She walked through the woods, looking around. She knew there was something she had to find, although she wasn’t quite sure what it was. The trees loomed around her, branches both bare and full, seeming to her like spindly hands, reaching to grab her. Feeling like there was something to the left, something she needed, something she had to get, she turned. Whatever she needed was moving, going away, so she ran. It was somehow faster than her, right out of her vision, white flashes moving through the tree leaves and branches, tempting her. No matter how fast she ran, it was faster, and as a root seemed to grab her ankle, she tripped and fell on the ground.
The thing left her far behind, and as the forest grew colder she thought that perhaps this thing was not something she needed to get, but what she needed to follow. Since she lost it, she was lost herself. The tree branches that looked like hands were actually hands, reaching out to her, trying to grab her, yank her and tear her away. As she struggled, she found a hole in the ground, no bigger than her palm.
She tried to dig at it, trying to get into it, thinking maybe she’ll be safe in there. As she worked, the hole became bigger, or she became smaller, and she fit inside. Looking around, she found herself in her kitchen. Her mom was making breakfast, and her dad was working on his laptop for work. She relaxed. There was no forest, or hands on trees, that was foolish. Maybe she had another one of her little daydreams again - yeah, that was what it was, a daydream.
Her mom asked her a question, so she turned to reply. As her mouth opened, and no sound came out, a chill went through her body. She was mute, soundless. And she knew that if she stayed silent everything would go wrong again. Banging on the table, crying out, screaming until her throat hurt, even attempting to throw things failed. She was silent, even the things she touched were silent. Something was going to happen, something serious, and she couldn’t save her mom or her da - wait. She looked around, fear filling her. Where did her parents go? The laptop was abandoned, along with the dishes by the sink. When she looked down, she herself was fading, turning to the same dust her parents turned into. A wind picked up in the falsity of a kitchen, carrying pieces of her away. She was turning into particles carried on the wind, out the window. Some of her would flutter away, and she was losing herself.
A long while away, on a small beach she - no he - came back together. He looked around, but there was nothing except sand and the ocean. Well, there was the heat, so hot it was almost tangible. He went into the cool ocean, trying to make it not so unbearably hot. When he went far enough out, he suddenly remembered he forgot how to swim. He flailed, trying to keep afloat, but water filled his lungs, dragging him down, causing him to weigh more and sink even further. No one was around to hear his gurgly screams. No one around to help. And so he sunk, farther and farther down into the deep blue depths of the ocean. Past squids, fish, and even wrecks of those long before him - many who died the same way. He, though, was not dead, he was still alive through this. Somehow he was still living, suffocated, air gone, blue in face and lungs and anything that could be colored the same blue of the deadly depths.
When she woke up on her bed, she was tangled in her damp sheets. Her pillow had somehow covered her face, restricting her breathing. When she pulled the pillow off the only light in her dark room was the blue numbers on her alarm clock. 2:13 am. For the rest of the night, she couldn’t sleep. Only lie awake in her bed, trying to ignore the rain against her roof, the wind on her window, and the rustle of the leaves outside her room.