"All I remember was feeling alone as I hid in my room and cried because everyone was mad at me!" Martha Reed shrieked as she recounted her latest nightmare to three of her best friends at lunch. Two of her friends, Christina and Zani, stared at her with concern, while her other friend, Jean, cackled loudly.

    "They were mad at you?!" Jean, a small girl with long, dark hair, laughed loudly as she stared incredulously at her friend, "That was the problem?"

    "Y-yes it was..." Martha trailed off embarrassedly, her cheeks heating up as she realized how foolish she sounded. She could tell that Christina and Zani believed it too.

    "That dream wasn't so bad," Christina condescended, her blonde ponytail falling neatly on her back.

    But Zani couldn't take it. She fell into a fit of laughter, only to lose control and fall onto the table, her curly black hair sticking every which way. With permission from Jean, Zani laughed harder than anyone else there.

    Martha was beyond embarrassment; she couldn't face her three supposed best friends. She quickly cleaned up her lunch before jumping up from the table. "I'll show you funny!" she growled before running to the safety of the library.

    As she hid in the library shelves, she couldn't help but fume. Jean embarrassed her when she was trying to be honest about her feelings. Jean knew that Martha was already an anxious wreck when it came to her emotions, and yet she pushed her over the edge.

    Jean was going to pay.

    As Jean walked through the halls of River Fork Middle School the next morning - late, as usual - things felt off. Sure, students fooled around in the hallways as they attempted to skip class, some blowing white smoke from their lips as they talked to their friends like they always did, but the atmosphere still felt different.

    As she walked, she sensed a hazy distortion of the world around her. A light fog dampened the mood as the usually bright lights dimmed to near darkness. Most of the light came from the windows.

    Now she knew something was wrong.

    Quickly, she rushed to her locker, hoping to rid herself of her books and rush to the safety of homeroom. She frantically shoved her books into the tiny storage area; her mind focused on the chilling breeze that now blew through the room, creating goosebumps wherever it touched. She didn't care about the mess her locker became as loose papers flew out of her binders and creased unsatisfyingly.

    Soon, she had enough books that she could confidently slam her locker shut. As soon as she did, she hugged her binders closely to her chest and ran like her life depended on it.

    When she got into the hallway, she froze. The usually bustling hall filled with boisterous children was now empty and dead silent. The only sound came from her thundering footsteps. She paused, moving silently as she peered around corners.

    "This is so freaky..." Jean whispered to herself as she rubbed her frozen arms to generate friction.

    Suddenly, she heard an evil cackle boom through the hallway. She screamed when she heard it, and ran as fast as she could toward her classroom. The cackle sounded like the signature laugh of a bully who loved to do terrible evil clown impersonations, but she couldn't risk being wrong.

    Finally, Jean reached her first-period social studies classroom. She sighed a breath of relief when she saw its familiar blue door, praying that it was left unlocked like normal. But when she tried the handle, it merely jiggled in place; it didn't budge.

    The door was locked.

    Of course, on the one day she needed it open, the door wouldn't move. She panicked as she heard the cackle rip through the air once again, causing her to struggle more feverishly with the door as her heart pounded in her chest and her hands began to shake. She twisted the doorknob as she banged on the door as hard as she could, pleading for the other side to open up. But no matter how hard she tried, the door wouldn't open.

    Another cackle ripped through the air, this time louder and closer than before. Jean was beyond scared as she jiggled the doorknob as hard and as quickly as she possibly could.

    Then, a miracle happened. The doorknob turned with ease, and Jean could see the brightly lit classroom on the other side. Jean released a breath she didn't realize she had been holding as she bounded into the class.

    But as soon as she stepped over the threshold, she felt a flexible, invisible forcefield block her path. The thin material, however, was no match for her speed as she fell into it, breaking the barrier as she crashed onto the cold, hard floor.

    Before she could collect herself, two large buckets of a light, white substance fell onto her, covering her from head to toe. Soon after, she felt a few thumps on her back followed by a cold, dripping sensation. She looked up to see cracked egg shells lying on her. But the worst was when a snake fell on top of her.

    "NO!" Jean screamed as she pushed the snake off of her and rushed to the other side of the classroom, only to notice that the snake was not moving. As she realized her idiocy, she heard the laughter of over twenty children.

    She had been pranked.

    Clingwrap in the doorway, buckets of whipped cream strung up on the door, flying eggs, fake snakes, all classic pranks. Still, Jean couldn't contain her blush as the teenagers relentlessly laughed at her outrageous appearance.

    "I can't believe that worked, Martha!" Brittany, the most popular girl in school, squealed as she high-fived an ecstatic Martha, "You sure did have some great ideas."

    Was Martha in on this?

    "You did this?" Jean gasped as a wave of betrayal crashed over her.

    "Girl, with how mean you've been recently, any one of us would've happily done it," Abria, the class clown, shot back through the giggles, "You made fun of Martha for her honesty, and you punched James when he asked you out the other day!"

    "I didn't hit him that hard-" Jean countered.

    "You insulted me when I asked for your help in science the other day!" her science fair partner, Austin, joined in, successfully cutting her off.

    "I was only joking, of course, I would've helped-" Jean explained.

    "You recorded that embarrassing video of Ryan dancing, and posted it all over social media!" her ex-boyfriend, Jacob, hissed, "Everyone's making fun of him now."

    "He knew I was doing it, I thought he was okay with it-" she defended.

    "I lost ten points from my English project because you turned off my computer when I was working," Jimmy, an outcast, whined from behind everyone else, "And Mrs. Williams sent me out for it too!"

    "I've felt so bad about that for forever!" Jean apologized, "I'm so sorry-"

    The entire class formed a small circle around her as they continued yelling about the ways she had wronged them. She couldn't bear to witness their angry expressions as she stood around awkwardly with whipped cream and raw egg dripping off of her body.

    Everyone was angry at her, just like in Martha's dream...

    She realized how awful it was to feel so isolated from everyone else, to have everyone hating her for what she thought was her sarcastic, quirky personality. She thought people found her bluntness funny and refreshing. But they didn't.

    Unfortunately for her, this humiliation was a nightmare from which she wouldn't wake up.