ᚠǾᚦᚨ – Fœða – Born
The Land of Shadow
I still don’t remember any of that.
I’m told I just collapsed, went full ragdoll, smashed face-first into the desk, and then bounced backwards, cracking my skull on the floor.
Told you Chemistry would kill me.
Apparently, Mr. L ran over to me and called for help. He started CPR while another teacher notified the office.
EMS showed up and took over. They took me to the hospital, where the trauma team fought like mad to save me. It took hours, and eventually they hooked a device up to me that pumped my blood and filled it with oxygen because my heart and lungs couldn’t do so for a while.
The doctors say I died over twenty times that morning. It took weeks before I woke up.
While everyone was fighting for my life, I was…
Well, I’m not sure where I was.
It is dark and eerily quiet.
I live in a house back in the woods with two dogs, three siblings, and my parents. It’s always loud. Even in the dead of winter, squirrels run around looking for their stashed food. For the first time in my life, I can’t hear a thing. No wind. No animals. No annoying siblings. Not even my own heart.
My eyes slowly adapt to the dark, and I start to look around.
There is a diffuse glow in the sky, casting a spectral light like the moon behind a layer of clouds. The light ripples, causing the faint shadows to jump and move. It reminds me of sitting around the campfire at night during the warm summers while my nana tells us stories of faeries in the woods.
As far as I can tell, I’m in a wide, rocky plain. Steep mountains rise in the distance all around me. The air is so dry that it is starting to burn my sinuses.
“Where am I?”
My voice feels hoarse, and I cough to try to clear it.
“Hello?”
There isn’t even an echo. It’s as if my voice falls to the dry rocks immediately after leaving my mouth.
I’m starting to panic and realize my heart isn’t thudding inside of me. I think back to CPR training the summer before as I try to find my pulse. I check my wrist, my neck, and then my chest. Nothing.
I spend the next few minutes or hours feeling like a fish out of water, just gulping at the air, but the panic eventually fades. This has to be a dream.
“Wake up. Wake up! WAKE UP!”
I pinch my arm hard and jump at the pain.
“Dreams don’t hurt.” I’m not sure who I’m talking to. Clearly, I’m trying to convince myself, but this has to be a dream. There is no other rational explanation.
A new panic cycle starts, but I take a breath and hold back the fear pressing against me.
“This is either a dream, you have lost your mind, or you fell into the rabbit hole.”
I need to make a plan. Plans are good. If I know what to do, then I can focus on doing that instead of the fear.
“You are lost. If you are lost, what do you do?”
Thinking back to the lessons I was given as a child living in the woods, I remember my dad’s advice, “Don’t panic. Don’t run off. If you are running around the woods, it’s harder for rescuers to find you. Most hikers are closer to the trail than they realize. Stay put and listen. Call for help and find ways to signal searchers to where you are.”
It’s good advice, but I don’t think it works if you are stuck in a wasteland with no light, no noise, and no idea where you are.
I start to panic again. “Don’t panic.” That’s the first part of the advice, and that probably still works. But I can’t just sit here. There is no trail. Is anyone even looking for me?
I remember more of my dad’s lessons. “If you have to try and walk out, go downhill till you find water. Follow the water downstream till you find a river. Follow the river till you find people.”
Everything seems flat. “What if there is no downhill?” Again, my words feel tiny in this vast, empty place.
While looking at the distant horizon, I noticed a faint glow. Unlike the dim shimmer from the sky, this appeared steady. It wasn’t much, but maybe I’d find some help. At this point, I’d take my chances.
I walked for hours. Maybe days. There is no sun, no moon, no stars, nothing to give any sense of time. The distant mountains didn’t feel any closer, but maybe that smudge of light was just a tiny bit brighter.
At some point, I realized I wasn’t hungry, thirsty, or tired. I should be.
“Water first, then shelter, food, and fire. In that order. If you want to survive, these are the necessities.”
“But Dad, what if you aren’t thirsty, hungry, hot, cold, or tired? What if there is just nothing for miles and miles? What do you do then?”
He didn’t answer. How could he answer? I can only remember the things he told me, and I’m pretty sure he never told me how to survive in an alien world with miles and miles of nothing. I don’t know if I’d have even listened. Who could imagine ever being in a place like this?
“How did I get here anyway?”
This whole time, I tried to remember, but it was just a big, blank nothing. Yesterday, at least I think it was yesterday, we had a BBQ. It was just my parents and siblings. We didn’t go anywhere. Certainly no spaceship or teleporter. I don’t remember going to sleep. I don’t remember waking up. It was just absolute darkness, and then I was here.
“Ouch!”
I didn’t even realize I pinched myself again. This sure seemed like some kind of nightmare, but I couldn’t wake up, so I just kept walking while talking to myself.
“What do you think you’ll find at the light?”
“Hopefully, some people. Maybe my parents or siblings. It would be great if it were a scientist who knows where we are. Maybe they have a transporter to send me back home.”
“What if it’s a monster?”
“Don’t be silly. Monsters don’t exist.”
“Endless, barren plains with no sun where you don’t get hungry or thirsty don’t exist either.”
“That’s a good point…”
Then I’d be quiet for a while. Wouldn’t want anyone to think I was crazy.