I throw the backpack onto the ground and dig through the contents frantically. It wasn't long before someone would show up. Pulling out the bomb, I turn it over in my hands for any sign of other devices. Aha. A small curtain of a door on the material of the bomb gives way to a shiny panel.
It's a security panel. I stare at it in horror. Slowly, my fingers creep up to the numbers…
and then BOOM! Everything around me becomes nothing.
My ears rang from the explosion, and I was bruised all over my body. I slowly staggered onto my feet, but realized I wasn't in the barn, or anywhere near it, anymore.
Dinosaurs roamed the fields nonchalantly, paying me no mind. I huffed in irritation—and after my dramatic entrance, too!
The valley stretched for what seemed like miles, so far that it looked as though it cut off at the horizon. Bloated-bodied and strange-headed creatures roamed brushes of vegetation. Long-necked and slender-legged reptilians watered themselves in a nearby pond. I dared not creep near them. I knew what they were, and they shouldn't have been there.
I could feel how exhausted I was, how hungry I was. I also really had to go to the bathroom. This was not a very good start to… whatever this had turned out to be.
And even worse, people kept adding more than two sentences to my strange story! Honestly, I'd rather sidle up to those long-necked slender-legged reptilians than…than…wow, I was so tired….quite abruptly I passed out on the ground.
Time was a frayed line, with too many possibilities. The endings torn and torn again. I had passed out, but upon being unconscious, I awoke.
"Huh," I said, and took a bite of the large pineapple I was conveniently holding. "Ow," I said, glaring at the pineapple accusingly—it wasn't skinned or anything, and that had really hurt!
I threw the pineapple to the ground and climbed up the tree to my right.
I climbed back down, stomped on the pineapple, and then climbed back up. That pineapple deserved it.
From my view, the skies are grey and I feel like it's about to rain.
"Hello, dear, did you sleep well?" I hear a voice sooth my mental pain.
SURPRISE my grandma was in the tree with me. I squinted at her suspiciously, "grandma, what are you doing in my tree?"
"Nothing that is of any concern to you, my dear," she replied. "But you better hurry if you don't want to be late to Betsy's Quinceañera!"
"Abuela, ¿cómo supiste sobre Bettys?" Pregunto, cada vez más confundido.
"Solo sé mi pequeño grano de arroz". Ella dice, sonriendo para sí misma y luego pasándome un trozo de piña.
Baffled, I stared at Grandma's sour face. "Ich habe nicht nach einem Stück Ananas gefragt," I told her.
"Its okay, I know you like it." she paused and then said, "it is nothing to be ashamed of. I didn't want to have a daughter who was pineapple. And I know you didn't want to have a mother that was a pineapple. But, the world is not a perfect world. We cannot have what everything that want. I hope that you learn that lesson before I die."
She paused and then kindly placed the pineapple in my lap. And then jumped out of the tree.
"Could it be," I thought, "that the soul of my mother resides within this tree? That my father has been lying to me all these years when he said mother left us to follow her dream of becoming an acrobat in Cirque du Soleil?" I sat in the shade beneath the branches for the next 45 hours, pondering the perplexities of life and imagining how Niel Degrasse Tyson built his career.
Next thing I know, I am standing on my bed sweating head to toe. I really hate dreams inside dreams, especially when one consists of being kidnapped. It's the last thing I need right now.
Everything felt so real. How can I be sure this isn't a dream to?
I whip my head around and examine my room. Posters and pictures line the walls and a compact lamp sits on the chocolate colored table by my bed
"Could this all truly be a dream? Could I really just be crazy?" No, I thought to myself, I'm not crazy, all of these ideas were once declared crazy by people who didn't believe in expanding their minds. The only crazy one here who didn't believe the past few hours is… me.
"They say you're crazy." The man said from the corner of my room.
"Well they are not wrong." I say, and the snap my mouth closed with my hand, "What is going on?!" I say, screaming.
"Crazy, crazy girl." He tsks' as he backs away into the shadows. "So crazy."
Fear tries to clutch at my chest, its icy fingers reaching for my heart, but I feel strangely calm. The stranger is the most normal thing that has happened in the past day. Daydream? I shake my head and focus on the man.
"Where are you going?"
"To save the world…" He frantically tries to rip off his clothes to reveal the spandex superhero costume he had on beneath, but the material of his slacks proved too strong for his pitiful excuse for arms. I sat in awkward silence, staring at him as he fumbled to get his shoes through the pant legs.
'To save the world' from what? I wondered.
I stepped out the room, the cold floor like ice against my bare feet. I shivered as I walked into what seemed like a kitchen. Someone was sitting there. I walked closer then a gasp escaped my lips. It was him!
He dragged me back into the room and closed the door.
I woke up again this time much warmer. I was alone. Who was that boy? He was familiar in an odd way. But I couldn't remember
I tried and tried but I couldn't remember it was like my brain was blocking either something very important or very dangerous.