ʀ ʏ ᴀ ɴ  ᴍ ᴀ ʏ ᴇ ᴢ : 

[indent][indent] ᴛ ʜ ᴇ  ᴅ ɪ ɢ ɪ ᴛ ᴀ ʟ  ᴡ ᴏ ʀ ʟ ᴅ [/indent][/indent][hr]
A slight tickle of air brushed against the tip of Ryan’s nose, which caused her to  twitch and crinkle it in response.  The sensation was akin enough to the gentle touches of an insect’s legs placing lucid kisses against her skin and thus, awakened her from her unconscious state.  She blinked with droopy lids sorely drifting over her eyes several times while passive blurs of objects began focusing into her groggy vision.   As her mind cleared and started piecing together the skewed scenery around her, it was obvious she was definitely not at home, snuggled underneath the warm protection of bed sheets and a comforter.  However, no matter how much she wished to jump into action, the heavy tingling in her legs and soft pattering of her recovering heart reminded her senses of some dream-like familiarity that didn’t warrant any pivoting emotional or physical change.  The lack of adrenaline tempting her emotions could also have been attributed to the delusional fog still clouding her motor skills. Whatever the cause may be, Ryan continued lying on her stomach, arms barely spread out and bent, in the midst of the moment allowing her mind to fully process her situation.

Her eyes closed as if she was about to allow herself to slip back in the sleep realm.  The weight of her unconscious began slowly taking over her mind, muttering playful thoughts of the emerging sleep-cycle until her hearing began to hone in on the silence of her surroundings in failure.  Her nose crinkled as her eyelids squeezed over her eyes in a dazed attempt to drown out the verbal disturbances being made by slightly discorded and chattering voices.  However, as her head shifted against the now noticeably hard ground, she began to comprehend that the voices sounds weird and strange — alarmingly so.  Her fists clenched at nonexistent bedding, only to scrape her knuckles against the hard ground, “Huh—?” A breath pressed cowardly from her mouth as her eyes shot open.  She could feel her heart thumping rapidly in her chest as she struggled to remain calm with tense muscles, trying to gather her senses together the best she could.

Small, restricted breaths pressed from her nervous lips as thoughts tried to rewind her memory of how she ended up here, but all her mind’s wandering was drawing blanks as if a huge hole in her memory was missing.  Her eyes closed and opened as she tried to awaken herself.  [i]I’m in a dream; I’m in a dream; Ryan, girl, you’re in a dream…[/i]   Ryan’s breaths drew heavier in apprehension that this vision of a world in front and around her was going nowhere. [i]It’s just a dream. Just a dream.  I-it’s just a lucid dream.[/i] A failed attempt to swallow a lump in her throat caused the girl to conceive how thirsty she was.  She couldn’t recall ever being so thirsty in a dream.  Her eyes shut tightly one more time for courage and reassurance before her arms and abdomen flexed to push herself from the ground and into a sitting position.  Olive green eyes gazed down at her boots and then turned their attention towards her hands and arms and the rest of her wardrobe.  She was fully clothed, and she didn’t appear to be hurt or harmed in any way, shape, or form aside from that-that mental lapse of how she ended up here.  A small moment was taken as her head slowly shifted towards the interrupting sound of a male voice, “… The hell was in that water?” She quickly diverted her attention back to herself, cheeks flushing with embarrassment.

There were too many emotions flustering in her, now.  He seemed so [i]real[/i], and-and-and—her head automatically turned to the chattering of the nonhuman sounding voices.  Her breaths became a bit more rapid as she tried to wrap her head around the images of the weird animals.  She couldn’t understand her fear.  This wasn’t like her, no, no. She was a big girl or, damn… [i]whatever[/i], and she could handle herself.  But, what the hell was going on?  Nothing made sense!  It was as if she was dreaming, but that hypothesis just wouldn’t fit accurately into the puzzle.  No, no, it had to be a lucid dream. It just had to be! God, what had she eaten last night before be—her last memory was of walking to the mall.  Yeah, and she was wearing this exact outfit. The jacket, her p-purse, everything.  Yeah, and she had taken the back street in her neighborhood because it’s usually calmer and more serene, but what-what happened? Her eyes narrowed as she pieced together fragmented memories.  She faintly remembered randomly and out of nowhere a bright light just-just bloody fucking hitting her.  [i]Was I hit by a car?[/i]  It was the only explanation.  [i]Am I dead?  Oh, God Ryan! Maybe you’re just unconscious, in a coma, something.[/i] Her mind was falling into fearful shambles, again. She had to wake up.

With all her mental power she tried to calm her breathing into something normal and steady while she tried to decide what to do.   This wasn’t a time to panic, and losing control of herself would only make things worse.  Her teeth bit her bottom lip, forcing the inhales and exhales to go through her nose.  After several seconds of forceful subsiding, Ryan realized she was rubbing her lips together anxiously and instantly ceased the motion; and a small manic smile crept on her lips while her mind began embracing the insanity of the situation.  She was in a strange forest in the middle of nowhere with a random boy, tiny talking monsters, and God, she didn’t even know how she got there.  She hated not understanding. It wasn’t fair, and it was frustrating.

Taking in several small breaths to reconstruct herself, she began brainstorming her next move.  [i]Ignore the ‘talking things’ and address the bo—[/i], her eyes shot open when it came to her attention that there were two other humans besides the boy, but the other two were past out or worse—, “Oh my God,” she whispered. Her body quickly scrunched together, pushing herself backwards in the dirt of the forest floor and away from the two limp humans. Maybe they were just like her. [i]They aren’t dead.  They aren’t dead.[/i] Her eyes desperately looked around her until they finally fell back onto the strange, talking monsters.  She wanted to be frightened of them, but they seemed too cute.  Cute or not though, they-they were monsters. Drawing in a large breath she allowed her body to relax and recompose herself, again.  [i]Maybe this is some kind of afterlife or…[/i] She didn’t want to think about it.  So, she let the stiff attitude she generally wore muster up enough firmness to show itself as she finally spoke formally, “What is going on? Am I dreaming?” Her lips pursed together into a subtle frown. She addressed the situation more than any specific creature, hoping to get some sort of an explanation.  It was uncomfortable and awkward and abnormally frightening, but her face showed more signs of hostility and annoyance from being confused, “Or a-are we all dead?” her eyebrows tightened as she braced herself for the answer, miffed that she had stuttered aloud.