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Laura woke up that very same way one cold October night, and it took her a few moments to realize that she was safe and at home, sitting in her own bed, the blanket thrown to the side. As every time she woke up like this, she felt exhausted rather than rested. A thin sheen of sweat covered her skin, while the cold air made her shiver without her blanket. In fact, Laura realized, she felt surprisingly cold for being indoors. She grabbed her blanket and threw it back over herself.
A strange bumping noise echoed through her room again and again. Laura felt her heart go faster, and she strained her ear listening for it. For a few moments she sat still, not quite daring to move again. Then she realized that the noise was caused by the window, shaking in the wind. With a sigh of relief she left the warmth of her blanket and got up to close the window. That movement helped her mind to start working more clearly, and memories of the last evening emerged. She remembered opening the window to let some fresh air in, but she also, very clearly, remembered closing the window again after a few minutes.
Laura switched on the light and looked around in her room. At first look, everything seemed normal. Yet somehow, something wasn't right. When she looked closer, she discovered a few small dark patches on the floor between the window and her bed. She squatted down to observe them more closely. What she found was a bit of mud, some water, and a wet leaf, all of this arranged in the form of a slender, female foot, pointing at her bed. Her heart beating heavily, she looked around in the room once again, but there was no sign of an intruder. She was sure she was alone.
A strange idea appeared in her mind. Laura sat back down on the edge of her bed and lifted one of her legs to take a closer look at her own feet: Between her toes there was some mud, and the soles were dirty too, at the heel of one of her feet, stuck another brown, half-way decayed leaf.
*
Laura started being scared of falling asleep. She also was scared of being awake, though, and most of all, she was scared of going to school. The only route of escape, it seemed, lay in becoming sick. This, of course, was not a conscious decision, but rather one created by her subconscious. However, her body obeyed: Fever overwhelmed Laura, and when one morning her mother found her lying in bed shivering, her face glowing red, going to school was completely out of the question. Laura was dragged to the doctor, who could not find any reason for the girl's sudden sickness other than maybe the shock of the recent demise of two people she had known, and he couldn't do anything other than prescribe some drugs and order Laura to stay in bed for a few weeks.
So there she lay, wrapped tightly into her blanket, half awake and unbelievably tired, but struggling against sleep. This was, of course, a losing battle; again and again her eyes drooped and sleep overwhelmed her. However, Laura did not feel rested when she woke up -- just as she hadn't felt rested during the weeks before her sickness. In fact, her fever seemed to go up each time she slept for a few hours.
Laura's room, which she was confined to now, still looked like the home of a young girl. The walls were pink with the wallpaper she had chosen many years ago and the furniture that was more fitting for a child than for a young woman. However, it was home to her, and she had always felt happy here. There were worse places to spend the long weeks of her sickness.
Her parents entered her room a few times every day, to bring her a thermometer or a bowl of hot water so she could inhale the fumes, or some food or drink. Each time, they looked down at their daughter, their eyes full of sorrow. The doctor had not been able to answer their questions -- it was not clear why Laura was getting sicker and sicker. Her mother had gone to her daughter's school one day, on her way to work, to bring a note from the doctor to the secretary's office. In the hallway, she met Laura's English teacher, who started a conversation. This was a small town, people knew each other, thus the teacher had recognized right away, which student this mother belonged to, and had felt it her duty to inform the woman about the dramatic drop her daughter's performance had taken. After all, Laura had once been the best student in her English class. The mother listened calmly, and promised to have a serious talk with her child once Laura's health improved, but inwardly her worries increased. What was wrong with her daughter?
Laura was her only child, and she and her husband expected a lot from her, especially in what concerned her education. Both of them were convinced that their daughter had a bright future ahead of her, should she make be willing to invest the required energy -- and they wanted to make sure that she did. The longer Laura's fever persisted; however, the less important her school performance seemed to them. It was her health, maybe her very life, they feared for now.
Laura, in the meantime, kept trying to resist her urge to fall asleep. Whenever it happened after all, and she woke up again, she could not remember her dreams, but an uncomfortable feeling persisted, making her think that she must have had nightmares. Vague memories floated near the surface of her conscious, always just a bit too far to grasp them. She tried to concentrate on them, but just before they could take a recognizable shape, they disappeared. More and more often, however, she managed to wake up in the early hours of the morning, jumping up in her bed, her body sweaty as ever. Whenever this happened now, everything seemed to look exactly the same as it had in the evening -- no foot prints anywhere, and the window was always closed.
October was approaching its end, and when November started, it brought new storms and more bad weather. Laura was almost glad to be sick and in bed, instead of having to go outside every day into that horrible weather. However, being at home didn't protect her from catching a cold in addition to her fever, and thus she sneezed and coughed all day long. Only at night, when once again she succumbed to sleep, did her parents not hear her coughing.
*
It was Sunday evening, and once again Laura struggled against the urge to fall asleep. She had spent a few hours reading, but she was barely able to concentrate on the words anymore. Finally she put the book to the side, to focus just on staying awake. In the end, however, she had to succumb to her tiredness, but some hidden corner of her mind continued its resistance, and without being aware of it, she desperately tried to wake up again. This had happened before, but this night was different: Laura had felt stronger and healthier all day, and that physical strength gave her mind more strength. So this night, finally, she managed -- after a few hours, she suddenly jerked out of her sleep.
It took Laura a moment to even realize she was awake, and that it wasn't morning yet. Then, to her surprise, she saw that she was not sitting up in her bed, sweaty and with her heart beating rapidly, as was usually the case when she woke up. She was standing on her feet.
Laura's eyes needed a few moments to get used to the darkness around her, to take in the strange and unexpected surroundings. It was cold, she was shivering in her little night gown. Under her feet, there was a cold and muddy mix of rain, dirt and rotten leafs. Around her, tall trees towered into the night sky. She stood in the middle of the Grünenberg Forest, the forest surrounding Lake Leskow, and she believed to make out the lake's dark waters somewhere in the distance in between the trees. The wind was icy cold, and raindrops ran down Laura's face.
For a few moments, she stood still, paralyzed by the shock. Then she started screaming.
*
When Laura woke up again, she was lying in her bed. It felt as if not more than a few seconds had passed since she stood in the forest. She believed she could still hear the echo of her own scream. One look to the window, however, revealed that it was already morning. The sun was up, though hidden behind the gray clouds that obscured the sky most days this time of year. When she had been in the forest, it had been completely dark.
The thought that she must have dreamt occurred to Laura. It was a comforting thought, a thought she wished to give in to. However, the memory of the cold wind and the rain drops cutting into her skin like icy knifes was too real. The feel of the cold mud under her feet. The ominous creak of the tall trees. Laura doubted any dream could be quite that vivid. And she had never even been able to remember her dreams at all during the last weeks. Also, there was the matter of the open window and the muddy traces on her carpet a few weeks ago.
Laura jumped out of bed to squat down and search to the floor, before inspecting her feet. On first view, everything seemed normal. The soles of her feet were as clean as they should be, after her evening shower. When Laura looked more closely, however, she found some tiny remainders of mud between her toes. It looked as if she had wiped her feet, but hadn't done so thoroughly enough.
She was confused, wasn't sure what to make of this. After all, dirty feet did not prove much. And even if she had, indeed, been in the forest, what did that mean? Was she a sleep walker without ever having known it? Unsure how to proceed, Laura began to further inspect her own body -- first her upper body, moving down towards her legs. When she reached the small of her back, she jumped a bit: Touching her anus with her finger hurt. She was sore there, and the area around it felt slightly swollen.
The more Laura thought about it, the clearer she remembered that a few weeks ago she had felt a similar discomfort between her legs, as if her sex was a bit irritated and swollen, and that there had been a slight sting when she had to use the bathroom. With time, this problem had subsided and she had not thought much about it afterwards. So why would she remember this now? Somehow, Laura had the strange feeling that the two things were related. And yet, it all did not make sense...
*
Slowly, Laura's health started improving. She was not sure why she felt better. Maybe whatever was happening to her had stopped, or at least happened less frequently after that night she had woken up in the middle of the forest. Or maybe it was just her own wish to be healthy again that made her get better. She wanted to regain her strength, a strength she desperately needed if she wanted to figure out what was going on. She wanted to be able to think clearly, not see things through a feverish haze that made everything appear dark and mysterious.
During that stormy day in November, after realizing that something was happening to her, she had crawled back to bed and had been lying there all day wracking her brain. Her head had hurt, and her temperature had risen. She hadn't been quite sure if everything she was thinking might not, in fact, be due to a fantasy caused by her disease. But eventually, she had been able form a plan. A crazy plan, of course, but this was a crazy situation. She was sure that with a clear head, this plan might work to give her some answers. All she needed was to get well again, and so she did. Now that she was able to get out of bed and sit at her computer, she started putting this plan into action.
The first thing she did, when her parents allowed her to leave the warmth of her bed for half an hour a day -- not more, they warned, they did not want her to exhaust herself -- was a little search of internet sites that offered various electronic devices. Sitting in her computer chair, wrapped in blankets, next to her a hot cup of tea her mother had made, she quickly found what she needed: A small digital dictation machine with enough memory to record for several hours.
She could not afford to buy it from her own allowance, but Christmas was close -- Laura just had to find a way to convince her parents that this was what she wanted and needed. This was easier than expected -- they were glad to find their daughter without a fever and almost back to her old, lively self, joining them at the dinner table again a few evenings later. She even announced that she wanted to return to school as soon as this would be possible. The reason for this, Laura explained over the vegetable stew her mother had prepared this evening, was that she had decided on which career she wanted to pursue once she graduated. She wanted to become a journalist, a profession which was well within the range of suitable futures Laura's parents had envisioned for their child. The need of a dictation machine as a means with which to practice interviewing techniques was a logical conclusion.
Laura's father, usually a quiet man, was surprisingly talkative during this dinner. While the storm shook the bare branches of the trees in front of their kitchen window, the family shared a happy meal, Laura and her mother smiling as he named all big and reputable newspapers in the country, in which his daughter should try to do an internship during her time at university -- and maybe, with the help of some of his friends, who knew influential people, even already as a school student, during the next summer break, so she would have a head start in front of others, who might enter university with similar future plans. Laura, who so far had not seriously thought about a career in journalism -- after all, the only reason she had said so was because she needed an excuse to ask for that dictation machine -- got so caught up in his enthusiasm that she started wondering whether becoming a journalist might not really be the right future for her. She went to bed slightly exhausted, after all she was not used to spending meals at the table anymore, but very happy, and slept a deep and restful sleep that night.
*
Two weeks before Christmas, Laura returned to school. Her doctor offered to let her stay at home until after Christmas break, but Laura said she was in fact looking forward to leaving the house again, and besides, she did not want to fall too far behind the other students. Only very few of her classmates seemed to have noticed her absence. Laura had never been one of the most noticeable students; she had good grades but was quiet and had only a few friends. In the last years she had spent most of her time with Daniel and thus even her friends were not used to her hanging out with them. While this meant that now, without him, she was often alone even after her return from her sick-bed, it had the advantage of being able to settle back into her normal routine without having to answer too many questions about her sickness. A few teachers asked her how she was doing, of course, but they were happy with a cheerful but vague answer. Everything seemed back to normal.
When Laura entered the school on that very first day, however, she saw Daniel standing in the hall way with a few of his friends. He was glancing towards the door, maybe waiting for another of his class mates, just when Laura discovered him, and their eyes met. Daniel's expression changed, but Laura did not know how to interpret it. His eyes seemed even darker than usual and she believed to see something like fear in them -- or was it disgust? Then Daniel turned around and disappeared in the bustle of students on their way to their class rooms.
Laura, on the other hand, found herself unable to walk on. She had not seen him in many weeks, and now she realized that she had barely thought of him during that time either. The way he had looked at her, however, the short moment his dark eyes fixated her, made her stomach curl and her legs freeze to the spot she was standing on. This spot, of course, was not the most convenient location -- she stood right in the door frame, and more students swept into the building behind her, pushing her along and forcing her to come back to her senses. For a moment, Laura considered turning around. She could easily have claimed that she did not feel good and wanted to take her doctor up on his offer to give her another two weeks of sick leave. Finally, however, she decided that a return to her normal life was the best thing she could do.
Her legs still felt strangely weak, however, while she entered her class room and walked to the back, to her seat. She could not push the memory of Daniel's face out of her mind. Thus, it took her a while to notice that Martin seemed to not be attending class that day. Since she rarely had talked to him, other than on that first day of the school year, she did not think much about it. After all, with the weather of the last weeks she could not have been the only one who got sick. In fact, several seats in the class room remained empty.
*
Christmas came and passed without any noticeable events. Laura was in good shape again, her fever seemed long ago and forgotten. She enjoyed the rich Christmas meal her mother prepared, as every year, and felt a certain nostalgia celebrating with her family as she had done since her childhood. Her father, it seemed, had invested more than usual into the Christmas tree that year: It was huge, and beautifully grown, and her mother and Laura did their best to do it justice with the decorations. Somehow, each of them felt like they were repeating an old tradition for a last time: Laura was grown up now, and soon their family Christmases might cease to exist in this manner. If that was the case, they wanted to enjoy this one more than ever.
On the second day after Christmas, Laura and her parents went to Bavaria to visit an aunt and celebrate the New Year with her. This was another family tradition; they went there almost every year. Though most of Laura's friends preferred New Year's parties with a lot of loud music and even more alcohol, Laura always participated in the family journey without protest -- after all, this gave her an opportunity to go skiing, which was not possible in the flat area around Leskow that only saw a thin layer of snow in winter. Also, she had never been very interested in the kind of parties most of Leskow's youth seemed to prefer.
Laura had received the Christmas present she had asked for, along with a few books about Journalism and writing techniques -- however, by now she almost started doubting this Christmas wish had been necessary. Since that night in the forest nothing of the kind had happened anymore. She felt well rested every morning, and in the last two weeks of class before Christmas break she had had no trouble concentrating, and had managed to even out some of the previous bad grades with her performance in the newest tests and exams.
The fresh winter air in snowy Bavaria seemed to do her health good, Laura felt better every day. She all but forgot about her worries at home, and spent most of the day outdoors, in the beautiful nature that surrounded the village her aunt had moved to seven years earlier. As it was Christmas break, some of the younger inhabitants of the village spent their days skiing as well, of course with a lot more skill than Laura, but they were friendly and patient in teaching her. She knew most of them from previous visits, but to her surprise more than one of the boys seemed to receive the news of her break-up with Daniel with great interest: Laura was not used to being courted, but she enjoyed the situation though none of the boys was really her type, nor did she have much interest in a long distance relationship. Still, during the week in the South she felt almost as calm and happy as she had before her birthday.
***
Martin returned to school on the first day of class in the New Year. When Laura entered the class room that Monday morning -- as every Monday, the day started with math -- she saw him sitting on his spot, in the back of the room, by the window. He looked up as Laura walked toward him, and when he saw her, a smile crossed his round face. Automatically, Laura smiled back, though she could not stop herself from thinking just how false and unlikeable his smile looked. Like something that did not belong onto Martin's face. Despite these thoughts, she was surprised. Martin did not tend to smile very often. When she sat down, his smile had vanished already, and he had resumed staring down onto some scratch marks on his desk with a vacant expression.
