The room Rose stood in was familiar, a 90s TV, an old sofa long past its prime and wallpaper fitting the late 80s, everything felt like it was hazy, wrapped up in a child's rose-tinted glasses, almost like an old photograph.
Rose stood for a second, dumbfounded, taking in her surroundings. In an instant her mind was flooded with questions
'who am I?'
'where was I before this?'
'why do I feel like I know this place?'
She stopped to look around her for a second, before being hit by a startling realization as one last question traipsed into her head...
'Am I alone?'
"No," an older voice confirmed.
Its hand reached out to grasp her shoulder firmly, but not in a threatening way. Either way her heart froze mid-beat like a stopwatch.
"Don't turn around, I do not want to be seen," he asked, his voice seemed softer now, almost welcoming.
The living room stretch and shifted into a long, endless corridor; a warped version of the changing rooms she'd never been explored, in a mall she'd never visited. Somehow this didn't phase rose whatsoever.
"Are we real?" she asked reluctantly, she didn't want to know the answer, but she felt compelled to ask.
"No," He replied nonchalantly "We are in a dream"
"Is it my dream? or even yours?" she asked, the panic beginning to bubble up.
"It is neither of our dreams, and when the owner wakes up we cease shall cease to exist, snuffed like a flame"
Rose's heart began thumping in her ear.
"you're lying, I know I'm real"
Silence...
"How do you know all this? I bet you put me here, take me back!" she snapped ferociously, suspicion arising.
More time passed in silence...
"I'll do anything, please, I don't want to go"
The dirty carpet beneath her shifted to gravelly tarmac, and the walls seemed to fall into the ground and leave her in near-darkness, they were on a road, late at night, the only light left being barely functioning streetlights.
"He'll wake up soon" the old man muttered.
Tears streamed from roses eyes and the cloudy sky above began to drip onto Rose and the old man.
"I'm still so new? I don't want to go yet?" she sobbed miserably.
The deafening silence persisted
"Does it hurt when we die?" she muttered, wiping the tears.
"Don't be silly Rose, we can't die. We were never even alive to begin with."
