Escape From Reality

The Boy

That night as my dad tucked me into bed, he had dark patches underneath his eyes and wrinkles throughout his forehead. Ever since my mother died, he was never as happy or joyful as he once was, cracking dad jokes or coming up with the craziest ideas. Once, he had the brilliant idea to turn our stairs into a waterslide. It obviously did not turn out the way he intended. Our house ended up being flooded for an entire day and we had to call a company to drain the water. My mother simply laughed at my dad's antics, while younger me was overjoyed at the fact that our house had turned into a personal swimming pool. Now, him coming up with that idea was as rare as finding a diamond in a cereal box.

"Good night dad." I said, smiling up at him. He managed a small strained smile in return. He brushed a strand of stray hair from my face, tucking it behind my ear.

"Good night Chloe.'' He replied. His lips gently kissed the top of my forehead before he switched off my bedside lamp. Then, he quietly left my room, closing the door behind him gently. I knew for a fact that he was going straight to his room to do some more work. He never seems to stop.

I stared up at my bedroom ceiling, silently trying to go to sleep.Today was yet another horrible day. Layla had spilled paint all over the art piece I worked so hard on during class, and the teacher had yet again dismissed it as nothing more than a stupid accident. I just wanted to forget that today even happened. My eyelids grew heavy with sleep. I closed my eyes,ready to welcome blissful sleep-

-only to open my eyes again to find that not only was I not staring up at my dark bedroom ceiling, but was instead staring up at the light blue sky. I blinked twice to make sure my eyes were working properly. Nothing changed.

What?

Instead of the usual soft feather feel of the mattress underneath my body, a hard rough surface that was extremely uncomfortable on my back took its place. Slowly turning my head over to make sense of the situation, I found that, not only was I not in bed, but I was instead lying on some dry dirt. Bewildered, I quickly sat up, brushing the dirt off my pajamas. My eyes scanned the mysterious place I was transported to. What on earth was happening?

I appeared to be in the middle of a forest. It also appeared to be autumn around here, the tree leaves appeared in various shades of red, orange and yellow. The sun was still up in the sky, which was quite weird since it was still dark outside the last time I checked. The ground was littered with tree leaves, which rustled with a crinkling sound when I sat up.

Where was I?

Shock wore off me as I came to the reasonable conclusion that I must be dreaming. Yes,that simply must be it. It is impossible for me to travel all the way into a forest with a blink of an eye. I must have fallen asleep.

Curious about this extremely realistic dream I was having, I held my palms up in front of me and noticed that they were smeared with dirt from the ground. Well this was certainly more realistic than any dream I had before.

I wondered what I should do now. Perhaps I should get up and explore this weirdly realistic dream. I have heard of lucid dreaming before,my mother had experienced them often. I just never experienced one myself, at least up until now.

Lucid dreaming is basically being aware that you are in a dream while dreaming. As a young child, my mother often recounted adventures she had while lucid dreaming. It sounded terribly exciting to me to have such vivid dreams.

However, no matter how hard I tried as a young child,it never seemed to happen. After I gave up, I mostly forgot about my attempts.

Before I could decide what to do next, I heard footsteps in the distance. I took in a sharp intake of breath. Someone was here.

Pushing hard against the ground, I hurriedly scrambled up. Who was there?

My heartbeat sped up into a million beats at once as fear seized me. As I backed away slowly, I prepared to break into a sprint in case anything happened. My goodness,this was a really realistic dream I thought. Wait a second. This was a dream. I was in no real danger here. And didn't my mother used to say she could control her lucid dreams? Since this was my dream, I could technically make that person anyone I wanted. Of course, it would be a figment of my imagination but it would still be cool to meet anyone here,real or made up. So, who did I want to meet the most?

The answer hit me like a brick. It was so obvious I wondered why I didn't think of it in the first place.

Mum.

The moment her name entered my mind, I immediately squeezed my eyes shut. I desperately willed for those footsteps to be of my mother. I channelled this desire with all of my will, clenched my fists so tight my fingernails dug painfully deep into my skin. My face muscles scrunched up from concentration as I felt beads of sweat trickling down my forehead. Please,let this be my mother, I internally begged. Please,let me have a chance to say goodbye to her. Please, just let me say that I love you. Even if this was just a dream. Please.

The footsteps skidded to a stop. I could hear the heavy breathing of my mother just inches away from me as she gasped for breath.

This was it. My mother was finally here. Finally,my wish was granted. Overcome with joy at our reunion, my eyes flew open in excitement,ready for the embrace my mother was about to tackle me in, ready to say all the things I never got to say to her and, most of all, ready to see her again. My heart thumped hard against my chest as I opened my mouth, ready to spill all the things that had been weighing on my mind for the past 3 years.

"Mum--'' I exclaimed, trailing off when cold shock engulfed me.

In the end, I never got to say all the things I never got to say to my mother, because the person standing in front of me was not my mother.

Disappointment coursed through my body. I wanted burst into tears right then. Why did I allow myself to hope? I should have known not to get my hopes up so high. It seems like that every time I do, the world just lets me down. I blinked back tears as I registered the fact that my mother was not the person standing in front of me

Instead,mirroring how I must have looked like at the moment, was a boy around my age. His emerald green eyes were staring straight at me in shock, gaping at me as if I was on a display at a museum. He was wearing pajamas like me, duck patterned ones to be exact, which was an odd thing to wear in the middle of a forest. But I guess I could not judge, considering I was doing the exact same thing.

At a loss for words, I could only stare back at him, frozen to the spot. The boy's arms hung limply by his side as he continued to gape at me in shock. His dark black hair was in a chaotic mess and his face a mask of shock. Little did I know, that face would be burned into my mind for years to come.

For a while, the only sound were the boy's loud pants as he drew in breaths from the fresh forest air. As his panting gradually subsided, the silence slowly started to get unbearable. I was just starting to wonder if I should say something to break the increasingly uncomfortable silence when I saw the boy open his mouth -

-and I opened my eyes to find myself staring back at my bedroom ceiling once more.