Title: Displaced

Chapter 2

Jenna awoke with a start and sat up. She turned her head right and left, looking franticly at her surroundings confused and disoriented. Blindly reaching to her left, her hands found what she was looking for and turned the little knob of the lamp. Squinting against the soft light of the lamp, she found herself in bed in her own bedroom. Jenna brought her hands up and rubbed her face vigorously, trying to focus on removing the cobwebs from her mind needing to reassure herself that it was all a dream. Probably the most uncanny and realistic dream she'd ever had. Pushing her hands up and through her long dark hair, she glanced at the clock on the nightstand by her bed. It was almost four in the morning.

It'd been a long time since she'd had a dream as vivid as that. Not since she was about 12 years old and her mother had still been alive. Those had been different though. Mostly they involved playing in the park or shopping for cloths. In each one of those she'd been aware of who she was and had had a minimal of influence on how the dream progressed. This time she hadn't been able to recall anything of her life save her name yet she'd had total control of what she'd looked at, what she'd touched, and where she'd gone within the confines of that gray room.

Once, before she'd passed away, she'd told her mother about those dreams and how sometimes the intensity of them had made her nervous. Her mother had looked at her for what seemed like a long time before responding to her little revelation. She'd called it 'riding' and told Jenna not to worry too much about it. Her mother said that when she thought Jenna was old enough she'd tell Jenna all about it. A year later her mother had died in an accident and they'd never had that talk and Jenna stopped having the riding dreams.

The whole thing had always been something of a mystery to her, but with the grief of her mother's death weighing so heavily on her she'd gradually forgotten about those dreams. Eventually life went on in its own twisted sort of way. Her father had never gotten over the death of her mother and had moved them to a different town where he wouldn't be reminded of their favorite restaurant or the bakery her mother used to frequent. Soon everything started to remind him of his late wife and they were moving from town to town almost every month. Then one day he never came home. It was three days before a neighbor realized that Jenna was home alone and called Family Services. It was also that same day that the police showed up at her door to inform Jenna that they'd found her father lying in an alley having literally drunk himself to death.

There were no grandparents, aunts or uncles and Jenna's father had alienated what few family friends there had been after her mother died so that eventually it had been just the two of them. So Jenna had become a ward of the state.

Jenna pushed her hands through her hair again as if trying to physically push those unwanted memories aside. She never liked recalling her teen years and had no desire to analyze every aspect of it again. The past was better off left in the past. Let's focus on the current neuroses, shall we, thought Jenna. What in the world could have happened to cause me to have a riding dream, if I can even call it that, after all this time? If I didn't know better I'd say that it had actually happened.

Rather than dwell on it further, Jenna swung her legs over to the side of the bed determined to get a glass of water and put the whole thing behind her. She felt unsteady on her feet and the carpet felt a bit spongy. Blowing it off as remnant affects from her dream, Jenna proceeded to the door and opened it.

It wasn't what she saw that grabbed her attention, but what she didn't see. With the light behind her pouring out the door she should have been able to gain a clear view of the carpet all the way to the sofa of her third floor apartment. Instead the room beyond was pitch black. She saw absolutely nothing in front of her, not even a hint of an outline of any of her furniture. It was as if the light stopped at her bedroom door and was then swallowed up by the darkness before it could go further.

Jenna reached out and felt along the wall just outside her door looking for the light switch. She could have sworn it was only a few inches from the doorframe. The further she reached, the more concerned she became until finally in her efforts she stepped past the safety of her room.

Jenna realized her error too late as her foot came down on empty space not carpet and she suddenly found herself flying forward into nothingness. She'd never know a fear like the one that gripped her as she fell and was enveloped in total and utter darkness. The air was thick and heavy and she felt like she was going to suffocate. The only thing she heard was the cacophony of her heart in her ears as she realized she couldn't even bring herself to scream.

Just as suddenly as her fall had begun it had ended with her getting the wind knocked out of her as she finally hit the ground. The fall felt like it had lasted forever though it probably had only lasted a couple minutes, which didn't make any sense at all. She should be dead not lying prone trying to catch her breath.

Jenna tried to get her bearings as she struggled to breathe and deal with the pain of her unwanted introduction to the ground.

"Alright, Jenna. This has to be a…dream…it has to be. It's obvious…that…you never woke up…so get a hold…of yourself. Just breathe."

Jenna turned onto her back and focused on her breathing and tried to slow her pulse and calm down. She found this particular dream oddly easier to deal with than the last. At least this time she was certain she had to be dreaming. There was no way in the world that this could be real. With that thought, she found that she could once again breathe freely and that she was no longer in any kind of pain.

"Oh, much better. Now all I have to do is wake up." Using techniques she'd learned in her martial arts class, she began to focus on her breathing again as she focused her eyes in front of her. The idea was to visualize an exit that she would then use to exit her dream and wake up. The method had worked many times before when she'd found herself in nightmares and she felt it begin to work now.

Before her the frame of a sliding glass door appeared. She thought about how fresh the air must be beyond that door and visualized lush green grass and the bright light from the sun coming through. The light was so bright it almost blinded her then suddenly it wasn't so bright anymore so Jenna got up and walked towards the door and looked out.

"You've got to be kidding me."