"When are you from?"
"When?"
Maybe he'd made a mistake. He had to have meant "where". Right?
"Yes, "when" is my question because, in my experience, "when" is not always what you think." His words were followed by a monstrous giggle.
My jaw droppe...
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There's a very particular emotion you feel when you get stripped away from where you're comfortable. I've pretty much lived in one place my entire life. My safe zone.
It was the clichéd, old-fashioned house with a garden of rosebushes and apple trees, but there comes a point when the trees fall down, and home just isn't what it used to be.
That wasn't what mattered anyway.
What made the place so special was the people who lived inside it. The people who promised me that they'd never leave.
So what happens when you get stripped away from your safe zone? Let me fill you in. Suddenly you're placed in cold-hearted unknown and you're expected to function in a place that you know nothing about.
Waking up was the hardest part.
It was so dark, and I couldn't see much. There was a strong light shining directly into my eyes. The air was too thin and the world was too different.
What's happening to me?
That's when I knew, without a doubt, that there was no going back.
It took a while before I was actually able to move. I couldn't understand why it was so hard. My brain was screaming at my body to get up, but it wasn't listening.
When my eyes finally adjusted, I soon became aware of the shadows hovering above me. The eyes watched me like I was a high school science experiment. There was no stopping them.
"She's gaining consciousness," A dark silhouette announced.
I felt a sharp jolt of pain (which I later realized was a needle sticking into me). All I could do was flinch. I couldn't even let out a whimper since my voice wasn't working either. I admit, a tear did stray onto my cheek, not only from the pain, but from the sheer shock of the situation.
In truth, I had never felt so desperately alone until that moment. It reminded me of the nightmares that I used to have repeatedly as a little girl. The same every night.
I would walk through the passageway of my home, with the cruel sensation that I was alone. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't speak or call out to anyone for help. No matter how much I opened my mouth, I had no voice...
Chills ran through my spine, from both the cold draft escaping through the thin sheets onto my skin, and the simple memory of a dream.
What if this wasn't just a dream? I thought. What if I was living through a nightmare?
They waited for me to regain movement before they started wheeling my bed to another venue. It was a slow process, but eventually my fingers started to twitch and after what seemed like hours later, my arms and legs were bending and shifting.
I was so afraid that I had been in some kind of accident and I was paralysed. I was in those terrible plastic hospital robes. You must know them; the gowns that cover nothing but the basic private areas and are held together by a feeble ribbon at your back.
