A true foreseeing genius.
I had this dream in late November the year prior, and at that time, I was unaware of the depth of harm this looming virus would cause to most of the world—if not all of it. Like a lot of people, I anticipated a pretty standard year ahead. I would settle into my new place, have a unique Christmas, and restart the cycle.
The dream was set in high school. It was my senior year, so my friends and I were in that somewhat disengaged state of mind. A few of us were sitting in my dorm room* discussing this weird illness being passed around between students in school. It seemed to hold a similar weight to say, Smallpox, in that it was highly infectious, the main difference being that this illness was typically asymptomatic at its onset. Everyone was terrified, but add the demographic of teenagers and preteens and you can imagine we were highly immature in dealing with the situation.
From what I could gather, it had become embarrassing to be infected sometime after it first began to spread. Students were hiding whether or not they'd caught it, so we were all treading shaky ground with each other; we remained distanced, only sharing our things with specific people, etc. A few of the students had been diagnosed and isolated in the extended portion of the infirmary. We only looked at said infirmary from the distance, but nasty rumors circulated about the students there.
The first known infected student had caught the illness while home one weekend and had been allowed back into school after being cleared by specialists. We had learned that his DNA was being tested for further understanding and freaked out about this as well. (Side note: Here sat a room full of future scientists—for the most part—and yet the idea of mRNA research was embarrassing).
Students were reassured that this illness would wear off after a certain period, whereby one could re-assimilate to the school environment. Again, this is not useful information for hundreds of pre-teens and teenagers—but I digress.
The latest on HighSchool-19 was that there had been a student death at the infirmary being kept under wraps. A couple of students had seen what looked to be a covered stretcher being carried into a bus one night. They'd described the stretcher to be covered by a blue gingham sheet—one we'd used at the infirmary—over something shaped like a human body. This no-go area infirmary had suddenly become the prime spot of interest for students to gather further information for their investigating. Two students were planning to question one of the infected students in the early hours of the next day. We thought they were brave, but we were all terrified for them—and honestly, also the information we were bound to learn if they were successful.
Enter phase two of my dream. I'm making a trip to the tuck shop—a school snack/supplies bar—with one of my roommates, there's a pretty long line we can see from the distance, but we're determined. Upon getting in line, my roommate starts getting a bit dodgy with some people at another spot in it. As we're moving up, this narrative starts to form about my roommate being infected. Someone had noticed she'd been exhibiting some odd behaviors over the past week; she'd been a bit too clandestine with everything concerning her. It started to add up to me as well; she'd let people touch her, but not vice versa; she absolutely would not share her stuff or hang out with people by her initiation. The most looming, she'd been a little woozy at some point before, but it seemed to wear off pretty quickly—my roommates and I had dismissed it. I'd now realized that we were the only people she could not hide from, and so she was completely unguarded with us.
To say I was fuming would be an understatement. Within seconds, everyone began to move significantly away from us. I couldn't blame them; I may have been infected with an illness that supposedly resulted in a death. I turned to my roommate and before I could scream bloody murder at her, I was awake.
Dissatifying, I know.
This dream is not even on my pyramid of disturbing ones—it would be at the bottom if it was. It's not a surprise to me that I initially dismissed it. Although, after the eventful 2020 we had, I could not help but recall it. I will say, I had a lot of close calls with COVID-19, but never got it**, so maybe that's the ending we never got to dream.
*I have boarding school experience.
**I was going to say "yet", cause... you know... the Delta variant... look, I'm trying to be more positive and optimistic.