Who is the Imaginary Woman?

(2) Down to Earth

Heat baked the ground to a fine crisp. Steam evaporating at a second interval. I stood above the molten wood-chips that scorched my soles. "Laura!" I declared into a reverse whirlpool, the sounds reverberating towards a ditch that drained any color, "Get out of there! I don't like it-". My mouth was met with a crunchy mound of engulfing permafrost. "Oh, sorry there! Couldn't hear ya over all that dirt you're eating!" She exclaimed, her tanned hand weaving a pattern into my face, and shrouding my vision with a city of worms. "Ugh!" without a warning, my legs give, Laura's swift sweep betraying my senses. The whiplash of sensations yank me away, only for the tridents of hellish bark to bring me down to earth. A war ensues between my face and the heat that inhabits the rest of my body. "Get up already, and help. It's super cold down there trust me." The rowdy girl, without effort, wins the war for cold earth.

Soil fills my finger nails as the surrounding walls dim, and the flesh from my hands cease their departure. My shoes, as busted as they are, keep a firm grip on the encompassing environment no man has ventured into. Humid. Damp. Dark. Oh so dark. Laura was never one for planning. "Hey! Step off Julian, my daddy just bought these shoes!!" she spouted. "Wh-huh?! I never..." Flick! Color begins to fade in. My pale, yet sun-burnt, hands come into view as they frame Laura's head. Eyes. The rest of the playground above, the rest of the children who chose calm, could respect their lives as they've lived it. A miasma fills my chest, stretching my rib cage to new lengths. Floodgates of oxygen perished as my vision drew closer to the mushy ground. "Julian." Clouds rush towards my face, "You'll be okay, IF, you stay with me. Will you?" The question lingers in my mind like an grease on a dirty pan. I can't. "I can show you a world you would never achieve following that girl around." Laura..? What are you on about? "The heat will never bother you again." from my veins comes a piercing of memories just forming. Flowing to heaven, and insulting my senses as it always has. Burning and burning. My skin grows ghoulish, petrified, from fated ash, reoccurring shocks controlling my actions as the earth is brought down to me.