Chris, male, student, 21

And it's no wonder that your brain needs rest, considering that you've spent most of the day studying advanced mathematics. Astrophysics, specifically. It's technically an elective course for you, but you know that getting the math and science credits now will make your Master's degree that much easier later.

These are the things you keep telling yourself as your head aches and your limbs feel sluggish in that way they do when you've just spent hours studying. The image of the woman stroking two men is completely gone from your mind. You have other things to worry about. Truth be told, you're just grateful that there's only one more stop to go before your own, and then you can crash on the couch that your roomate has been subletting you for cheap. You know it's not much, but you save plenty, which just makes the money you've saved up for tuition stretch that much further.

Your stressing and calculations are interrupted by the sensation of someone sitting next to you. You turn to look, just as a matter of observation, but there's no one there. You close your eyes and try to feel your surroundings without moving. A psychology course you took a few semesters ago helped you figure out that sleep deprivation could mess with someone's kinesthetic sense, or one's ability to sense the space around oneself. Recalibrating it was something to distract yourself until you could get back to the couch. Oddly enough, you keep feeling like there's someone sitting next to you, and like they're starting to lean towards you. You turn to look, but when you open your eyes, there's no one there.

Suddenly, you feel the sensation of someone touching your face, and you abruptly stand up. The insistence that you keep giving yourself that it must be because you haven't slept for more than 5 hours consecutively in a week is starting to wear thin. You hang onto the metro's dirty handle with one hand as you carefully touch the part of your face that you thought you felt fingers on. Nothing seems out of the ordinary, and when you withdraw your fingers to examine them, they're just normal. You look at the seat you were sitting in. You decide that it might be some sort of hypnogogic hallucination, and resolve to remain standing, to avoid falling back asleep.

Just as you try to put the matter out of your mind for good, you feel a hand grope your rear. It cups the bottom curve of your buttocks and squeezes, as if measuring the suppleness of your butt. You yelp and turn around, and see nothing but your fellow passengers, all of whom are too far away to have groped you. Some of them are looking your way, though, and you sheepishly look away, hoping that you didn't bother them.

The train starts to pull up to the stop before yours, and you debate getting off and just walking the rest of the way. You look towards the doors, which begin to show the platform for the next stop, when you feel the sensation of someone putting a hand on your belly. You stifle another yelp and recoil, falling into your seat as the decelleration of the train puts you off balance. You grab your overfull bookbag from the seat next to you and put it on your lap, your reason fraying. You don't know what it was, but the hand to your stomach felt vaguely... sexual. You had no idea what to make of this. Maybe your subconscious is trying to tell you something?

You curl around your bag as the train stops. The lights flicker a little, and between flashes of light, you think you see someone sitting next to you out of the corner of your eye. You look over, thinking nothing of it, but your stress increases when there's no one there. You hold your bag tightly, as if holding on to something will keep you sane. It feels like forever before the doors close and the metro begins rumbling again towards your stop.

You're stressing and shivering when you feel another hand on your back, making small downward strokes. You recognize that the sensation should be calming, but it's anything but. You curl slightly tighter around your bag and stifle a whimper. Is it that woman you saw? Some sort of ghost? If so, what could it want? Or maybe all of the stress from graduating high school at 16 and putting yourself through college from then until now is finally breaking you. But you couldn't exactly stay with your mom, considering...

You feel the hand continue stroking your back as the lights flicker again, this time for an extended period. You see something again out of the corner of your eye and look over and finally get a half-second's good look at whatever it is. It looks like a woman, maybe in her 20s, and she's looking directly into your eyes. She's wearing some sort of gold jewelry, but she vanishes amongst the flickering lights before you can make out what it is. Even to your inexperienced mind, she was devastatingly beautiful.

That thought doesn't make you feel better, but at least you know for sure that you're going crazy. It feels like absolutely forever before your stop comes up. No sooner has the train reached a complete stop than your bag is slung over your shoulder and you're bolting through the barely-open doors.

You slump against your apartment's front door, panting. It wasn't that far, but you ran the whole way. Taking a deep breath, you take out your key and unlock the door, making a beeline for the couch. Your roomate, Ashley, is sitting on it, looking vaguely uncomfortable, but the image barely registers in your mind before you drop you bag on the floor, careful to be gentle, and flop down on the couch next to her.

"Hey, loser. Did you get my rent money yet?" You groan and look at Ashley, observing her grumpy expression.

"I thought I paid you last week?"

"Yeah, but now I want next month's rent." You sigh and lean forward, rifling through your bag. This isn't out of character for Ashley, but you put up with it for the cheap rent. Hard to beat two digits.

You hand her a wad of rumpled bills that you're too tired to count and say, "Consider the excess an advance on the month after next."

You put away your bag and lean back onto the couch, closing your eyes.

You hear Ashley counting the money and wait for her to go away. She knows that you're exhausted, but that's never stopped her from acting entitled before. You hear her huff and stand up, and begin to walk away. You stretch out horizontally on the couch and try to go to sleep, hoping that your mind will be back to normal when you wake up. You're honestly just grateful to have no obligations tomorrow, so you can sleep in. You can always deal with homework later.

It's not long before you're finally ****.