The Outsiders: Before My Time Part III

Is That You, Mom?

Goldie's POV

I felt like I was just staring endlessly into the sun. My retinas were burning, and my vision was spotting with black and dark green dots. In the instant that the intense light had disappeared, I brought my hands up to my eyes and tried to rub them back to normal.

My first thought was that our parents were going to kill us if we took out the electricity from the entire neighborhood again. The machine wasn't connected to anything though, unless there was some sort of wireless electrical connection to the main power source in the house but the machine looks too old to have that feature.

"Goldie, where are we?" Red asked with a shaky, boating voice.

I stopped rubbing my eyes and I opened them. I blinked hard a few times and my sight slowly restored. I looked around and did not see our dusty old attic. I saw a small room, with a dirty green couch, an off white carpet, and behind me was a tiny kitchen. It looked like an apartment, with the smell of cigarette smoke slowly choking me.

"Goldie?" Red said again.

I shushed him. I didn't want to, but I had to. We were in someone's home. We probably weren't alone.

"One second," I whispered and carefully walked to a door off to the side that was opened ajar. I peered in, and I covered my mouth by what I saw. A man. A big man. He was sleeping peacefully in his bedroom.

I very quietly tiptoed back to my siblings. I was terrified that I would accidentally make the floors creak, which would force the guy to come out and investigate. I squatted down beside my siblings and whispered, "there's someone else here. We need to leave right now."

Red was going to speak, but he immediately closed his mouth to remain quiet. My protective big-brother instincts kicked in, and I looked around the room for a way out. I didn't see the door, but I saw a large window with a thin, beige cloth drape trying fruitlessly to keep the Oklahoma sun out, but it wasn't doing a very good job. I walked carefully to the window, and it slid open with ease. There was a fire escape. I looked back and saw the man roll over to the other side in his sleep, and I exhaled slowly.

"Come on," I whispered.

Red and Candy walked over to the window while I carefully stood on the fire escape, hopeful that the metal wouldn't clatter together. I reached in and pulled little Red out, then I helped Candy through the window quietly.

With Red being our leader, we followed him down the fire escape, and I kept looking back to make sure the guy stayed asleep and didn't come out looking for us. We finally got to the road and we kept running until the apartment building was completely out of sight.

"What on earth happened?" Candy shouted while pointing back down the street. She caught her breath and asked, "where are we?"

"I-I-I don't know. I don't know," I stammered. I nervously rubbed the back of my neck, because I had no answer as to how we blinked and were suddenly sitting in the middle of a stranger's apartment. "I don't have the foggiest clue what's going on here."

"You don't think that's..." Candy started.

"No," I interrupted. I knew what she was going to say, and I refused to accept it. "No. There has got to be some sort of explaination. Like, I could be in a coma. Yeah, that would make sense. I fell off the ladder and I'm being rushed to the hospital right now."

"That's a good theory, Sherlock, but why am I and Red having the same comatose dream?" Candy asked with a spit of attitude.

"I don't know," I sighed. "Maybe we are just lost."

"How did we get lost if we were just in our attic?"

"I don't know," I snapped. "This is no time to kirk out. Let's just ask for help."