If one fell asleep in the zone, it was rumored one would lose their minds. Of course, it was nearly impossible to decipher reality from myth. The native tribes in the Amazon region all spoke of different legends. My team did our best to translate and prepare, but no one really believed the interviews would lead to a real place. Well, no one except for me.
The urge to fall asleep was too strong. Now, it was going to be a lot harder to discern illusion from reality. Despite being told about the hallucinations, I wasn’t prepared for what I’d encounter once I entered the room and sat down on the edge of the bed. In my dreams, I was shown a large stone tablet made of ashy stone, but as soon as I placed my hand on it, I was forced awake.
“Come on, Adeline. Get it together,” I groaned, throat dry and cracked from a lack of drinking water.
The morning was always a struggle because it meant the usual. It meant remembering who you were. If there was anything I was trying to get away from, it was myself. I was twenty-eight and well into adulthood, but I hadn’t a clue what the hell I was doing anymore.
The truth was, I was lost. My scientific studies were going nowhere. All my notes on the subject sounded like the ramblings of a mad old cat lady, but I knew the stories had to be true because I had seen something when I was a little girl. My work was important. Soon, I’d find the other side and show the world what it meant to disappear.
I reached out to grab my communications device. Patting the bed to the side, I felt nothing, so I quickly turned and saw the bed had... shifted. The night before, the sheets were blue. That morning, they were red. Very simple changes, but they proved to me the phenomena were real. I wasn’t crazy. Everything my team had studied was turning out to be true. I was closer than I’d thought.
On the other side, my team was patiently waiting for my call, but without any means of communication to the outside world, I was pretty screwed. No, I was worse than screwed. I was lost in another realm.
As if the deafening tones from the alarm weren’t enough, the radio turned on next. I tried to swallow, but it played an old and familiar commercial. “Having troubles with your sleep? Do you have unwanted memories ruining your day? Call our new facility for more details!”
“Urrgh,” I moaned and widened my eyes to wake up some more. “Where the hell did it go?”
My arms felt like they had tubes running through them. My neck felt sore. Symptoms of the Onyx Zone. However, items brought in weren’t supposed to go missing...
The pull from sleep was strong, but the horrible sensation I could only describe as being the complete and total loss of human interaction snapped me onto my butt. I sat hunched over on the edge of the bed and smacked the stop button—possibly the first time I had ever ignored the snooze.
Finally, I was awake, but I had more work to do. I had flown halfway across the world to find this place. I’d scoured the streets, asked the locals for help, but it took months to find it.
At first sight, I thought I had been led there as a joke. It was just a normal hostel, rundown and abandoned. It was so innocuous, I had managed to walk by it every morning on my way to coffee. When I found it, I radioed my team and was granted approval to enter. I did, but I didn’t find a portal.
Instead, there were rooms. One room in particular called to me, a door at the end of the long and dilapidated hallway. I opened it, fell asleep, and woke up like this. It wasn’t at all how I expected it to be.
Standing near the window, I parted the curtains and looked down at the bustling street, except when my eyes adjusted to the light, I was looking at something I didn’t expect. Strangely, from that very window, I found myself staring at a familiar house. I saw myself as a young girl, catching insects in a large and very green yard. Then I saw a woman. It wasn’t my mother, but she, too, looked familiar. In a fit of unnatural rage, she ran toward me. She flung her arm back before smacking me in the face.
My cries echoed in my ear and, suddenly, I was twisting inside myself. Memory upon memory came at me like shards of broken glass, ready to annihilate my very being. I screamed and fell back, landing on my tailbone.
I winced in pain, but I was in my room again. “What the fuck...”
I took a deep breath and tried to forget what I had just witnessed, but it was clear the hallucinations were starting to speed up. It was impossible to know who or what to trust. I signed up for this mission, but I didn’t think I’d have to relive my past.
To most, I was the nerdy brunette from a small town in southern Michigan, innocent and protected. But I’d found out pretty quick the world was darker than it seemed.
My father and I had eventually lost touch. It was hard to believe, but he just up and left. His work was more important than his family. Of course, he didn’t tell us that. He didn’t tell us anything at all. All of the memories I had of him were tarnished by his abandonment. I refused to speak to him again.
Months ago, when he passed away, it shattered me. He was the one who taught me how to be me. He was supposed to be my side, on the field and off. But he had failed my family in more ways than one.
Communication was impossible in every relationship. People wanted different things at different moments. People were irritable. People could be happy, but most of the time, people were violent. Like my mother’s austerity. Like my father’s absence.
I was never good enough, never fast enough, was never a bright enough star to succeed as a woman in my family. I also would never have the follower count, the perfect hair, and the faux smile to sell myself out like the new generation could. It wasn’t that I hated my family or the modern world I had found myself in. I didn’t. I guess I just didn’t feel like I belonged to it anymore.
The hallucinations were bringing me to a place of extreme discomfort, but I dug further, knowing the laws of physics surrounding this place would eventually bring me to where I needed to go.
Every scientist worth their salt knew, sometimes, danger could bring about a state of knowing, Sure, I didn’t have my complex readers, communication device, or any of the Geiger counters I promised my superiors I would pack. But I’d promised myself I wouldn’t interfere too much with the physical nature of the realm I was inside. If I was lost to the world, so be it. It had been lost to me some time ago.
I didn’t need much. I didn’t need a big house, children, or a million dollars. All I needed was my work. Of course, as strong and independent as I was, I couldn’t stop my heart from hurting.
I wasn’t only healing from my father’s untimely death. There was also the issue of Zane, my ex-boyfriend. Keyword: ex.
Zane wanted someone different. When I’d break down and confide in him, he called me weak, but I wasn’t. I just had a lot to overcome.
As time went
by, there was less to say. To look at my partner, the man I spent years with, and know the magic was slowly drifting away shattered my heart.