Past Life Resurfaced

I met Kayla Hergert in the library on campus. Except it wasn’t the library on campus. I was dreaming. It was late, somewhere around 10:30, and I was sitting at a table reading some unknown volume. Next to me was a group of students I did not recognize. Until she appeared, like a ship gliding quietly through a bank of fog. She was wearing a yellow shirt, tight blue jeans. Her hair was the same as I had remembered it ten years ago, though it didn’t seem out of date or obsolete. She recognizes me and approaches. Oddly, we don’t hug, we don’t exchange any dialogue. Instead we leave the library and return to her place, motivated by unresolved attraction. I know we talk along the way, but not about anything important or worthwhile. We drive to her house, in her car. I remember now that we talked briefly about the last time we met. Tenth grade. She drove me through the school parking lot to my car. I tell her I remember that I was wearing a brown Beastie Boys shirt. I don’t remember what she was wearing.
We get to her place, go inside. She turns on a dim lamp, one that does little more than suggest the interior of the small apartment. She puts her things down on the couch, which is situated immediately to the right of the door. She puts her things down and walks off into some dark corridor. I’ll be right back, she says.
I stand, awkward, next to the couch, attempting to make out the geography of the living room. After a few minutes I hear the faint footsteps of bare feet on carpet and turn to see her emerge out of the dark, the pale orange glow from the lamp soaked into her skin. She is naked, her hands at her sides, eyes reflecting the lamp as though it were a candle and not a light bulb. She bites her lower lip, cracks a half smile and turns around, sinks into the black hallway. I know this is a dream, but I follow her anyway. I leave the lamps orange orb and plunge into darkness. Soon I realize that I’m lost. I call out her name.
Before me is a maze of equally black hallways, their presence suggested by doorways of pure darkness. I call out her name. It’s cold. I hear her voice, a warm whisper in my ear. She calls my name. Her breath thaws my frigid neck and I turn, expecting to find her in front of me. She isn’t there. I’m immediately pulled out the maze by my ankle, like a rabbit caught in a snare or a calf lassoed. I claw the ground, for purchase. My nails dig into the floor. I feel a cavernous abyss approaching and I know that I’m about to be pulled into oblivion. When I reach the edge I thrust my hand out in a desperate attempt to grab hold of something, anything, to stop my fall. I feel her, feel her hand grab mine, feel her fingers interlock with mine, feel those fingers slip through mine like snakes through grass. I fall.