Foreboding Dreams

For a long time now I have had many dreams that played out in real life exactly how I dreamt them. I have trouble deciphering my dreams from deja vu, but recently the chilling revelation hit me, I believe they are tied together. Many believe dreams are subconscious visions of the future. Many also believe deja vu is you remembering a past life. No matter what you believe, I feel almost everybody, if they are honest with themselves have had experiences with both. I don't know why or how but I do know to trust my gut. Recently I had a very foreboding dream, I haven't been able to shake the eery feeling ever since. It sends chills up my spine every time it crosses my mind. Before I get to the dream I want to give you a little background. I am currently enrolled in a junior college in a small West Virginia town that once was the steeple of family fun and entertainment for local tri-state residents. The once beautiful city has rapidly declined as drugs have moved in and morals walked out. The school I attend was built in the early 1900s and used to be a library. It is a rather small campus, and when I say small I mean its a 3 story building. The school gives off very creepy vibes. It is very dimly lit, and looks frozen in time, it has not been updated since it was changed into a school. I am a married, mother of three boy's, and finally will be a college graduate this summer at the age of 31. I have been in college on and off so long I could have been a doctor by now, indecision is my downfall. So as you can imagine, I am at the end of my financial aid rope and a junior college was what my budget would allow. Better late than never, and better a junior college than no college. My fellow students come from all ethnic backgrounds and social classes. However, lower class holds dominance. A good portion of the student body are what my mother refers to as "rough". Mostly recovering addicts, current addicts, and the occasional parolee. I try not to judge and for the most part get along well with almost everyone I meet. In such a diverse group there are of course the occasional outbursts. My husband expresses his concern of my safety almost daily, but I am so close to graduating it would be a shame to not finish. There is one student in particular though, that makes me worry he will snap one day and harm one if not several people. I have seen one of his "episodes" and it scared me enough to leave early for the day. This student, which I will refer to as Angelo below for privacy, was unfortunately placed in my English Composition this past quarter. His behavior is always unpredicatble and I stay on edge in class and feel as if I am waiting for a disaster to take place. During one of his episodes it is common for him to scream "NO!" "WHY ME?" "I'M STUPID STUPID STUPID!" "I HATE THIS SCHOOL AND EVERYONE IN IT!" all whist smacking himself in the head or slamming items around. I am not sure why this behavior has been tolerated by the administration, I do know the sad answer given when concerns are raised is "well this is a junior college." My response: "exactly it's not a daycare." So I believe my anxiety about the situation must have worked up some good dream material, or maybe it's a warning.....Now to the dream. It took place in fall, my favorite time of year, and though the city I attend school in has been ran down it is still beautiful when the leaves start changing and falling. I remember it being a very brisk day, as I could almost feel the chill in the air while I was fast asleep in my bed. I was dreaming a typical day of school but all day I had a pit in my stomach and was almost expecting something bad to happen. Finally my last class for the day had arrived, English Composition. It had started storming just before class started, thunder and lightening have always made me nervous, so it didnt help my anxiety at all. Our teacher is a little firecracker of a thing. She stands no taller than 5 ft but she had the intimidation factor of a 8 ft man. She is a very straight forward, no bullcrap kind of teacher. From the beginning of the quarter I was quite nervous she might possibly set Angelo off as she does not care to share her sometimes brutal opinion. So that day, like every day in english I was on alert and almost waiting for an explosion. To my surprise though, this quarter Angelo's behavior seemed almost normal. I couldn't help but to think they must have finally gotten his meds right. For most of the class I felt distracted and couldn't concentrate on any school work but the class went smoothly and I could feel the dread draining as I was packing my bookbag to leave, until I heard Angelo speaking to me. We have never had a conversation before, or even said hello for that matter so it took me by surprise and I was in so much shock I didnt hear what he had said. When I turned to face him I had noticed the class had emptied out and it was just him and I. I was about to ask him to repeat himself because he looked like he was waiting for a response but my brain was too busy screaming LEAVE! to function properly. All I could get out was "I gotta hurry home, sorry." I turned and walked as quick as possible out of the room, feeling his stare on my back the whole way out. This classroom in particular is tucked away in a back corner at the end of a maze of hallways on the top floor, far away from all other classrooms. I felt panic taking over as I quickly rushed through the hallways trying to carefully listen for footsteps behind me. Finally I made it to the stairs, which were much darker than usual from the storm, the school depends on the big bay windows for extra light in the building because the flurescent lights just arent enough. I hurried down and felt relief when I seen the front doors come into view. Most stormy days I would worry about getting my hair wet and my makeup running but this day it was the last thing I was worried about, I rushed out into the rain and made my way to the parking garage. The parking garage itself could be a horror movie set. It was also built in the early 1900s between two building and is six floors high. It is very run down and also poorly lit. The elevator is something straight from a nightmare. It is small and rickety and shakes and squeals and freezes too often. The stairs aren't much better. I didn't feel safe until I finally was in my car with the doors locked, this was of course after checking the backseat. I was freezing to death from being soaked so I turned the heat on full blast and waited a few minutes for the car to warm up. My truck was facing the elevator doors. I could hear the elevator squealing as I was waiting for the heat and I could tell somebody was coming up. When the doors opened I had just turned on my headlights and it was Angelo. I turned my lights down to the fog lights and started pulling out, Angelo started waving and signaled for me to stop. I slowed and cracked my window just enough to hear him. He commented on my truck and he said he was trying to remember what floor he parked on, and asked if I had seen a red cavalier. I said I had not and told him to have a nice day, cutting what seemed to be a long conversation he had planned short. The brief encounter made me sick to my stomach, as I was driving down the parking garage it hit me that I had heard him talking several times about needing to be at the bus stop at a certain time because he didnt have a car, but I also tried to just forget about it because he could have just bought one recently. When I got home that afternoon the stress from the events of the day must have been showing on my face because my husband noticed immediately I was not ok. I had decided not to tell him because he was already worried and if he knew I felt threatened he would make sure Angelo wasnt a problem anymore and I didnt need that kind of drama on top of everything else. I passed it off as stress from an upcoming test and we went about our evening. The next morning we decided to go out and spend time with the boys because we have both been so busy with school and work that we hadnt really had much time to do anything special with the kids. I was thankful for the welcomed distraction. I had just started forgetting the previous day when we had to stop at the grocery store on our way home. I parked close to the bus stop and noticed someone siting on the bench waiting for the bus. Upon closer inspection I realized it was Angelo. I froze, I wasnt exactly taken back by the fact he was at the same exact grocery store as me beause it is a very popular one, but I was alarmed about him waiting for a bus when he said he had a car yesterday. I waited for him to get on the bus before I exited the car. I rationalized in my head that his car may be having trouble and that it was nothing. I tried not thinking about it anymore that day. The following Monday at school I was so busy with testing I didnt have time to think about any of it, but I did park at a meter right beside the school rather than the creepy old parking garage. When it was time for english I started feeling very nervous. Angelo seemed to be in a mood that day. He huffed and puffed and stomped into the room and slammed his belongings down on his desk. Nobody in the class said anything and the awkwardness was heavy in the air. Everybody avoided looking his way. He started talking to himself, barely under his breath and I felt so overhwelmed with fear I decided I should leave. I tried to non chalantly gathered my stuff and slipped out the door. I stopped to use the restroom on my way out. When I exited the bathroom I ran straight into Angelo and dropped a folder full of papers. He apologized and helped me gather the papers. (Angelo is probably in his late 30's, hes around 6'5, not very attractive, overweight, and not well spoken.) After apologizing multiple times, he told me he remembered my husband from a class they had together previously. (My husband attended school with me a couple years ago but had to return to work for the sake of the bills) I nodded and tried to walk away when he grabbed my arm and said " tell him I said hello." I nodded and left immediately. When I was safe in my truck I took a moment to collect myself. I noticed Angelo walked outside and was waiting at the bus stop. He bummed a cigarrette off of a woman also waiting for the bus, I was parked close and could hear their conversation. I dont usually eavesdrop but I felt I needed to find out exactly what I am dealing with. I heard the woman say I hate riding the bus I cannot wait to drive again. Angelo responded "tell me about it, I havent had my license in over ten years." My body went ice cold. He did follow me to the garage! I decided it was time to talk to my husband. That night we were cooking dinner and I was drinking enough wine to stay calm when telling him about what had been happening. I asked if he remembered him and immediately a serious look took over his face and he said " yes I do and you need to stay away from him." He told me he had a class with Angelo and he was always having meltdowns like a child and that he cannot be reasoned with, and that he was always saying morbid things that creeped him out. When he found out what happened he told me he would start walking me into and from classes when he could and when he was unavailable he would have his friend that is also attending school walk with me. I instantly began to feel better. That feeling did not last long. We heard a knock on the door. We werent expecting guests so we both looked at each other curiously before answering the door. My husband made it to the front door before I could and before I could even see who was at the door, I heard my husband ask angrily "what are you doing here???" The voice I heard next made the hair on my neck raise. Angelo was at my front door. I know my husbands patience runs thin so I rushed to the door and asked Angelo what he wanted. He handed me a letter that I had apparently dropped out of my folder earlier that day. He said "you dropped this and I didnt notice it in the floor until after you left." I said "thank you, but you didnt have to go through the trouble of coming all the way here, you could have gave it to me in school tomorrow." My husband interrupted his response by telling him very frankly to leave me alone and to never come to our home again, before closing the door in his face and locking it. I was nearly shaking I was so scared, he now knows where I live. Thankfully my boys were gone for the night, otherwise I would have been packing my bags to leave right then and there. My husband did his best to calm me down and we dicussed getting a restraining order if the behavior continued, but he felt confident it was going to be over. We decided to go out to a movie to get our minds somewhere else. It was an incredible night out with my husband that we desperately needed, and it did the trick, by the end of the night it all seemed like a distant memory. When we returned home we noticed from outside that our bedroom light was on, " thats odd, I could have swore I turned that off" my husband said concerned. Usually this would be no big deal, but because of the prior happenings he was being overly cautious. He told me to lock the doors and wait in the car while he checked the house. He took his pistol from the glovebox before going in. After several agonizing minutes my husband finally stepped out of the front door and waved me in. The cool fall air stung my face as I ran as fast as possible to the house. He locked up and we headed to the bedroom with movies and a bottle of wine where we laughed and talked for hours until we both finally passed out. A few hours later I awoke from a dead sleep with the strangest feeling that I was being watched. I have a very overactive imagination sometimes so I forced myself to ignore it and try to go back to sleep. Just as I was drifting off to sleep I heard a loud thump by the window leading to the back yard. I jumped at the sound and woke my husband up. He got up and grabbed his gun and went to the window to look out, "I dont see anything babe" he said after a few minutes of looking over the yard. He asked if I wanted him to go out and check, I said no and told him to come back to bed. The next morning I took the dog outside to use the bathroom and as he was sniffing around the back of the house, looking for a place to go, I noticed a set of footprints outside of my bedroom window. My vision blurred and I felt lightheaded. I pulled my phone out and called my husband and he rushed home from work. We decided I should stay home from school that day and we called the police who said they would start driving by a few times during the night when there is an officer available and they suggested I talk to somebody in the office at school, but said filing for a restraining order at this point would be pointless because he hasnt done anything illegal yet or at least he has got caught doing something illegal yet. As frustrating as it was, it was better than nothing. My husband bought security cameras and had them set up by the end of the night. They were hooked to our phones and we could see our house inside and out day or night, from anywhere. I felt a lot better knowing a cop would be patrolling the neighborhood nightly at the very least and the cameras also helped lower my anxiety. I called the school and made an appointment to speak to a counselor the next day. That night I fell asleep with ease. Again I awoke in the middle of the night with the same eery feeling of being watched. This time I couldnt fall back asleep so easy. I got up to make a cup of tea in hopes it would help me go back to sleep. I was standing at the kitchen sink filling the tea pot, looking out the window to the backyard, when I seen something move. I dropped the tea kettle and ran back to my room. The kids were still gone with their grandparents, and my husband was working a night shift that night. so I was alone in the house. I locked my bedroom door and the windows, turned the lights off, called my husband on the house phone and logged into the cameras on my cell phone. I told my husband in a panicked cry what had happened and he said he was coming home and to stay on the phone with him and hide. I crawled into the closet and I looked at the cameras in the back yard on my cell phone and searched desperately for the source of the huge shadow I had just seen move across my backyard. There it was, behind the shed there was a man crouched down hiding. I took a screenshot and called the police. They arrived around the same time as my husband. They found more footprints but that was all. I showed them the picture of the man hiding behind the shed. They recommended we keep the pictures and the video because if it did come to a restraining order we would need all the evidence we can get. They stationed a deputy out front for the night. The picture and video werent as clear as I hoped, it felt like it could have been Angelo but I also know my mind could be seeing the similarities because I already assumed it was him. After hours of tossing and turning I fell back to sleep. I woke up a few hours later freezing. I opened my eyes and was facing the window. It was early morning, the sun just started to rise. The window was open! I knew the window was closed and locked when I went to bed. I thought maybe my husband got warm and opened it to cool off and fell asleep before shutting it. I turned over and choked on a scream when I seen my husband covered in blood and Angelo standing over top of him with a knife, also covered in blood. He had a crazed look in his eyes and was repeatedly saying " I just wanted to be your friend" over and over again. Angelo was raising his arms to plunge the knife into my husband again when I lunged forward protecting his body with mine. I felt a sharp burning pain in my left shoulder blade and immediately felt the blood pouring out all over my back. That is when I woke up. I have thought about this dream every single day for the last 3 weeks and I cant help but feel like the universe is trying to warn me of something.