Chapter 1: Prologue

I am always dreaming. Dreaming of me running in a field, dreaming of me escaping, dreaming of me existing beyond this world. Countless of times I am running in a field. The field is beautiful, long, vast, and flowery. As much as I want to escape it, I also want to stay. Breathing in the scent of the flowers, it looks like it could be safe for me. It looks like somewhere I could stay. Something inside me tells me that I should run, that I shouldn't stay, and that it isn't safe. Every time I turn my head there always is this lurking shadow behind me, but it never gets close enough to harm me. It scares me and makes me wonder at the same time.

This seems to be my endless fate. I don't know how I realized that I was in a coma, but somehow I managed to figure it all out, piece it all together, wrap my mind all around it. I remember before I entered this coma, a teacher of mine telling me that when you are in a coma, it's a peaceful environment. You exist like you would if you were not in one, and you live your life normally. This doesn't seem like this normal to be, but what can I say? There is really no option for me to protest, to complain, or ask questions. I'm stick here in this vortex, repetitive place all day, everyday. I can't leave, and I'm forced to replay this scenario. I thought everything would be peaceful, but apparently that's not the way things go. All I know is that I'm not awake, that I'm in a coma, and I don't remember why.

My memories inside here are fuzzy. The life I seemed to live before this barely exists. I remember my family vividly, my friends, my school, and that's it. It makes me wonder how I ended up here, and if this will be my demise. Do you really die if you die in a coma? That's another question that is constantly in my thoughts. I'm scared that I will and I won't get the answers I crave to seek.

A memory that constantly stands out to me was the time I was fighting with my mother before all of "this" happened. She was telling me that I needed to get my grades up, and I needed to quit drinking. I'll admit, I could have stopped the drinking. I was being defiant, and was acting out because my parents were getting a divorce and it was working. It was setting my mom on edge and I liked that. The plan was working. A few times my dad even had to come get me because I was too drunk to drive home. His lectures didn't faze me. He cheated on my mom and to me that was unforgivable. I could barely even stomach to be in the same room as him. What right did he have to lecture me? I barely even see him, and that's the way I like it. If he only calls once a week, and I only see him once a month, he has no right to act like a parent now. If mom hadn't been working, I would have asked her to come get me. She was working at the hospital that night, so I was stuck with him.

After I found out that he cheated on my mom, I was in shock. My whole world turned upside down and the room began to spin. My mom didn't even know I was standing on the stairs overhearing her and my dad arguing about the whole thing. She was threatening to divorce him and he was shouting back that he had been wanting to leave her for a while. He had been sleeping with his mistress for two years and had gotten her pregnant. My mom was furious that he got his mistress pregnant and that she was going to leave her for his mistress and their baby.

When I heard the conversation that night, I told myself that I would never speak to my dad again, and that he'd no longer be in my life. Up until my accident, I had been living my life that way for two months. They were peaceful, and lonely too. Sometimes I thought to myself that I should just forgive and that I really missed him. Then when I'd see my mom sleeping on the couch at night after night, clutching their old wedding photograph, the bile and the anger would rise back up in my throat again. She could barely tolerate sleeping in the bed upstairs anymore that they shared. She had pretty much trashed their old room together too. All of his clothes were gone, things he used on a regular basis, and everything that tied him to us was gone too. It was like he no longer existed to us anymore. He was gone and everything else that remained of him, my mom made sure to delete. But, as much as I know she wanted to hate him and how much she tried to reinforce that she hated him, I knew that she still loved him. She still holds onto little trinkets of him. She can't erase him. I doubt she'll ever be able to. To her, he was the love of her life that just slipped away. I know she had to have been replaying every event of their lives together of the past two years, what she did wrong, and what she could have changed. My mother had become a shell thanks to him. That is another thing I cannot forgive him for.

What makes it even worse is that he's living two hours away, happily, with her and there soon to be child and where am I? I'm in a coma that I can't escape. I've told myself to wake up, to exit it, and resume my life I was living. It doesn't seem to be that easy. Something is holding me in here and I can't figure out what. Every day before I enter the field, I tell myself that I'll wake up, I'll leave here and everything will be fine. I don't know how much time has passed while I've been in here, but I know I've been chanting that same mantra for a long time. I still haven't woken up and I'm still here. I'm still running in that field, trying to escape something I don't know what I'm running from.

It's beginning again. The repetitive cycle is starting again. I know that soon I'll have to start running again and I'll succeed in outrunning the shadow. I've thought to myself, what if I just stay where I am with my feet planted firmly on the ground. What if I'm not afraid to move, and I just stay, what will happen? As long as I've been here, I've been working up the courage. Something compels me to move, but at the same time, it compels me to stay. If I stay where I am, will the shadow kill me? Will it fulfill and answer my hopes and questions? Will it be able to free me from this repetitive cycle?

The sun is starting to rise, and there is a slight wind that is rippling through the field inviting me in the direction I'm supposed to be heading. The same familiar breeze is pushing the scent of the flowers right to me. It's a pleasant smell, and I feel the bile beginning to rise up in my throat. When I'm nervous and angry, it seems to be an unfortunate mechanism of my body. I hate it, but it's one of the last things that connects me to what I was like before I entered into here.

As the sun continues to rise and it's bright light and warmth extends across the field, I chant to myself that it's almost time. Today I will stay, today I will get answers, and today I will not be afraid. Today.

It's happening. The shadow is coming across the field, and I can feel my feet turning in the direction it wants to go. My legs and feet are beginning to betray me. They are used to this familiar pattern, they are used to me getting away. I force myself to stay in this position as the shadow grows nearer and nearer.

As the shadows gets closer and closer, I notice the field and the flowers dieing as the shadow comes across it. Why haven't I noticed this before? Was I too caught up that I missed this? Why is everything dieing?

Suddenly, I turn in the direction that I'm supposed to go. I can feel the pads of my feet extending as I begin to launch myself away from the shadow. I don't understand what's going on, and why this is happening. Things are beginning to change. I would have noticed that before when the shadow was coming. Everything has been the same for so long, and the same repetitive cycle that I would have noticed.

"Rose," the shadow whispered as it followed closely behind me in my tracks.

I suddenly felt like stopping. This had never happened before, and as much as I wanted answers, I didn't want to stay. The shadow's one whispered word continue to reverberate and carry through the trees. My name was continuing to linger.

I was nearing the end of the field, and everything would be okay. The cycle would end and everything would restart again. Things would be the same and I wouldn't wonder anymore. There would be no change.

I thought everything would be the same until I felt a an arm grab me from right behind me, and I wake up.