# A Dream Beyond the Scores

I woke up feeling confused from the dream. After the contestation of the Romanian language national evaluation test, my score had dropped from an 8 to a 7. My mother was worried, not understanding why it had happened because when we looked closely at my work, it was obvious the correct score should have been higher than 8. But in the end, the number didn't matter.

Later, I found myself walking through the halls of Goldfels Highschool. The name sounded familiar as it was named after Gunther Aarons, also known as Abraham Goldfels, the founder of the anti-surveillance Thought group in the game Orwell: Keeping an Eye on You, a game I had actually played. This school was different, with huge rooms, benches spaced wide apart, cream-colored walls that seemed to soak up the light, and staircases supported by only slender pillars, leaving open air where walls should have been.

I took my seat and barely had time to prepare before the first test was handed out. It wasn't just any test, it was the Baccalaureate, the final exam. But how could I possibly take it? I hadn't even started high school yet. The questions blurred into shapes, abstract and ungraspable.

Around me, the other students seemed just as lost, yet strangely distant. I tried to reach out, to connect, but their laughter and voices revealed a maturity even less developed than my own.

And then, just like that, the dream ended.