Not many people would believe what I saw one day while I was lying in the grass outside my foster family’s house. It was five months after my thirteenth birthday, and I realized that my foster parents lied when they said they were saving up for my very own bed.   

I couldn’t say for sure, but it was nearing 6am when I decided to push my blanket aside and crawl off my makeshift bed. All my clothes were in two backpacks, so I grabbed some socks and my shoes from beside the two backpacks and put them on. Then, as quietly as I could, I left Ash and Max’s room and snuck out the front door.   

Once I was outside, I looked around for the perfect spot to watch the sunrise. My foster family lived in a rural area, so we didn’t really have any neighbors within a mile from our house. So, I found a spot in our backyard to lay down in the grass. To be honest, I wasn’t really a fan of laying in the grass. I didn’t like how the grass poked against my skin, making me feel itchy all over. I didn’t like the thought of insects crawling over me, or worse, into my ears and laying eggs in my brain. Maybe that fear was a little stupid, but I didn’t care. A fear is still a fear regardless of whether it’s dumb or not! But I tried not to linger too much on these thoughts as I noticed the darkness of the sky dissipate into hues of gold mixed with orange.   

The air was cool, but not too cool, against my skin. And I began to imagine what it would feel like if the wind could just lift me from the ground and carry me away to a better place. A place without Max and my foster mom. Ash and my foster dad weren’t too terrible, but they never really cared much for me either. Nobody could compare to my grandma or my real parents. But even in that moment, my memories of them were beginning to fade, and that scared me. Their faces, their voices, even tiny details like how they smelled or their warmth whenever they held me, were being forced away from me by the cruel thing known as time.  

I shut my eyes for a moment, trying my hardest to remember. I could feel my face contort slightly as I shut my eyes even tighter, but it was all futile. Time had bested me, and it would continue to best me until my memories were stripped from me.   

While my eyes were still shut, I at the very least let them relax. My face was still. My body was still. And that was good. Maybe if I didn’t move for long enough, I’d wake up back at my grandma’s house. Or better, I’d wake up and my parents would no longer be missing.  

For some reason, I felt my body go numb for a brief moment. Then, I saw yellowish light filled with brown lines of random maze-like patterns, filling the area which once was grassy. Suddenly, I felt myself able to feel again, this time, all I could feel was the cold breeze coming from seemingly nowhere. Everything went dark, then light, then dark again, until I was laying down in a void-like area with an array of disoriented looking doors. They all looked deformed in some way, some moved and flowed like water, while others stayed still and swayed like tree branches. Amidst the shock I felt from this random change, I got up to explore almost instinctively, and began looking through the iridescent glass of some of the doors, but they were empty. I went through the door I thought looked the most deformed of the bunch, still nothing. Until I saw a door that gave me an intense nostalgic feeling. I opened it. 

I began to catch a glimpse of an ocean. Strangely enough, I began to feel almost seasick as I noticed that I was on some sort of boat.  

The thing is, I could feel everything around me on the boat. I could feel the boat rocking while it remained afloat on the water. I could hear seagulls screeching as they flew up in the sky. At the same time though, I could still feel the grass beneath me outside my parents foster home. Though, the grass wasn’t as noticeable now. The only way to describe how it felt was as though both my bodies, my body on the boat and my body on the grass, were both just puppets that I could control. However, my focus was directed more on my body on the boat.  

I slowly took a step towards the railings on the boat. I put my hands on the railings. Yep. I could feel it too. I leaned forward a little to feel the breeze. And I felt that too. Before I could do anything else in my “boat body,” I jolted up in my “grass body.”

I patted the grass around me, trying to process what had just happened. My breathing was sharper than before, and I sat there for about a minute or two.  

“That wasn’t real. It couldn’t have been.”
I jumped back onto my feet, deciding to go back inside to try and get my mind off what had just happened. Besides, it wouldn’t hurt to get a head-start on my chores. Anything would do as long as I didn’t have to try and process what just happened.  

** 

Later in the day, I was back on my makeshift bed and my mind was solely focused on my “boat body” experience. Who was I supposed to talk to about this? My foster parents don’t even take me seriously when I tell them that Max is the one who steals all the popsicles from the freezer, or that he’s the one who leaves snotty tissues all over the couch in the living room whenever he’s sick. If I told Max, he’d probably make a dumb joke and say that “my body is the size of a boat.” And if I told Ash, he’d probably just ignore me or shoot me with his nerf gun that he got for Christmas. 

So, the only real choice I had was to try and go back to my “boat body” and look for some answers. But I needed to make sure that there was nothing in my current body that would distract me. I’d wait until later at night, when everyone else was asleep, and I’d stay as still as possible.  

“VAAAAL!”
I heard my foster mom shout from the kitchen. My plan was set for tonight. I just needed to survive for now.