My heart is beating harder than it ever has before. The footsteps are getting closer and closer to my hiding place. I hold my breath. The footsteps continue, stopping merely inches from where I was standing. I begin to panic. I don't have much air left and I feel faint. I feel like my lungs are about to burst. Time goes by extremely slowly. Each second feels like an hour. Finally, after what seemed like forever, the footsteps restarted in the opposite direction. He or she had not traveled far before I gave in to my screaming lungs and gasped in a huge breath of air. Then I froze, appalled at what I had just done. I might as well have just pointed an arrow to where I was. The footsteps stopped again. My heartbeat is in my ears. I hope to God it can't be heard by others. I start inching towards the next closest tree. Hopefully I can make a sneaky getaway. I was just making my way past the second tree when I heard a shout from the figure, which began running my way. I'm a goner.
How did I get to this point? It's kind of complicated. I don't remember all the details. I was a big dreamer back home. Tough, but a dreamer nonetheless. I read many books because I wished my life was different. I guess that wish came true because here I am. I'll rewind a little bit. The morning of the day when everything changed started out as it always did. I was woken up by my mother and dragged to the kitchen so I could eat breakfast quickly and bike to school. I lived very close to the school, so getting there was fairly easy. The hard part was motivating myself to go. Why would I purposely go to a place where I knew I would be miserable? I pondered this question every day. The other students were mean and annoying, the classes didn't teach me anything of value, and the school never failed to leave me completely exhausted by the time the last bell rang. I was stuck in a boring and never-ending loop and I wanted out.
So I would pretend. I created a different life inside my head that began to feel more real than reality to me. I imagined beautiful scenery, interesting people, and a life that had no boring days. That day, as I was walking home from school, I saw something interesting that caught my eye. A very large hole in the ground that had not been there that morning. There had been a lot of construction lately so I figured that was what is was. But I was still curious, so I peered over the edge. I was shocked at what I saw. Only black. I didn't see a bottom. I felt my stomach drop as though I was on a rollercoaster that was about to go down the biggest hill, but it felt one hundred times that bad. I took a step away from the edge, feeling sick. I wondered if this was a very large well that was being made or if it was for a science experiment. I decided I wanted to get away from it because I am a klutzy person and was bound to trip into it if I didn't leave. I was just about to turn away when I heard something that sounded like a voice. Somebody yelling something. And it sounded like it was coming from the hole! Somebody must have fallen in and had no way of getting out. And with such a big fall, there's no doubt that that person must be seriously injured! I called out to the voice a couple times. I leaned over as far as I safely could, trying to hear a response. I heard something very faint. Very, very faint. All I could focus on was straining my ears to the max, so I wasn't aware of my surroundings. One second later, everything changed. I was pushed. There hadn't been anybody behind me when I first came to the hole. I know people bullied me, but I found it hard to believe that someone would go as far as to kill me. Unless..maybe it was not ill-intent? Maybe that person knew about the world that existed below. They could have even been from that world. But that logic did not comfort me at the time. When I fell, I never seemed to land. I just kept falling for what seemed to be hours. I screamed until I couldn't any longer. I knew there was nobody around to hear, but I was terrified. I had no doubt in my mind that those would be my last moments on Earth. Though I didn't die, it is true that those were my last moments on Earth. I fell unconscious when I was still falling. Then, to my greatest astonishment, I woke up.