A Step Beyond Prairie Avenue

"Nine-one-one operator. What is your emergency?" the female voice on the other end crackled with static.

"Uh, hi. I'm, um, I'm lost. I think."

"What is your name?"

"Mia. Mia Hendrixs."

"Okay, Mia. My name is Lily. Can you describe your surroundings to me?"

"It's dark. Really dark." That was it. It was dark. I couldn't feel anything, not even the phone in my hand.

"Are you inside or outside, Mia?" Lily's voice crooned in my ear soothing my pounding heart despite the static. I pressed my hand against my chest, but I touched nothing. I couldn't even feel my heartbeat.

"I can't feel my heart! I can't feel it!" I shouted into the phone I couldn't feel or see. I gasped, drawing in breaths of nothing.

"Mia, listen to me. Can you hear me?" Lily's calm voice cut through my panic. The dark seemed to lighten a little, but I still couldn't see or feel anything.

"Yeah," I said. Somehow, I sensed she was nodding on the other end.

"Good. Now, are you inside or outside?"

"I-I don't know. It's very dark." Static louder than before forced me to pull the phone away from my ringing ears. "What time is it?" I asked when it went away.

"5:42pm." I'd left my house at 5:30 to give my dog a walk. "Do you remember where you were, Mia?" Lily asked. I told her I'd been walking down Prairie Avenue with my dog. "I'm sending a police dispatch to Prairie Avenue. Can you describe yourself, so we know who to look for? Age, height, hair color, race."

"Yeah, I'm 23, five foot four, red hair, white."

"Thank you, Mia," Lily said. My breath caught in my throat, or what I assumed was my breath. For a split second, Lily's sweet voiced dipped into something inhuman. It wiggled in my ear like an oiled worm. I chalked it up to being frightened out of mind.

"The police are on their way, Mia. Why don't you tell me something about yourself while we wait? Keep you calm."

"Uh, my brother bought my husky two years ago, but his girlfriend didn't like Blue, so I took him in. I've got a bigger apartment anyway."

"That sounds like a wonderful place for Blue."

"Yeah... wait, what?" I didn't remember telling her his name. Maybe I did and forgot. I'd somehow managed to get lost in broad daylight.

"You husky, Blue, he sounds like he has a nice life." Again, the worm snuggled into my ear. I shivered.

"Are you okay, Mia? You look uncomfortable. It's okay. Just keep talking to me. The police will be there shortly. You can probably hear their sirens already."

"I-I," I couldn't speak. "You can see me?" I squawked after several seconds. Ear-splitting static followed my question and then stopped. The worm in my ear travelled down my throat and into my stomach where it churned like two-week-old pizza at 2am.

"Hello? Lily? Someone?" The static returned, stopping only when a male voice began to speak. This voice sounded less oily, more like they were speaking to me through a device. I began to feel my phone in my hand, but I still couldn't see anything.

"I'm sorry, Mia. I'm sure you have questions, but right now our experts are working on getting you back to Prairie Avenue. The more you speak, the sooner we can locate you."

"What? Get me back? Locate me? Where am I?"

"Ma'am, you've stepped beyond Prairie Avenue," he said. Beyond Prairie Avenue. What did that mean?

Before I had time to voice my questions, I was back on Prairie Avenue walking Blue with my phone against my ear.

"Ma'am, do you see anything?" the male voice asked.

"Yeah, I'm back," I said slowly. I turned in a circle. There was nothing that indicated I'd been thrust into something beyond Prairie Avenue. On my phone I could hear cheering coming from the other end. "What happened to me?"

"You experienced what we've been calling Stepping Beyond. Sometimes people doing ordinary things will vanish for a moment in time, too brief to be caught by the human eye or cameras. We developed sensors years ago that alert us when this happens. Before us, shamans would hear the cries for help and try to bring them back. But they often failed. With modern phones we are able to locate the vanished much more easily and bring them back."

"I heard a voice. A woman."

"Yes. Everyone who comes back does. The voice you heard was one of the vanished. They want to keep you there."

"Why?"

"We don't know," the man said. I couldn't suppress the shiver that ran down my spine. Blue looked up at me and wagged.

"What do I do now?" I asked.

"Finish your walk. Go home. Live a long life." The line went dead. I looked at my phone screen. It read 5:42pm. I didn't know how I was going to live a normal life knowing that one day I had taken a step beyond Prairie Avenue.