Dreaming of Alten

Chapter 17. Alten

I fall naturally into a daydream in the middle of class.

I've done before when teachers get boring, or when I feel like I need a break. I've even done it during tests when I feel stressed out. Sometimes I don't even notice I'm doing it. This was one of those times.

It's totally dark when I walk into the daydream. But slowly a sliver of light appears in the middle of the darkness, and as I start walking towards it I see details gradually come into focus.

I'm on a beach.

I feel sand beneath my feet, but there's not enough light to see it by. My feet are bare. I can feel the sand crunching between my toes. I can hear the sound of the ocean close by, the slapping of waves against the shore.

I look to my left and I can just make out the dark outline of moving water. The salty smell of seawater hits me as suddenly as someone turning on a switch.

I glance from side to side, but as far as I can see, I'm the only person here.

I turn around and without warning the scene just changes.

Now I'm standing on a gravel road overlooking a deep gorge. I'm still barefoot. I can feel the pebbles on the ground. It's too dark for me to see anything in the gorge, but I can see faint lights somewhere in there. Some of them are moving.

I lean forward to try and see more, but I lose my balance and all of a sudden everything goes dark and I fall and fall and fall into an endless pool of nothing.