Distant Lands

I open my eyes, and I’m lying on my back.

There’s sunlight shining down from a skylight above. I feel sore and in pain. My arms and legs feel heavy. What the hell happened? The shed, that’s right; I went into the shed.

I fell...Did I? Was it a nightmare?

I force myself to lay on my side, moaning in pain. The skylight provides enough light to observe the room; the shed walls don’t look like rickety wooden shed. They look more like they are concrete. Well, it was dark outside. Maybe I didn’t see it right.

I fight through the pain and sit up. Luckily my backpack is lying right next to me. I grab it, painfully scoot myself backward, and sit with my back against a wall; supporting my back makes it easier to sit upright.

I’m starving. I look in my backpack and find that the protein bars Diego had packed for me were crushed to crumbs when I had fallen down the hill. I unwrap a couple of them and devour them.

With my hunger satiated, I get up, wincing. My muscles have warmed up, and the pain is beginning to decrease, but my ankle still hurts.

I put on my backpack and limp around the room, looking for the door. The skylight lights some parts of the room, but some are dark. I limp around the room and come back to where I started.

“What the hell? Where’s the door?”

I Limp around again, feeling the walls. There has to be some sort of opening, or maybe there’s a secret door.

I look up at the skylight, confused. It began to dawn on me that I might be in some sort of prison, being held captive. Maybe Diego’s grandfather caught me? What if I never get out of here? Am I going to be left in here, to die slowly, to die alone?

“Help! Help me!” I yell out desperately. “Get me out of here, please!” I yell loudly.

I begin to panic. I go over to a wall and pound my fists on the wall. I hit the wall repeatedly but only stop when I notice blood on the wall. I look down at my trembling hands and see that the cuts have reopened.

“Let me out! I cry, defeated. Feeling hopeless, I sit back down on the floor, with my back against the wall.

“You can’t keep in here! I will get out of here! I’ll find a way,” I say, thinking there might be a camera in here.

“YOU HEAR ME! ASSHOLE! YOU’RE GOING TO REGRE-”

Suddenly, I feel something grasp the back of my sweater. I pull away, and something pulls me back; I try to pull away harder to get up and feel yanked backward forcefully. I fly backward and land hard on the dirt ground. The bright sunlight hurts my eyes, and it takes me a minute to adjust my vision.

I see a young boy smiling at me; and a woman standing behind the boy.

“Hello?” I ask, confused.

“Oh! Alan! get away from that!” I hear a woman yell with a horrified look on her face. The boy turns and runs towards the woman. She quickly ushers the boy away.

“Wait!” I call out, getting up. I limp faster towards them.

“Mam!” I call out, but they continue walking at a fast pace. I stop trying to catch up to them. I stand still, just looking at them move farther and farther away from me.

I’m standing on a long dirt road. There are orchards on the right side of me, many rows and rows of trees, and on the left side, there are large farmland areas. Way out in the distance, there are snow-capped mountains.

The scenery is different. The shed is also definitely not the same one I saw. This shed is concrete, and there is no visible door on it.

I’m extremely baffled and feel like I might be in one of my vivid dreams. I pinch my arm and confirm that I’m not dreaming.

I try to find an explanation- Maybe half of the shed is wood, and the other half is concrete? And I exited from the other side? Or maybe Diego’s grandfather found me and transported me to a different location? I must have been out for hours. But where is the door on the shed?

Sighing, I give up trying to understand what is happening here. Before going completely insane, I need to get to a nearby town and ask for help.

I’m entirely puzzled, but I need to look at the bright side; at least I’m not confined anymore. My best bet is to travel towards the direction the woman and child had gone.

Following the road slowly, I limp forward, admiring the landscape, everything looks so well kept, and the air feels so crisp and fresh. It’s a beautiful day, the sky is a baby blue color, and the soft sunlight feels nice and warm on my face.

Off in the distance, I start to see buildings, and I begin to limp faster. The dirt road ends, and stone pavers pave the rest of the way. I limp closer into the town.

This town is strange-looking. The buildings are light gray concrete, like the shed, but these buildings do have doors and windows.

It feels a little eerie. There’s no one around. Is this town abandoned? I walk up to one of the buildings and knock on the door.

“Hello? Is someone there?” I ask. Nobody answers.

I hear some voices. Two houses away, I see the lady from earlier come out of the building with a man. She was speaking to him frantically. I start to limp towards them.

She points in my direction. Then she spots me.

“There! you see!?” She yells with an accusing tone of voice.

The man looks at me and walks towards me with a gun in his hand. I stop and stare at him. I am sensing the man as a threat. My heart starts thumping hard in my chest.

Before I knew it, I started running. I ran past some houses, looking for a place to hide. I feel excruciating pain in my ankle, But fuck the pain, I’m not getting shot.

I run past some more houses and run into a cornfield. I tried to keep running, but my damn ankle got numb and twisted, making me fall to the ground.

I lay in the cornfield, trying to be quiet. I could hear the man running in the cornfield and the rustling of the tall plants as he pushed them out of his way. Then he slowed down.

I place my hands over my mouth and nose, trying to quiet my breathing.

He’s a few feet away from me. He stops and looks around. I pray to God that he doesn’t look my way. He continues walking, but then he suddenly spots me.

I scramble to get up on my feet, but my damn ankle makes it hard. I manage to stand up and start running. But suddenly, I feel a sharp prick on the back of my thigh.

I try to keep moving, but I feel like I’m moving in slow motion. I lose feeling in my legs, and I fall to the ground. My vision gets blurry, and everything goes dark.