In The Other Wes Moore, what dream does Wes realize isn’t going to happen for him and what causes him to come to this realization?

Wes dreams of leaving the military school that his mother has sent him to. One night, at midnight, he sneaks out of Wheeler Hall, his residence building at the school, with his night bag, some hand-written directions, "a flashlight, a few changes of clothes, and a granola bar."
He tries to make his way to the train station, and from there, back home, but he soon gets lost in a forest. He begins to panic as he realizes that he has lost his bearings. He imagines hearing snakes and bears all around him. He eventually gives up, sits down on a rock and starts to cry.
It is as this point that he admits defeat. He says that he had "never wanted anything more in (his) life than to leave that school." However, lost in the forest, alone and afraid, he realizes that "it (is) not going to happen."
At this point in the story, he hears laughter behind him. The men in his chain of command emerge from the darkness and he realizes that the directions he had been given by Sergeant Austin were fake. Sergeant Austin had deliberately given him directions which would take him to this spot, in the middle of the forest.