Amanda Sharpe, the student.

Trees. Tall, looming trees covered in dark-green leaves, no...black? A forest, thick and oppressive, surrounds you. Suffocating. Their branches reach out to caress your skin, touching you gently, making you gasp and shudder in pleasure as each leaf brushes against you. You realize you are naked amongst the trees, dancing wildly, speaking in alien tongues. And you are not alone.

"...Sharpe?"

The images fade, petering through the screen of reality one by one, until you're left with the dull, gray-brown of your school's faculty offices.

"Amanda Sharpe. I do hope you're here to do more than just daydream and drool at the side of your mouth. If I wanted someone to do that, I would have brought my wife." An older gentleman dressed in a tweed suit says to you.

You flush a little, and wipe the side of your mouth. "I'm sorry, Professor Talhousie. I guess its been a long day."

He snorts, and looks away. You quickly rearrange the stack of tests in front of you, and resume marking them.

You are Amanda Sharpe, a 24-year old Caucasian woman, with short, blond hair, a small nose pinched by your half-inch thick glasses, and a face that's about ten years too young for your body. The same can be said about the rest of your body, being 4'5", skinny as a reed, and practically no breasts to speak about.

You're in your first year at Miskatonic University, doing your Masters in Ancient History. You wouldn't call yourself a history buff, but you've found there to always be something alluring about the ancient. Something locked and mysterious about what history has told about them. The way they survived for thousands of years unchanged, and how they survive today through textbooks and moldy records. It feels almost as if they're sleeping, just waiting for the right moment to surge back into greatness.

You glance at your watch. 6:40 PM. Twenty minutes.

"Sorry I couldn't finish with the grading today, Professor Talhousie," You say, cleaning up the tests and stacking them next to another pile of indiscernible papers, "but it's time for my shift at work now."

"Yes yes, don't let me stop you." He says, waving you away, "but I don't want to see this kind of lax behavior again.

"I'm sorry, Professor. I've just been having bad dreams. And bad sleep too, I guess."

"Dreaming, are we?" He says idly. You think he has already forgotten about you, but you feel the need to keep explaining yourself.

"It's silly, but I keep dreaming of a black forest." You tell him, "In it, the trees are packed together so tight that they look more like a single, heaving mass then a forest."

The older man freezes in his spot. He glaces sideways at you, like he's trying to judge your reaction.

"Black...forest?" Professor Talhousie, repeats your words, slowly. He sounds more curious than he should be.