Nia Winters woke up on a wide, wonderful meadow. As far as her eyes could reach, there was only nature. It felt almost alien for her, being the only object in the entire scenery that seemed decidedly out of place. She slowly got up from the soft, grassy ground where she must have fallen asleep, looking around sleepily. The girl immediately realized where she was, she had been here many times before. Behind her grandparents old farm, there were endless grassy fields and light vegetation, barely worth being called forests. Still a little disoriented, she stood up, brushing off some grass that sticked to her back from lying down for so long. She didn't quite remember if she lied down to take a nap in the first place, or if she fell asleep by accident while indulging in the nostalgia of this place and the beauty of untouched nature. This was by no means unusual for the girl, being a little drowsy after waking up. Being a commited student had taken its toll on her and messed up her sleeping schedule more than she enjoyed, which in turn made these episodes more frequent as of late. Convinced that the drowsyness would dissipate, she took a few uneasy, bare-feet steps and enjoyed the feeling of grass that had grown naturally for decades. The slightest breath of wind gently played with her almost waist-long hair. She closed her eyes again, savoring the moment before she had to return to the farm.

And then the wind stopped. The birds chirping moved into the distance. The cicadas ended their quiet concert. The entire meadow fell into perfect silence. Nia opened her eyes again, confused. She looked at the cloudless sky, no feathers to be seen. She stared at the motionless trees, no leaf moving in the slightest. The quiet was overwhelming, and herself clearing her throat felt almost deafening against the vast absence of sound, so much that it scared her a little. Confusion turned into concern. Concern turned into worry. 
And then she felt it. Felt something moving, faint at first but definite and real. It was in the trees. It was in the grass, in the earth, in the small streamlet to her right. It was inside herself and in the air. Like pressure shifting. Everything was bracing for something, like the human body braces before a certain, inevitable impact. Nia covered her ears, as if to protect them from an impending sound that'd break the veil of silence.

"[b]...Miss Winters![/b]"

Nia woke with a start when the nice old lady from behind the library desk touched her shoulder, calling her name. Her heart was racing and she flinched away from the woman, again disoriented and perplexed. The book she had rested her arms and head on slipped off the table during this motion, producing a loud thud as it hit the wooden floor.

"You need to get some sleep, dear. In a bed, not on top of your work." 

The lady offered her an empathetic smile, since she knew how much time the girl had spent in here over the course of the last weeks. More time than at home. 

"We're about to close." She added. "I'm sorry to wake you like this. Take your time packing your stuff... shouldn't finals be over by now anyway?"

Nia packed her notes in a hurry, avoiding the last question with a muttered apology, escaping eye contact. The woman didn't press the matter. She felt for the exhausted girl but knew there wasn't much she could do. "Just leave the books, I'll take care of it."

She nodded thankfully, grabbed her one-strap backpack and was about to dart off, as the librarian called for her again. "You forgot a note." Nia stopped in her tracks, thinking very hard for a second before turning around again. "Must be from someone else..." she started, as she was certain not to have removed anything from the notepad in her backpack. "Are you sure? Looks like your handwriting to me." The old lady held a piece of paper in front of Nia that definitely was written by her. Surprise made her forget about the question where the woman had learned to distinguish her handwriting, but the urge to leave was greater than her curiosity, and so she took the note from the smiling old librarian. After thanking her briefly, she finally made her exit, out on the nightly streets of NYC. She quickly forgot about the note stowed away into the left pocket of her jacket. Until two streetcars and a cup of cheap noodles later. In the safety of her tiny, cramped apartment, Nia remembered the note and finally sat down to actually look at it. There wasn't much written on the paper, just a date, a time and a location, but clearly she wrote this. Coincidentally, it happened to be [b]Central Park, 9p.m. tomorrow[/b]. She tried to remember why she wrote that down for the entirety of half a minute, when realization hit her that she couldn't even recall what book she fell asleep on. Nia decided that the old lady was right - she had to sleep. Barely managed to brush her teeth before passing out half dressed on top of her bed.

Thankfully, the nightmare from the her unvoluntary nap didn't return. After sleeping half the day away, that note bugged Nia for several hours. The option to return to the library [i]again[/i] and ask what book she had borrowed last night didn't seem very attractive, it was awkward enough to get caught like that. But she could for the life of hers not recall what that was about. It didn't fit into anything else she wrote down yesterday. It just made no sense. Was she to meet someone there? Unlikely. Even if she had forgotten all about an appointment like that, who would meet up with her? And at that time and place? It was driving her crazy. In the end there was probably just one way to find out. Even if it turned out to be nothing, she could still have a nice stroll through the nightly Central Park...

And so Nia Winters arrived at the scene. Dressed in a plain, dark gray mantle that made her blend in neatly with the dim lighting, she breathed in the refreshing night air and slowly strolled through the park, with no clear goal and no expectations. However, not without a spark of hope either.