Escape From Reality

Normal. I remember when that word described my life, Somewhat. Before I found that closet in my dad's office building. Before I flew through nothingness and landed in a place like nowhere else. Before I met him. Before my life became a mess of confusing stuff. But now, life is different for me. This is the story of why.

"This is so boring!" I groaned. I was lying on the rough carpet of my dad's office. There was this dumb kid's thing going on downstairs that my dad said was for all ages, anyone from three years old to eighteen. But he was wrong. Very wrong. The room downstairs was full of toys, crafts, balloons, and even a creepy looking clown dude. Yep, fourteen year olds totally belonged there. Now I was stuck at the office, because my dad couldn't leave until five o'clock. Boring.

"Lauren, be quiet for five minutes, won't you?" My dad said impatiently from his chair. "Here," He pulled a ten dollar bill from his pocket. "Go explore or something. But stay inside the building."

"Okay, Dad," I said. I snatched the bill from the desk and skipped out of the cubicle. I skipped through the halls for a while, looking for something to do. I had found a vending machine and had gotten myself a Dr. Pepper and some Chips Ahoy! cookies. I turned down the stairs to the next level and continued skipping around.

After about half an hour I was on the ground floor, wandering around a dark hallway I had found with my phone flashlight. I turned the corner of the hall and saw a greenish light coming from down the hall. I crept towards it until I was close enough to notice it was an open closet. A janitor or somebody probably left it open. I headed to close it, but a second before it clicked shut I saw something. I slowly opened the door and peeked inside. There was a hole in the floor where the light was coming from. I crept towards the small hole in the floor and bent down next to it. I put my hand over the light, and it all went black.

I was falling through nothingness. It was cold, dark, and eerily quiet. I was falling, falling, falling, with no end in sight. I had no idea what was happening and no idea how to stop it. It got harder to breathe the farther I fell, until I passed out.

I woke up in a field. A field of the most interesting stuff I had ever seen. The ground was covered in a beautiful blue-green grass, with strange looking purple and pink flowers blooming everywhere. I sat up and looked around. I saw a road with silver pavement, if it even was pavement, and beyond that, a jumble of small buildings, all of them old and worn. When I turned to look behind me, I saw a small girl, maybe six or seven, creeping up behind me. She squealed when she noticed I saw her, and ran off towards a densely vegetated area a little ways away.

"Hello?" I called towards the trees. "I need some help." I jogged over to the trees. As I got closer, I noticed twenty or so figures standing in the shadows of the plants. I stopped at the edge of the vegetation and called out again.

"Can someone help me?" I asked. "I don't know what happened to me."

"Stay here," I heard a voice whisper. A tall girl with long blonde hair and striking green eyes stepped out of the shadows. She looked at me with her piercing eyes.

"Rachael, no!" Another voice came from the shadows, calling out to this girl, Rachael.

"Be quiet, you idiot!" Rachael said sternly in the direction of the voice. She turned back to me. "Did the kingdom send you to banish us again?" She asked me.

"Huh?" I asked, surprised.

"Don't try to be my friend," Rachael stepped towards me. "We all know why you're here."