I was outside. The sky was orange and there were very few clouds. There was a bird in my hair, and I asked it to leave. Two things: I can't see my hair because of how short it is. That is if I were looking at the world from my own eyes. The other thing is, I was. My brain and eyes were detached from the rest of my body. I watched as I walked away, and I was left behind. But then I woke up. I kept having these dreams for a month and a half. That's what I thought, until I woke up in the hospital. My mom and dad were eating pie, sitting beside me. Their faces were grey and icy blue. The room smelled of rotting flesh and there was a nurse filling out documents and mumbling something about the time and date of a death, that being 5:44 AM on March 12th, 2025. My mom and dad eat pie when they're mourning a death. I’m dead, I thought. "No," the nurse replied out loud. My parents' faces grew into flowers along with the nurses. "Not anymore." They started to surround me but it got to a point where they were getting too close and I had to run. I ran out of the building, off the property and into ongoing traffic. Everything slowed down until it stopped and I seemed to be the only one aware, as unaware and confused as I was. I kept running and my parents and the nurse kept chasing me. Eventually I lost them over the edge of a cliff. This is weird. I began to sink into the ground, going down until I couldn’t see anything. I came back up three hours later, into some sort of special place. An empty body, faceless and gray, offered me a bowl of food. Beans. He didn’t answer when I tried to decline, so I couldn’t. I started to sink again and the food just stayed in front of me. Where am I? I wondered. “You are an idol,” A voice replied. “You will stay in this temple until you are not.” “I am not an idol,” I cried. No response. Hours and hours passed and all I could think about was the food. I didn’t know if I could eat it, but it was in front of me and I couldn’t resist it. But when I tried to move my hand it wasn’t there. I couldn’t feel it or see it, along with my other one. “Am I a statue?” I asked. My voice echoed a long way until I got a response by the same voice that talked earlier. “No. You are an idol.” It’s confusing. What makes me an idol? Why? I start to rise out of the ground again, into the same temple I did earlier. Somehow, I accepted the offerings from thirty one people. They just stayed in front of me, and I sank again. I didn’t even stop moving until I started again, but this time I came up into a warm, moist hole. I was in… a mouth. The same voice said, “You’re not going to be swallowed.” “Did you eat me?” I asked. “No,” they said. “You’re gone. Only the slightest in touch.” What does that mean? I began to sink again, and I came up into the middle of a desert. There was a tortoise and it was super windy. Sand blew all around but I could only feel the wind, not the sand. I felt like a cactus myself. Unable to move, just watching the dry dead desert. I stood there for five hours. When it got dark, I fell over. I sank into the ground again. I floated up to the surface and my eyes opened. I sat up and I was on my bed. Not in the hospital. The sky out my window was blue. There was a bird. My mom and dad were eating pie, sitting beside me. Their faces were grey and icy blue. The room smelled of rotting flesh. My mom and dad eat pie when they're mourning a death.
