Chapter 2
Waking up…Realization…Drifting…
I sleep for seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries, I sleep. I don't know who I am, what time it is, or even what I am. I was dreaming that I was falling, but it was a peaceful, leisurely fall, lying with my back down and slowly descending. That was when I realized I was still sleeping. I try and try to wake up, but I can't.
This can't be happening, this can't be happening, this can't be happening….I chant over and over to myself. I think very hard, and I start to remember. I am an immortal, a witch. What has happened to me?! My name is Bella. Am I dead?!
Maybe I did die… no, no, that's impossible, I'm a witch. I live forever, I can't die. But what if I did? I'm dead!
I would have cried, but I couldn't because I was still dead. I have the sensation that I'm rocking slowly and gently back and forth. I realize that I hadn't even slept or died, I had just imagined everything. The darkness just made me desensitized and I wasn't dead, maybe crazy, but not dead. I wasn't dead!
The rocking sensation hadn't been a product of my mind, though. I looked around, finally paying attention, as the scene changed. The darkness slowly dissolved and I saw that I was sitting in a small boat in the middle of the ocean.
I am slowly gliding over the water in my small vessel, and I see a dark, looming shape on the horizon. As I draw closer, I realize that it's an island.
I reach the island, and my boat just continues smoothly up the white sand until there is no more water to carry it. I step out of my little craft onto the whitest, softest sand I had ever seen, touched, or imagined.
It was like silk beneath my feet, only seemingly alive, writhing and twisting beneath me as I set my feet delicately onto the beach. The sand puddles around my legs, all the way up to my ankles, leaving foot prints across its otherwise perfect surface.
While the sand squished between my toes, I was warm and comfortable. Peaceful. For no apparent reason to myself or otherwise, I start running.
Maybe it's because I was so exhilarated, but I don't know. I was running so fast, the warm, calming wind caressing my cheeks as a mother would soothe a sad child.
As I run, I need no food or water, I just run. I don't get tired, and it seems like I don't even need to breathe anymore. I hold my breath while I run, and after what seemed like 20 minutes without even chickening out, I decided that I no longer had any use for my lungs.
I slip into almost a trance as I run, as the calming noises of the smooth sand making small pat, pat sounds, the quiet swells of the ocean, and the breeze whooshing past me give me more energy to run.
It all seemed like a dream. Was this heaven? Running and running until you found God?
I run until I notice that I am no longer on the beach, I am in the forest. Not a small forest, a HUGE forest. The canopy of trees spanned out above me, and the leaves looked like giant forks just about to reach down at me and spear me onto them.
Forks. I like that. If I had a town, I would call it Forks, but only if it had a forest.