A Dream by Noon.

CHAPTER 18.

Chapter 18. 

I peaked over the door quickly. "Who are you?" I asked, barely more than a whisper. Afraid to hear my own voice out loud in this place. Worried that would somehow make this real.

"Samantha. Open the door and I'll explain. No one here is going to hurt you." She said, her voice so smooth, so easy.

I paused again, with no intention of opening the door, but stepped away, backing into the corner and didn't stop her when she turned the knob and let herself in.

The woman walked into my room and stood there, staring at me, waiting for something. I'm not sure what I had expected out of my own imagination but I guess I was expecting a monster of some sort.... Some kind of witch maybe in this old hospital dream. Not her. She was small. Shorter than me, and beautiful, with long dark hair and deep rich colored skin. She was much older than me, but also didn't show it. I just knew it to be true. The same way that I knew something about her was just slightly inhuman.

Her appearance in my room caught me off guard. I stared back, waiting for her next move. Her mouth slowly turned into a small smile and she gestured for me to sit on the bed. Instead, I backed up further, using the wall for support and eyed the rest of the room quickly for exits.

"Samantha. It's okay. You don't have to be afraid." She said, her voice catching me off guard once again.

"What is this? Where am I?" I asked, nervous to receive any answers.

She tilted her head, as if to think about the question before answering. "You're in the Ama Mit'awi." She waited as if seeing if I would have a reaction to her response. Her words that meant nothing. "The place of no time." She continued.

The part of my brain that recognized this was still a dream wanted to keep asking questions, see how far I could take it. But the other side, the side that was logically trying to sequence the events leading up to this, knew this was not like any dream I had ever had. Quickly, remembering what every movie had taught me, I dug my fingernail into my arm, and felt immense relief when I felt nothing.

She watched what I had done and smiled wider, then almost sympathetically. "You cannot feel pain here, Samantha."

"I know. That's because I'm dreaming." I told her.

"No." she said, quietly, firmly. "It's not." She waited for my reaction. As she did, she tilted her head ever so slightly, as if listening for something that I couldn't hear, and then almost as if she received an acknowledgement from somewhere else, a slight nod then looked back at me curiously. I was able to watch her more closely now, my fear subsiding at my discovery. She continued to speak, disregarding my silence. "You're in the place. The place where things go, when we don't know where they went."

The hell does that mean?

"I'm sure you are confused Samantha. It would only make sense." She went on.

"I'm not confused. This is a dream and dreams are weird." I said, flatly.

She nodded slowly and continued to smile at me. I looked into her giant brown eyes, her smile, trying to see what it was about her face that was making me feel so uneasy even though it was a dream, but couldn't.

She seemed to almost nod again, as if acknowledging my thoughts. "I will let you have some space now Samantha. You may go wherever you please. You are not a prisoner here." She said, the word giving me chills. "You have arrived in this place intentionally, and in this place you have free will to do whatever you would like. I think you will find that that term means something very different here, more than you could imagine... yet. When you are ready, and have questions, you may come to me anytime." She looked at me and nodded again before turning to head out of the room, leaving the door open behind her. Before she was gone, she turned back into the doorway. "Oh, you will eventually want to find a new place to stay. This room is for arrivals only." She said, before I watched her walk down the long hallway and disappear.