V. J. Penaloza-Jackson 2009
Prologue
There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call "The Twilight Zone".
-Rod Serling, intro, "The Twilight Zone"
"I know, I know, Mom," Kelsey Linden, a typical teen, said as she walked towards the stair case. "I can read until ten, then it's lights out."
"And if I catch you with that light on only a mere minute after ten, you're going to be going to bed at nine for the rest of the week, and no books," her mother, a rather peevish woman in her late forties, grumbled as she looked at the television screen in the living room.
Kelsey rolled her eyes when her back was turned so that her mother couldn't see, and she hurried up the old wooden stairs, grimacing at the creaking, wishing that her step-father would finally get to fixing it. Sometimes, Kelsey just downright hated her life. Her mother was always nagging, her step-father never doing anything...
As she walked through her door, closing it behind her, she wondered why she didn't have a life like the other girls in school. They all had their fancy cell phones, their name brand clothes... And what did Kelsey have? A cheap flip phone that could only take pictures and store brand clothes that nobody recognized. It wasn't fair.
Kelsey flopped down on her bed, and the feet of it thumped on the floor as it was jostled from the impact.
"Knock it off!" her mother yelled from downstairs, her voice sounding odd from all the things separating her from Kelsey.
"Stupid, crappy bed," Kelsey grumbled, punching the headboard.
Then, so that she didn't waste anymore time, she reached toward her bedside table and grabbed her book, Nevermore. It was a rather good book, but it was a little sad. Kelsey really didn't care though. She just wanted to get it over and done with as soon as possible because she was already the only person in her class who hadn't finished reading it. She had to read at night because she had better things to do in the day, like go to the mall and hang out with friends.
She flipped the book open to where she had dog eared the page on page sixty-four. She glared down at the words...
Clary cried as her eyes took in the scene before her: her still grandmother, the only family she had left, sitting in the old, leather chair in the living room, her unfinished crocheted scarf resting in her lap. The old, loving woman's eyes were wide open, but held none of the warmth that Clary had grown used to in the past five years.
"Mom-mom," Clary whispered, wiping at her tear-soaked eyes. "No."
She hurried over her grandmother's body, and took her cold hand.
"Please don't leave me. Come back. No...no...Please! No!" she screamed, becoming angry at her grandmother for just leaving her.
She had been acting fine the night before as they sat together, her grandmother in her old chair, and Clary in a small folding chair from the kitchen with a small folding table between them, playing backgammon.
Clary thought back to that night as she walked over to the old phone hanging on the wall.
* * *
"I'm gonna win, old woman," Clary had joked, bumping her grandmother's white piece off the board.
"Over my dead body, little girl," her grandmother had replied, grinning, revealing her toothless mouth.
After a few moves, Clary had moved all of her brown pieces onto her side and was getting ready to take them all home and win the game. Her grandmother was also pretty close, but in the end, Clary had won.
* * *
Over her dead body...
Clary froze, her hand around the phone. It was so chilling when she put it all together, and her still wet eyes started producing more tears. She tried to hold her sobs back as she dialed the three very familiar numbers. 911...
Kelsey had fallen asleep, the book laying open, over her chest and the light still on.
She dreamed of being in a hit TV show as the star. She had fans from all over the world, and most importantly, she had everything that she had ever wished for. She had an awesome boyfriend, she had the most expensive touch screen cell phone, the coolest clothes, and the most amazing friends. She was living the perfect life.
And when she woke up the next morning, she frowned at the familiar ceiling: plain wood and not fancy like the marble one in her dream, but what she didn't realize at first was that she wasn't at home anymore. She was in a strange bed, in a strange room, in a strange building, in a strange world...She was no longer in Estell Manor, New Jersey. She had just woken up in the Twilight Zone...
"Clary! Clary Dougherty! Is there a Clary Dougherty here?" a loud woman called.
Kelsey sat bolt upright, and gasped as she looked around. She was in a large room with a bunch of beds, and a bunch of kids in the beds. The kids looked to be about twelve or thirteen, and they all looked so sad as they glanced around, looking for this Clary Dougherty.
Clary Dougherty...Why's that familiar? Kelsey thought. But most importantly, where the heck am I?
She got out of the bed, and all eyes fastened on her as she walked over to the heavyset woman who had been calling out the name.
"Are you Clary?" the woman asked.
Kelsey shook her head. "No, you see...Something's happened. I don't know how I got here. I should be back home...Where I am?"
"Deary, you're in the Oaktown Orphanage." The woman's expression was sad. "Have you got a headache?"
"Why am I here? I shouldn't be here!"
"Clary, what's going on?" a voice asked from behind Kelsey.
She turned around and was faced with a little girl with dark skin, and curly black hair.
"Who are you talking to?" Kelsey asked.
"Clary, what's wrong?" the girl questioned, frowning.
"Me? Clary? I'm Kelsey."
"Stop being crazy, girl," the other muttered, shaking her head. "You were never like this before."
"Who the heck are you?" Kelsey demanded.
"Hey! Watch the language, young lady," the woman behind Kelsey said, making Kelsey whirl around.
"Young lady? I'm seventeen. I'm almost an adult! I don't belong here, and my name isn't Clary Dougherty!" Kelsey snapped.
"Are you not well?" the woman asked, reaching down to feel Kelsey's forehead.
And that's when Kelsey realized it. She was looking way too much up than she should have. She should be looking the woman face to face. She was shorter. And fatter. And she wasn't in her comfy plaid pajamas, but in an old pair of shorts and a large tattered T-shirt.
Kelsey stepped back, away from the woman's hand, and into the dark little girl. She turned around to face the little girl.
"I don't know who you are, but I am most certainly not Clary Dougherty!"
"Clary? Please tell me what's going on? You know me. Rashida. I'm your friend," the little girl explained, watching Kelsey's face closely.
Kelsey stepped away from them all, and looked around at all the shocked faces staring at her. This wasn't happening. She understood it now. Clary Dougherty was the girl in the book. The girl people were saying she was. She was dreaming. She started laughing.
"I get it! I get it! I'm dreaming!" Kelsey's laughing became more like a mad cackle, and she backed towards the doors. "I'm going to wake up and I'm going to be home with Mom and Dad! And my mom's going to yell at me for leaving the light on..."
"Clary," the woman said, walking over to her. "Come with me, please."
"Whatever!" Kelsey waved her hand. "Nothing matters here."
The woman took Kelsey's arm and led her out the doors and down a long corridor.
"There was a nice family here to see you, Clary," the woman began. "But now, I think I'll have to tell them to go away."
"Oh, who cares! It's all fake. Part of a fictional book!" Kelsey shook her head, but it wasn't really her head, but Clary's head. "I was reading that book while I was too tired, so now I'm having weird dreams about it!"
But I haven't even read to this part yet...Or maybe I have, but I don't remember really. Like how if you fall asleep while watching a movie, you don't always remember the exact part that you left off from, Kelsey thought.
"Oh, Clary's here because her Mom-mom just croaked, right?" Kelsey asked.
The woman frowned, and pulled her into a room where an older man sat at a large desk.
"Mr. Highmore, this is Clary Dougherty, but something appears to be that matter with her," the woman informed him.
"Ms. Klasky, what ever do you mean?" Mr. Highmore looked at me curiously.
"She says that she isn't Clary, that she's seventeen, and that she is dreaming! That this is all from a book!" Ms. Klasky sighed.
"You're saying that she is mad?"
"I'm not sure. I never heard of any reports about her being like this before."
"Hmm..." Mr. Highmore looked at his wristwatch. "Why don't you take her to breakfast, and I'll call a doctor."
"Alright, Mr. Highmore," Ms. Klasky murmured. "Send for me when the doctor arrives."
"Will do, Ms. Klasky."
Ms. Klasky nodded, and escorted Kelsey out of the room.
"Mmm. Imaginary breakfast time!" Kelsey laughed. "Can't wait!"
The woman beside her grimaced, feeling a little sorry for the poor girl. Ms. Klasky was starting to believe that it was her unfortunate life catching up to her, and she was trying to escape it by pretending like it was all a dream. It made a little sense. Maybe Ms. Klasky could humor her.
Kelsey was almost thinking the same thoughts. Why doesn't she just humor these people and pretend to be Clary until she wakes up.
"Oh!" Kelsey gasped as they entered the cafeteria doors. "Ms. Klasky?"
The woman looked at her. "What?"
"What has just happened? I feel as if I had been gone for a while," Kelsey lied, looking up at the woman innocently.
"Who are you?" Ms. Klasky inquired.
"Me? Why I am Clary Dougherty, of course. What's wrong?"
Ms. Klasky blinked a few times, then shook her head. "Oh, nothing. Nothing at all."
Kelsey smiled, but a small part of her felt a twinge of longing to be awake. Maybe she could wake herself up by pinching herself, but in the stories and movies that never seemed to work...but then again, they were just stories and movies...
Kelsey crossed her arms as they approached an empty round table with books in the center, and she quickly pinched her left arm with her right hand, but nothing happened. She sighed and sat down when Ms. Klasky told her to.
"I'll get you some cereal. Why don't you read one of those books while I am gone. I heard that you love to read," Ms. Klasky said before she walked up to the serving line.
Kelsey reached for one of the books that were in a small pile in the center of the table. She pulled one back and read the title. Evermore.
Curious, she opened up to a random page and read.
store."
"Okay, mom. I know, I know. But can you please get some yogurt while you are there?" Kelsey asked, smiling.
"Last time I got yogurt, you left three packs to go bad," her mother grumbled. "But fine. But this time, if you leave any packs to go bad, I won't get you anymore yogurt or pudding."
Kelsey nodded. "I know, I know."
"You say that a lot," her mom commented, then picked the keys off the kitchen counter. "I'll be back in an hour or two. Be nice to John, please."
Kelsey nodded, but she wondered why her mother would say that. Kelsey was never really mean to her step-father. She might wish that she never knew him, but she never acted mean to him to his face. She did talk bad about him to her friends, but she wasn't stupid enough to call her step-father lazy right to his face.
Kelsey slowly put the book down, her eyes wide open, staring forward. Maybe she was mad...Something was weird. Really weird.
"Clary? What's the matter?" Ms. Klasky said, walking over with a tray with two bowls of hot cereal.
"Clary, huh?" the girl who thought herself to be Kelsey murmured. "Clary Dougherty..."
"Clary, are you alright?" Ms. Klasky asked once she set the tray down, wondering if the girl was suffering from another bought of delusions.
"Am I Clary?" the girl asked, picking up the spoon.
"Of course."
"I could still be dreaming though...I could dream about...my...real life as a story in a book, right?" the girl questioned hesitantly, a part of her realizing something terrible.
"This is your real life, Clary," Ms. Klasky assured her seriously, meeting her eyes.
"So then my life as Kelsey Linden, that was a dream? But that doesn't explain how that book was like my life..." The girl stared off into space, unsure of anything.
What that poor girl doesn't know is that she isn't really Kelsey or Clary. Her real name has been lost...It all started when she opened a book...and then she had a dream about that book, and in that dream she read a different book, and so then she dreamed of that book. She has lived in her dreams...Sometimes the same dreams came back even after having a different dream. Sometimes she get's closer to finding her original dream.
You might think it crazy and impossible, but my dear friends, you forget one thing. This isn't the world you live in. This...this is the Twilight Zone...