Yesterday I saw a cat. I know that sounds really lame, but I saw a cat. He was white with a perfect black circle on his forehead. The cat kept...looking at me, with his green and blue eyes. Then it started jerking its head, like the way people sometimes do to tell someone to follow them. So I did...I followed him.

The cat led me straight through the middle of the city, weaving through traffic and sitting on the curb staring at me while I waited for the light, through the bad part of town with the goths and druggies giving me rude looks while they smoked within their gangs, and right out into the country and into the forest. I followed that cat to the very heart of the forest, we had been walking for hours, I didn't think the frest stretched that far.

At some point it occured to me that we weren't in the same forest anymore. I want to say another world here, but I seriously don't think that it was another world, I think this cat led me into another branch of our world. Soon we came to a lake. There wasn't any sand around it, I'm used to lakes with sand, instead there was a collection of green moss and clover leading to the bank where surprisingly clean mud sloped gently downward. The cat walked to the edge of the watr and bent over it, turning his head to look at me.

“Wait, what do you want?” I asked. “I don't understand cat speak you know!” I suddenly felt a very large, very hairy, hand on my shoulder.

“I believe,” said a deep voice coming from behind me. “He wants you to step into the lake.”

“Oh no,” I said, snarky even in my terror. “I am SO not getting in that lake.”

“I suggest you do as he asks.”

“B-but, i-it's a lake, it's not even supposed to be there. There isn't supposed to be a lake for miles of h-” Then I felt a flaming pain on the back of my head and was consumed by darkness and nightmares.

And now here I am, on my knees with my arms chained to the walls on either side of me, my head hanging, my usually blond hair dripping with sweat and dirt. A bright light flashes in my face, and I know nothing for a time longer than I couuld imagine.