Teresa blinked at the book in front of her and tried not to yawn. The words wouldn't flow from the page tonight and she was fighting just to keep her eyes open. But it was no good; she still had another hundred pages to go before she could even think of quitting for tonight. The other students had mostly gone home for the evening, leaving her sat in her corner chasing her work. The library was quiet and nearly empty; just the way she liked it. The sounds of hundreds of people concentrating hard on their work were maddening when you were trying to study as well. She glanced at the clock and sighed. Still almost forty minutes before the library closed; she had better make the most of it. Flicking her hair out of her eyes she turned back to the page on the book in front of her.
The words in front of her still refused to come together and make sense. She put the book down and stretched, clicking her tongue in irritation with herself. She really needed to concentrate and get this done tonight. There was another mid-term paper due tomorrow and a presentation on Friday and her schedule couldn't take any more extensions even if Professor Bryant granted them, which he didn't. She just needed to relax and get this done. Teresa stood up and walked past the shelves to the fountain. She needed a few minutes break and a sip of water to clear her mind, and then she could finish her notes and go home. Teresa walked past several tables with people sat staring at the walls and hid a smile. At least she wasn't the only one here this evening pulling a late night. She crouched at the fountain and took a few sips of water before ducking into the girls' toilets and taking a critical look at herself in the mirror.
When she got back to her seat Teresa looked down and frowned. Something was different about her desk. Then she saw it; there was a small plain white card sitting on top of her book. Pursing her lips Teresa reached down and picked it up. Neatly written in plain black print was a short message:
If You Need to Relax Tap Your Heels.
Who would leave such a random card on someone's desk like that she wondered? She looked around but there seemed to be no-else about. She wondered if someone was watching her, and almost got up to leave. Then the image of Professor Bryant's angry expression floated through her mind, and she sat back down.
Instead, she tore the card in two and threw it back on the desk. There. If anyone was staring at her that ought to give them plenty to think about. She picked up her book and glared at it in furious concentration. Mid-terms always made her anxious, and she caught herself tapping her foot, a bad nervous habit. Teresa stopped herself with a snort and leafed through another page. The light behind her flickered slightly, as if someone had briefly passed in front of it. Teresa frowned and looked up around her; the library around her seemed to be darkening slowly. Colours were fading out into blackness. Apart from her desk it was as if everything around her were falling into shadow; the outlines were there but the objects themselves could no longer quite be made out.
I'm dreaming, she realised, and relaxed. Obviously she'd fallen asleep at her desk and was now having some kind of library-induced hallucination from overwork. It seemed to her to be a very lucid kind of dream. She could still feel the book in her hands, and set it down on the desk. There was a small 'whisk' sound and she was not at all surprised, when she looked down, to see that something had landed onto her lap from under the table; it was another white card.