Where am I?
Nervous energy ripples through me, making my body tremble, but I push on, hoping I can find an exit and get back to the safety of Wilder’s home.
He’s supposed to be keeping an eye on me. Shouldn’t he know that something or someone took me away? I shake my head. I’ll have to deal with that later. First, I have to figure out where I am and how to get back.
“Hello, Keagan.”
I hear a voice, soft and kind, coming from behind me. I swing around, but there’s no one there. I must have imagined it.
“Come here. Come closer.”
I hear the voice again. This time, it sounds nearer, but I still can’t detect a person. I can’t even quite tell if the voice is male or female. I only know that every time I hear it, I’m drawn to it a little bit more.
“You’re almost there.”
The voice encourages me to keep walking until I find a door. Maybe this is the exit. I open it and rush through, stumbling as my feet land on thick leaves and branches on the ground.
When I look around, my surroundings become familiar—grandma and grandpa’s house. How did I get here? Then the obvious comes to me. I’m not actually here. I must be dreaming, but I won’t will myself to wake up, not if there’s a chance to see my grandparents again.
I step into the house and sit on the comfy couch. It’s the exact same as it always was when I was a little kid. As I sit, the smell of my grandmother’s chocolate chip cookies wafts around me. My stomach growls out of a nostalgic need for my grandmother’s baking.
“Grandma?” I say out loud. “Grandpa? Is anybody here?”
I’m met with silence. There’s nobody home. Maybe my grandparents went out. I get up and hurry to the kitchen to see if my grandmother’s there, but instead, I find a plate of cookies sitting on the stove top with a note. I hurry over to read the note and see that it’s addressed to me.
Enjoy the cookies.
I take one and bite into it, closing my eyes as the buttery goodness melts on my tongue. Oh, man, I forgot how good these tasted.
Cookie in hand, I walk to the other side of the house where my grandfather’s office was. He was always there when he wasn’t in the garage, working on different projects, but the room is empty. There’s only a small lamp on the desk, and everythingelse is far too neat and tidy for it to be my grandfather’s workspace.
My mind reminds me again that this is a dream. My grandparents are long dead. I think I’d like to wake up now.
“Keagan.”
I gasp when I hear my name again. This time, the voice sounds familiar, but distant.
“Who’s there? Who’s calling me?”
I glance around the room, seeing and hearing nothing, before deciding to walk back to the living room and look for an exit. It’s no fun being here if my grandparents aren’t.
There’s a door partly open in the living room, so I step through it, finding a shadowy figure standing in front of a block of trees. There’s something familiar about the figure, something comforting, even though I can’t quite make it out. Curiosity overwhelms me until I walk in that direction.
As I get closer, my legs begin to tremble when I realize who it is.
“Mom!”
I run towards her with my arms open, but she disappears right before my eyes, and I end up falling to the ground, my knees stinging from the twigs now embedded in my skin.
“Mom, where did you go?”
I call out a second time, but she’s not there. I must have imagined her. I don’t like this dream. I want to wake up now.
Retracing my steps and hoping to find an escape from this dream, I finally stumble upon another door. I run towards it, desperate to wake up and get out of this torture, but when the door opens, my breath catches when I see the man before me.
“Dad! Did you do all this? Did you bring me here?”
“I’m glad to see you, Keagan.” His voice is clear and strong again, like I remember it being the last time I saw him. “It’s beenhard to get your attention, son. I asked you to get away from that man.”
