__________________________________________________
Before I could pry my eyes, a familiar scent entered my nostrils. The odour was responsibly arousing me from my slumber, and little did I know that I had returned in my world.
The soft texture runs through my fingers and touches my bare skin. I am confident enough that the space I am lying in is not the wonted bed I know. To visualise what was inside my mind, I open my eyes and discern the cleaned and stained white walls surrounding me. At my side, I could spot an intravenous line used inside hospitals, particularly beside a hospital bed. Even a machine which is continuously beeping every three seconds, validates my claim that I am indeed a patient that needs some special care of some sort.
Suddenly, a man dressed in a white laboratory coat, which made him very respectable as a health practitioner, enters the room with haste. His eyes began thoroughly studying me and even amazed about my awakened figure.
I did not know how or what notified him to come inside my room, but the chiming bell flickering above the door immediately answered and fathomed my puzzling game.
"Ms. Feley?" The doctor called.
Startled, I shifted my head over to his direction and steadily nodded to his question. Heaving out a sigh of relief, the physician places his documents beside me and assesses a physical examination at my body.
He first uses a penlight needed to check whether my eyes are correctly dilating. Afterwards, the man asks me several procedures to move my body, particularly my fingers and limbs, to distinguish anything abnormal. By the time the results came positive, he once more releases a relieved sigh and sits at the vacant chair by the side of my bed.
"There is nothing wrong about your body," The clinician looks at me in the eye with baffled expressions. "However, this is really a bizarre thing that happened-"
His sentence was abruptly cut off and ignored by a nurse sprinting inside the room. After wiping the dripping sweat running across her forehead, the attendant calls out for the doctor's attention and shows an envelope and some papers inside.
"Is that so?" The doctor replied. With no seconds to waste, he picks himself up and strides outside of my room.
Prior to leaving my crippled self behind, the doctor turns his face around and meets me in the eyes for the last time.
"You need not worry about the expenses of this hospital. It's a good thing that your parents have delivered a large sum of funds to accommodate you inside this private bed-space. If it was not for that, then-"
"Doctor!" The nurse cried
"I know." He returns his focus at the bright hallway and heads over to his destination, leaving me alone yet again in the room.
___________________________________________________________
Exhausted and weary, I slouch myself onto the sofa and open the television to check the latest trends or news. But, with all honesty, I just wanted to clear my head with a third party noise buzzing inside the living room.
I am afraid of suddenly sleeping and transported back to that awful nightmare. With that thought still lingering in my brain, I refused to doze off and continued to watch whatever offered by the television shows.
"How did my parents get the chance to pay the bills while they're out cold in the open?" I asked myself while chewing the leftovers from the chips that I stored inside the basket. It wasn't much to satisfy my hunger, but enough to comfort my anxious mind.
Having no one to talk to, I sit up straight and begin thinking of any potential outcome that I may be trapped and placed inside that distorted world re-iteratively. I also recall some prominent evidence that had happened a while back. It was, especially, the advantage that I have concerning the weapon equipped with me.
My hand unhurriedly fidgets inside my pocket and found an object. The item was resting and appeared just now, but was absent during the stay from the hospital.
Demented, I gaze unto the unbarred window and watch the trees whistling in the night. The flapping of some lost birds and bats outside also accompanied and produced the sounds.
"What in the world is happening with my life," I whispered while digesting the last potato chip inside my mouth and starting longing for something to drink.
Hydrated, I walked inside my kitchen and found the half-full water dispenser waiting to be drained and used. Thus, I took my favourite cup and poured the freshwater inside while blankly staring at the waterfall. Soon after, the metallic spatula in one of my cabinets plummeted directly to my head. With the pain pulsating on top of my head, my consciousness fades away and hauls me over to the astral world.
___________________________________________________
A mixture of agony and discomfort runs straight into my veins, leaving no cells unattended by the pain. Despite the sensation crisping my cell, I grit my teeth and patiently wait for what was about to happen in this realm.
Eventually, I force my eyes to open and discern the world around me, hoping that I was transferred and placed to a dull and secluded location. Albeit the horrifying withered weeds and cracks enveloping the ground, no ghastly beings welcomed my appearance. Only the echoing sound of my voice and the silence of the environment are present in the scene.
However, that blissful moment was hastily disrupted and became a more dreadful experience.
"Why can't I even have a brief break!" I cursed the surrounding space, thinking that I was the most unfortunate girl living in the town. But, then again, I am still alive and well, wishing that I can survive every trial thrown at me risking nothing in return.
I study the twirling twister hovering ahead of me. The feather-weight leaves and pebbles were unluckily caught from the storm, making the tornado more violent as it grows. It was a good thing that I positioned myself outside of its dangerous zone, as I continue to walk away in a panicky manner.
I gaze from left to right, searching for anything I can grab onto to maintain my shaking balance. Despite my efforts, the plains can only offer weak and rotten grass that mixes with the whirlwind in front of me, leaving me defenceless and vulnerable. Still, I place all of my weight down to my legs and pray to any deity that I can remember in order to protect my frail soul.
As if my prayers have been heard and heeded, the dust devil stops in its tracks. It then leisurely reveals the figure trapped inside. I checked my surroundings once more ensuring, myself that it was safe to have a look.
I crept in and peaked closer to find out the mysterious shadow figure at the centre of the gale.
"What in the world are you?" I asked myself out loud while standing still and studying the floating orb. It was not an orb, to begin within the first place. Rather than just a circle thing, it was a humanoid eye that can discern with none of its parts attached.
Suddenly, the bulging eyeball blinked while continuing to stare at my petrified figure. Even the veins surrounding the edges are crafted to perfection as if it was taken off and dissected from humankind, but alive and floating in mid-air.
I have seen a lot of monsters lately more or less a goblin and the horrid ghosts. Discerning a levitating optic of some sort is not new to things I had already discovered, let alone beings that wanted to kill me.
"Are you friendly," I asked, not wanting to anger or be a part of the creature's affairs.
As if the mysterious orb understands what I said, the obsidian pupil instantly gapes to my direction and studies me and my quavering voice.
It was what I had expected from the eye, in which it did not respond to my questions. However, the eyeball shifts its position and glances over to the right, unto the open fields with fewer weeds and more land.
Uncertain of what it wants me to do, I asked the optic again-this time walking in closer to the sclera (the white particles of the eye).
"Do you wish for me to go there?"
I waited for a moment and observed whether this piece of an organ would react to what I had quizzed. Miraculously, it did and showed signs of intelligence of recognising English words by straightforwardly moving its pupils up and down in a nodding fashion.
Acknowledging its actions, I headed over to the location where the eyeball had guided me. I wanted to, at least, have an assurance that the area was safe. But I guess that a suspended orb cannot provide me with those answers.
By the time I arrived at the specific place where the eyes had taken me, I was greeted and welcomed with nothing but the acrid air and the mushy ground. I glimpse over to my shoulder and spot the orb fluttering over to my side. Soon, its pupils quickly move and check the surrounding environment, hinting that everything was going according to its plan.
Letting out a sigh, I cover my nostrils and kneel to get a better look at the floor below me. Besides from the dark and amber flooring, I see a pair of bones and furs that did not belong to any familiar animals that I know.
"What kind of creature is this?" I question myself while gazing over to the stretching corpse of what seems to be an enraged squirrel of some sort, but has more terrifying features.
The carcass indicates four sharp claws at each finger and canine teeth, which supposedly belongs to a wolf. But the enormous wood-like hue coming from its tail assured me it belongs to none other than the ground squirrels.
I immediately look at the afloat eyeball and gasp at the sudden turn of events in the blank meadow. I can never expect that I was alone in this world, and this nightmare alone will leave me alone in peace.
And I am damn right about it.