Somewhere
When I hit the open air I knew I was dead. Nothing, ever, had smelled this naturally clean, not even in the Mommy fable. Heaven smelled a whole lot better than life.
Then heaven faded, and I was back into nitty-gritty existence. The others streamed around me, breaking in different directions, running, fleeing if they could. My back felt like it was going to tear in two flaming chunks any minute now. I couldn't see the Maximum anymore. I didn't know where it went. I couldn't see any of the winged ones. It was like they had vanished back to the dimension they'd come from.
I found myself alone in a strange place, where it was dark and noisy and hot. Machines or something rolled past somewhere nearby, and I could barely even see them. Their lights scared me.
Struggling through the fog, I managed to find a bush and crawl under it, where I was violently sick. Then I rested. Or passed out, I'm still not sure which. While I was in the darkness I dreamed I was back in my bars. For once it wasn't a nightmare. It was a relief. A cold, solid, enclosed reassurance that things would go on, painful as they were. My purpose continued, dead-ending my long-broken hope. This was my life. I had my purpose. So be it.
I woke up cold and shivering during Lights On. My floor felt spongy and I was in a stretched position. My cage wasn't that big. What was going-
WHEN I OPENED MY EYES THE FOG WAS GONE!!!
Where was it? Where was my world?! I freaked out, flipping over and getting scratched by all these green prickly things surrounding me. There were sounds I didn't know, smells I didn't know. I was wet with dew. The light was too bright, too direct. When I looked up my stomach flipped - there was no roof overhead. There were these white fluffy-looking blobs and this blinding circle I couldn't look right at. I closed my eyes against it.
Where was I? What happened?
With the absence of the fog the strangest thing happened – I remembered.
I'd been sick the night before. There was the sick on the ground, near my foot, a little reminder. My sharp vision picked up traces of things outside the bush. A world. Not my world, but a world nonetheless.
A world I'd escaped into. I'd never known there was more than one. Or maybe I was dead, but I didn't think so anymore. It seemed more and more like I would know if I were dead. I'd never been dead before, but I got to feeling this wasn't it.
Which meant I was alive. Which meant I was still in a strange world. Which meant my chances for remaining alive were negotiable.
Someone was walking near my bush, out in that other world. I held very still, not even breathing, not even groaning when my back twinged painfully. I'd been trained not to groan.
They passed without knowing I was there. I shifted once they were gone, trying to make more room and ignoring the grumbling in the pit of my stomach. I was used to being hungry. They almost never fed me because that would mess with the results they wanted.
I stretched my mind, now vacant of the fog, thinking clear thoughts I'd never been able to connect before. It was like waking up from a dream and establishing what's still real.
I was here. I was out. I didn't know where 'here' was or how long I could remain 'out', but I did know one thing.
I knew what had been wrong before.
Those were bad, bad people.
