The way ahead is hazy with no transparency. The fog must be violating the air because it is very hard to breath. I can’t tell where I am because it is so dark. Distorted objects, sky high and as short as me, border the area. Are they people or buildings? It doesn’t matter. My mind is more set on the person running several feet away. Her long, blonde hair swishes from side to side with each step she takes. Wait! I call out to her. She slows to a stop and turns her head slightly to the side as if she is looking back at me. There is too much fog for me to be able to see her face, so I take my first step to run to her. Seeing this, she turns back around and sprints away. I follow.

I don’t know how I came to this place. The air is much cleaner, and everything seems lighter. But still, I cannot see the objects around me from how much the fog swarms me; however, I can still make out the girl running. I continue running after her, desperately trying to catch up. She weaves through what seems to be tall grass and trees. Are we in a forest? Shadows dart across my path and run beside me but quickly disappear. A ball of light lifts into the air and falls on the opposite side followed by little dots of more light. Shortly after, another but much brighter ball of light rises and falls, and the process of the moon, stars, and sun continue on in the same pattern. What the-. I loose what I’m about to say when I come to the mouth of a terrifying cave. I can see the girl deep within. Her white dress, pale skin, and blonde hair stands out from the blackness, but even still, I cannot see her face. She raises up her hand and beckons me in with her finger, but once again, as I take a step toward her, she turns and takes off into the deeper part of the cave. Feeling no fear, I follow again.

The darkness shatters into millions of pieces and I hold up my arms for protection in fear of the tiny shards cutting me, but I feel nothing. So I peek through to find the sky a yellowish, orange color. The wind blows through my hair and nearly knocks me off the cliff. I quickly regain my balance and drop down to my knees and look over the edge. Fog covers over the bottom and I can’t see anything – except the girl running away. For some sick reason, I jump off the edge and am surprised to find that my feet immediately hit the ground. Confused, I look up to see the cliff I leaped off of towering over me thousands of feet high in the sky. Oh well. I sprint after the girl, but she just seems to get farther and farther away. The fog thickens and I find myself alone, having lost sight of the girl, so I slow down but continue walking forward. More objects break through, but because of the lightness of the sky, I can see that they are houses. A slamming sound comes to my ears and I move towards the sound. The sound comes from the two-story house standing on the far left side of me. The front door opens and slams in a certain rhythm. I creep up the path leading to the doorsteps and stick my head inside to look around. It seems as if there is more fog in the house than outside, so I step inside and close the door behind me. I open my mouth to call out, but I quickly stop when soft singing floats through the house. For a second time, I follow the sound I seem so interested in, and it leads me upstairs and into a room and the end of the dark hallway. I lean up against the wall and move my head towards the room and look in. The source of the singing came from the girl who is dancing in a sort of ballerina like dance. Her movements and singing slows together, and she stops in the middle of the room. She just stands there with her head bent down and tilted to the side, arms stiffly placed on her sides. I get off the wall and start to move towards her. She moves so fast I barely see it. She jumps to one side of the room, opens the door of the closet, and enters it. WHAT? I am about sick of this! Full of rage, I sprint into the closet.

I half expect to run into the wall of the closet, but instead, find myself in another unfamiliar place, a more horrifying place. I am on the same cliff I jumped off of before and looking down at the disaster below. What I once thought was fog, I now know as smoke, no longer hovers around me but lifts upward. At my left, fire rampages through the forest I first ran through. Trees blacken, crack, and fall the ground. Birds frantically fly skyward to get away from the fire but fall due to too much smoke. The darting shadows I can now identify as deer skip through the forest, trying to get away from the fire but with no avail. As they exit the edge of the forest, I can see that their fur has caught on fire. To my horror, I watch as they move to the right side of me to where the neighborhood that I just came out of, and set the houses on fire. One right after the other, the fire rises and destroys the buildings. When they reach the last house, the deer fall to the ground and burn as the houses crash and burn just like them. Feeling pure sorrow and fear, I turn from the flames. Standing right behind me is the girl, but I gasp in surprise because she is not just a girl. She is me.

She – me – tilts her head to the side again and looks deep into my eyes, her eyes, and speaks. “You have to learn to be much faster than me if you want to catch me.”
“But. . . What?”
“You must find yourself. . . or loose yourself forever. All that will await you is destruction,” She points behind me, but I don’t turn. “And madness.” In that moment . . .

I break from my dream screaming.