I could feel a warm breeze sweep lightly across my face, bringing the faint scent of pine trees intertwined with green grass. I faced the palms of my hands down to feel the soft and cool strips that withheld me from sitting up, and exhaled softly. I smiled and opened my eyes to find myself lying down in a meadow. The untainted sky was brightened by golden rays emitted from the sun, of which was dipping down below the horizon, turning the sky into some of the more darker hues that are produced by spectrum lights.
I finally found the strength within me to sit up. The view was even more breathtaking with the silent humming of nature's composed tunes and the faded laughter and joys of baby birds just learning to fly . The meadow had stretched out for miles into the distance, like back at the field in Iowa. This one seemed to have more of a lively, yet peaceful, sentiment; effervescent with an occasional monarch floating gracefully above the most beautiful group of flowers. Crickets were singing to each other to the rythm of the wind, adding to the sound of music.
I suddenly heard vociferous commands and rough laughter echoing from behind me, and I eagerly turned around, wondering if my ears had proved me wrong in what my thoughts had been, and still were, telling me.
"Man, Darrel, I wouldn't be surprised if you become one of the most famous football players in history!" a tall, mirror-image of Darry said to a different, younger looking, mirror-image of Darry. It was then that I realized that it was my own father talking to 18-year-old Darry. I felt my heartbeat's acceleration increase as I caught my dad's eyes meet mine, smiling tenderly.
"Ponyboy, what is it? You look like you're gonna start screamin' for joy!!!" Darry hollered teasingly, starting his way towards me, a small, dilapidated football tucked beneath his left underarm. He was just a bit slimmer in size, yet his build was chiseled to perfection from football practice and games. His tattered jeans matched the brown plaid shirt he was wearing, and soon enough he was standing in front of me, looking down with a pride-filled grin and blue eyes that were once again, stress-free. I kept staring at him, trying to recover from the shock and delusion I seemed to be having internally.
"HELLO!!!-" he pretended to knock on my forehead "- ANYBODY HOME!?!"He burst into laughter as I felt my face fall red, but instead of pushing him out of the way or whacking his shoulder with the back of my hand, I pitched forward and threw my arms around him, squeezing harder than anything. I was filled with a mixture of sorrow and happiness, and I could feel tears fill my eyes.
"Oh Darry, I'm so sorry! Really I am! I promise I won't ever shoot that soc, or hold a gun ever again PROMISE!!! Please, just don't send me away again... PLEASE!!!" I said in between sobs, wondering how close I was to being seperated for all eternity from him. He awkwardly started rubbing my back in gentle, soothing circles. All of a sudden, a cold chill ran through me, causing me to tear myself away from Darry. Then, everything started falling away, piece by piece, into the unending black hole beneath my feet. Darry and Dad had both noticed, and were running towards me, when all of a sudden they too had fallen into the darkness.
"NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, stretching my hand out to try and catch them. Then an uproar of burning timber came into play and what was once a field of fresh grass and musical insects was now a fun house of fire. I screamed in horror and started backing away from the growing bundles of heat that were glowing with intentions of burning me to death, until I felt my back start burning and whirled around to find myself being cornered with fire. I tried looking for ways out of it, but to my big misfortune, there was no escaping it.
My body started aching from how much extra unwanted heat it was recieving. My breathing grew shallower and my mind was racing with solutions to getting out of this place. After getting used to the fact that I wasn't and couldn't ever go anywhere but stay put I sat down and watched, with a sickened feeling, as the fire grew closer and closer to me, making beads of sweats pour down all over my face. My hair started sticking to my face and I felt each breath I gave grow shorter and shorter. I finally grew very tired, and lay down, trying so desperately to gain some coolness to bring my body temperature down, but yet again I had no luck in getting any; the ground was as warm and humid as the air that was suffocating me.
"Darry..." I gasped. "Darry... help..." Again I was stuck in the same position that I was back when I was kidnapped. My vision began to blur and I noticed that I had stopped breathing; no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't suck in a breath. I finally felt the heat overcome me, and before I was burned to death I let out a high pitched scream from excrutiating pain.
I was suddenly yanked from fantasy to reality, though I don't know what you'd call that, but I certainly WOULD NOT call it a fantasy.
"SODA GRAB A DAMP TOWEL!!! HURRY!!!" Darry shouted impatiently. My breathing was ragged and I could feel someone propping me up against them; I clenched my teeth, trying to grab ahold of something that would reassure me in knowing that I was, in fact, awake, and for good. The blinding bright light that forced my eyes to be closed made things unproportional and disoriented; it was hard to figure out what I was sitting on and what all the banging around was for.
"Darry...? Darry where are you?" I whispered in a hushed and frightened tone, an uneasy knot forming in the pit of my stomach.
"It's gonna be okay, Pony, okay? The doc'll be here soon... I promise..." Darry answered softly in my ear, trying to calm me down. I wondered where in the world I was, and how long I had been here; how long had I been in this state?
My skin felt as if someone had placed me over a sparking fire place, all hot and moist from the sweat that continuously excreted from my body and stayed, making all the small hairs running up and down stick to me.
I let out a small whimper, fidgeting in Darry's caring arms, wanting so desperately to get cooler still, and frankly, Darry's arms weren't exactly the place to be when you wished so bad for something like what I had wanted then.
"Here..." I heard Soda say under his breath(there was a hint of guilt in his voice, mixed with misery and tiredness) and I could feel something ice-cold being gently pressed against my burning skin. I finally realized that the dream I had was all just an illusion; a mirage to stage a personal memoir of mine, and then to drop me in the deepest, darkest bottomless pit there was ever to be found in such a dream like that. My breathing became more and more relaxed and my body temperature had soon gone back down to normal. I opened my eyes wearily and looked up at Darry. He had on a worried and depressed look on his face, and tried smiling for my sake, a broken, weary smile, but nonetheless, a smile, and none other. Soda was sitting criss-cross right next to me, the same look(except magnified by 10x)on his face, stroking my arm.
We were on Darry's bed; I was tucked underneath the blankets while Darry was behind me, holding me up and stroking my hair(as well as cooling me down with the cold rag), and Soda was on the right of me, leaning on Darry, watching me, paying close attention to every fidget and twitch I seemed to do both voluntarily and unvoluntarily.
"Darry... What all did I say... before I woke up?" I said softly; I knew it was a little unusual and random to offer up a question like that in a situation such as the one I was in, but something tugged at me to say it, and I'm the type of person to give in easily to things like that. I was kind of surprised that I was able to talk pretty easily, though my throat stung just a little bit after every word uttered out of my mouth.
"Just go back to sleep Pony..." Darry said again in a low whisper, pushing strands of hair out of my face. I really wanted to know what I said; ever since I had gone delusional after Johnny and Dallas died, it's really been disturbing me about what I had said while I was asleep. I've become very conscientious about stuff like that, considering the fact that Two-Bit and Steve have always wondered what I think about since I'm am now the quietest member of the gang. After contemplating on the matter of asking once more, knowing that I was that much closer to knowing what my delusional self had conjured up, I just let the subject drop and slumped in Darry's arms. I felt real tired anyways; you would be too if you had just been sent out to hide, kidnapped by someone you've never seen in your entire life, almost beaten to death, and then jerked awake from a terrible nightmare-NIGHTMARE!!! I guess I now just remembered what my nightmare was... and now I wish I didn't remember what it was about... because this would mean that I'd probably have to relive it in the near future until I figured out what it was that ticked in my mind for it to happen.
The last thing I remember was someone knocking at the door, but I was well in a deep and comforting sleep, leaning against Darry's chest as he quickly told Soda to go and see who was there.