I open my eyes to see the dark gray sky overhead.

I can still see in my mind's eye the dream I was having. I'd been in a cornfield with a bunch of kids. It was vaguely familiar. I hate recurring dreams.

I sit up suddenly and feel a wave of dizziness, and as I touch my forehead there's a surge of pain in my head. Panic. I'm not where I was last night. Life has a way of making everything happen at the worst time possible for me. I have a theory that the universe holds a grudge against me.

I'm by the side of a road. It looks just like the ones yesterday, nothing but the road and the cornfields. Perfect.

Canti's still asleep. The sun isn't even up yet. I get to my feet and notice I'm shivering. It must be earlier than six in the morning, the fog is so thick.

I pick up Canti, who wakes with a start and meows angrily at me. "Don't be such a baby," I tell him. I look around, trying to find a sign that might give me a clue as to where I am, but there's nothing. Just me and Canti, and the road, and the corn, and the sky, and the fog...

"Okay, Canti. Let's go back to the hotel." I set him down and he looks around. He strides out in front of me, changes his mind, and suddenly turns around and starts going in the other direction. And then he comes back to me and sits down on the grass, staring up as if to say "Up, now, please." I pick him up and sigh. He usually knows where to go, but I guess I can't expect him to know everything. We're far from home, after all. And this fog doesn't help. Both directions look exactly the same.

Better start walking then... Maybe a car will drive by and I can ask them where we are. Maybe they'll even give us a ride! Good thing I'm so paranoid that I wore a bra under my pijama shirt. Wait, what am I thinking? What if I got murdered or raped or kidnapped? No... Noooo taking rides from strangers. We'll get somewhere eventually... Just keep going...

I hear a rustling coming from inside the corn. I stop dead in my tracks. I wonder whether it would be better to run or wait to find out what that noise means. It could have just been the wind... But that wasn't what it sounded like. No, it sounded like someone is shoving their way through the corn in a hell of a hurry. The noise goes on until the young boy stumbles out. He's no older than 12, and no doubt he's latino. He looked at me as he stepped out, like he expected me to be standing exactly where I am. And he's covered in blood. He's holding onto his neck with one bloody hand, and with the other he's reaching out to grab mine. I don't resist. I'm frozen. He can't speak, his fucking neck is slit. He falls down on his knees and lies down in the grass, blood spilling down. He's trying to tell me something, it's just barely a whisper, I shake my head, trying to understand it. Spanish. "Ayudala, por favor." He keeps repeating it over and over. My entire body's shaking uncontrollably. I try to get a hold of myself. "Quien?" I whisper, but it's too late, he's gone. I cover my mouth to muffle my cries. I let go of his hand suddenly, realizing he isn't there anymore. I shut my eyes, but the image of his face is tattooed in my mind's eye. His neck covered in red shiny, sticky, messy blood, his brown eyes, now empty, staring at me pleadingly, his black hair shaggy and disheveled. The cold sweat on his face, the beads of dew on his eyelashes, his tears migrating down to the grass. His dark skin, dark eyes, dark hair, his almond eyes and soft lips, so much like my own. My family's features, my heritage. I want that dead child's face to get out of my head, so I stare at the sky, at the corn, I shut my eyes tight and grab my head, anything, anything to make it go, but it's there forever. I stare at my hands. They're covered in blood from having held his hands. I try to get it off, spitting on them, wiping them on the grass, but it's so sticky, it won't leave me alone. Why can't I escape? Surely this isn't happening... surely it's a nightmare. But in the back of my mind I know that if it were indeed a nightmare, I wouldn't have known. It is not a dream. It's happening right now. I have blood on my hands. It's there, I can see it plainly enough. I can see the dead boy, eyes still wide open. And suddenly I get cold feeling in the pit of my stomach. My head reeling. I vomit by the side of the road, cough and gag until my throat burns. My ears, ringing with the sound of the wind in the corn. I cover my ears, make my body into a ball and close my eyes, but I can't get away. The wind is too strong, the blood too sticky against my ears and my hair, the image of the tiny corpse too vivid.

There's a dead child lying next to me. There is a dead child lying next to me. I need to get a hold on myself. Why would someone kill a little boy? It dawns on me-there's some sick bastards out there-could he have been a victim of some hate crime?

"Ayudala, por favor." Help her, please. Help who?

I stand up so fast my head spins, and I jump back when I see another boy, this one white, tall, and alive. He must be almost six feet tall, and he's got broad shoulders, red shoulder-length hair and a solid stance, and he's older, maybe fifteen or sixteen. His green eyes bore into mine. I feel myself cringe under his glare. I'm not easily intimidated. I tend to be the one who intimidates others, but this guy isn't normal. I can almost hear the drilling and pounding of the intensity of his eyes on me. He's not just watching. He's examining, searching, violating, just with his stare.

There's blood splattered all over his shirt and face and his hands and forearms are covered in it. In his right hand, a dirty, rusty, bloody machete.

He takes a few steps closer. His gaze has softened, but his face still looks hostile, like it's stuck that way. He speaks softly in an authoritative tone, "Who are you, outlander?" Authoritative, but curious.

I clear my throat, but my voice still sounds rough and it trembles. "I'm Valentina."

He stares more, his eyebrows furrowed, frowning. I can see the different expressions despite the mean disposition his face seems to be molded as. He looks like he's deciding what to do with me.

Eventually, after what must have been the longest minute of my life, he approaches me. I want to run, but where would I go? He might slit my throat just like he did to the little boy. I glance at the machete, but his grip on it has loosened. He notices what I was looking at and secures the knife to his belt.

Canti scampers over to me protectively and leaps onto my shoulder. The boy glances at him nonchalantly, then focuses on me again. He's looking at my bare feet, my black sweatpants, my plain white t-shirt which I decorated in art class with a picture of Sid and Nancy. He looks back into my very soul with his horrible eyes full of aggression and loathing, and something else I can't figure out.

He grabs me by the elbow. He's got that awful sticky blood on his hands. I gasp and take a step back, trying to escape, but his grip is the strongest I've ever felt. There's no way I'm getting out of this. When he sees me struggle, he doesn't let go, but that expression becomes more clear on his features. I can't decipher him. It's an emotion I don't know.

He tugs. "I must take you to Gatlin." There's nothing I can do. We walk into the corn, and as we go past the dead boy, I feel a surge of nausea. He leads me through the cornfield, occasionally glancing back at me curiously, those strange traces of hostility never faltering.

I had been afraid he'd kill me or rape me or do something equally horrible. Now I realize that if that had been his intention, he'd have done it already. No, he's taking me somewhere. I want to ask where, but I can't speak.

I remember the dream. The corn. The little boy. Walking through the endless rows, just corn, and corn, and corn. And now the red-haired boy is leading me through the exact same rows of corn. How am I only realizing this now? My head is spinning, my stomach is turning, and my legs are getting weaker.

I stop and retch, cough, dry heave, until it finally stops and then I collapse, but the boy catches me just as blackness comes.