The Prolouge: Awake

Disclaimer: I do not own Lewis Carroll or Cosi Fan Tutte by Mozart


The garden stretched from the building like a maze from the mind of Lewis Carroll. He stood at the window and watched the breeze blow through the white picket fences and strange flowers. The clouds changed shape. The sunny day turned a steel gray, then an angel white and snow fell gently on the garden. The flowers shriveled, the trees lost their leaves in a two second autumn.
He pulled the heavy curtain over the window. He sat on the pristine white sheets and contemplated. The words from an opera his mother used to play on and old record skipped through his mind.
Am I dead? Or am I dreaming? Is this Eden or Valhalla? Or the garden realms of Allah?
The words were almost tangible. The light outside changed slightly with each no phrase. Forest green, snow white and bright yellow.
He stared around room, trying to orient himself. The room was bare, except for a bed. The bed was bare except for the white sheets. It was on wheels. Like a hospital bed. He stood quickly, in a slight panic. The word DEAD blinked red in his mind.
He crossed the room to the door. He placed his hand on the handle, wondering if he should really leave the relative safety (as far as he could tell) of this strange room. He took a breath and pulled open the door. It slammed against the wall. The wall crumpled like cardboard. He stared numbly and took a step out the door. There was a hallway lined in linoleum to the left and a path of stones and trees to the right. The lights in the hallway began to flicker. The trees on the path shriveled. The world turned green. Hundreds, thousands of things passed him screaming like the wind. People. Flying, translucent, Ghost-people. They rushed together and consolidated. The image of his mother formed, his first girlfriend, a college professor, his little brother flashed before the churning thing settled into one shape a grinning girl. Really, just a child of 11 or 12, skinny, but somehow powerful. Somehow predatory.