, yet behind that gaze, I could see a flicker of hesitation and a restless unease that they couldn’t quite hide.

Graven apparently noticed this exchange of looks. He caught the blatant inconsistency in the parents’ reaction, and his instincts began to doubt my status as the perpetrator. Seeing someone finally using their logic, my courage emerged. I began to tell Graven the truth—that I was not the culprit. I explained how difficult it was for me to prove the truth because I lacked the power to fight the accusation.

Graven listened intently. His empathy eventually overrode his official duty. He decided to pull the car over at a lonely, abandoned bus stop in the middle of nowhere and told me to get out. “Wait here,” he said. He went to the house of the perpetrator’s parents to search for evidence, while I sat there in silence, waiting alone.

Time passed until the sound of Graven’s engine returned. He stopped right in front of me with a look on his face that proved he had found the truth. He told me to get back in, but this time, the direction was different. Graven turned the wheel toward a muddy dirt road, intentionally bypassing and leaving the prison building—which should have been my destination—far behind.

We drove along a long road whose end I did not know. In my chest, there was a melancholy feeling flowing slowly, yet at the same time, it felt liberating. The journey through the mud actually gave me a sense of profound peace and calm, as if I had just managed to escape, if only for a moment, from life’s heaviest ordeal.

After reflecting, I interpreted#

Perhaps from the meaning of this story, I can interpret… that in life, I sometimes feel it is too easy to give in and let the burdens of others fall upon my shoulders simply because I feel I lack the strength to resist.
The figure of Graven might be a part of my own logic, reminding me that the truth is always worth fighting for, even if the path is muddy and winding. The sense of peace at the end of the story seems to tell me that true freedom is only felt when I dare to be honest with myself and stop being a victim of an unjust situation.

Conclusion#

This is not reality but rather a manifestation of reality of another side of my inner self that always walks with me in the shadows when given the opportunity to communicate with me directly in the subconscious by building a coherent story to convey life lessons.