I knew something was wrong since I was a little girl, about six or seven. Or was it eight? No, it was definitely seven. I remember it so well because it happened three days after my best friends birthday party who had just turned eight, I was younger than her by four months. We were the best of best friends, at least I thought so… Maybe I should have kept my secrets just that, secrets. Long story short, we don’t talk anymore.

But yes, it happened shortly after that birthday party. We don’t know how it happened, it just… did. It came up suddenly without any warning, no symptoms. I had been the picture perfect of child health, when suddenly I slipped in what doctors told my parents, a coma. I was left unconscious for days, about four or five. The details of that are hazy; my parents said they were so scared that the time that passed felt like an eternity. I don’t blame them for being scared; their daughter was a smiling healthy child, the next she was in a coma close to the state of a vegetable. Brain dead.  Countless scans showed no problem with my brain, nothing wrong. Perfect and in healthy condition. Nothing to be worried about. Yet there I was, taking up a hospital bed all because I was ‘healthy’.

But I remembered, and I remembered it like it was reality. I saw my parents as they crowded around my hospital bed. I was watching them, it wasn’t a lie! It still isn’t a lie… There I was, standing at the foot of that hospital bed, watching as my mother bawled her eyes out with my hand gripped tightly in hers and my father holding back his tears with his own hand placed gently on her shoulder. Typical man trying to keep his cool in front of his wife, strong like the man of the household should be. I could see myself lying nearly lifeless, connected to all those IVs and machines. It was crazy, insane, like I was on some kind of drug that made me hallucinate all this .

I tried to talk, but they didn’t hear me. I tried to grab onto them and demand that I was right here in front of them! Damn it if only they’d just listen! But… my hand simply passed through them like it was made of gas. Immediately it dispersed on contact like an amputee. All I can remember of that moment was the feeling of my heart dropping to the center of the earth and taking my stomach with it. Had I died? Was this what death was? Watching everyone like it was some kind of live spectacular? What about heaven and hell? Where was God? Where was Jesus? Pretty morbid questions coming from a seven year old, right?

Time still moved though, the tears still trickled down my mother’s face, doctors outside still busily walked by on their way to making rounds. This world that I was forced into was… dull. Muted blues, silvers, and greys. Like someone had all the color away, all the life out of everything. In my peripheral vision, I could see it! Something had walked by the doorway. It was bright, vivid, at least as vivid as it could be in a dull place such as this. As most children are, a curiosity rose within me to seek it out. I abandoned my parents and myself and stepped foot outside the small hospital room.

Doctors rushed all around me, nurses smiling behind the desks and walking around with small silver trays filled with needles and blood samples, which at the time I had no idea of. I was only a baby in the eyes of them, barely tall enough to even reach their mid thighs. Around me everything continued on like it should, and then there was me. Some kind of form that everyone passed through. A few coats nicked my shoulders and passed through me, once again my form had gone up in smoke only to regenerate a short second later.

There it was again! That brightness in the corner of my eye, farther down the hall that connected to the reception like area. A boy that looked a few years older than me walked through the doctors and nurses as if he belonged, no one looked at him as out of place… In fact, no one paid any attention to him but me. He was certainly taller than me, thinking back on this now he had to have been in his early teens. Perhaps eleven? And there it was, that brightness. It circled him like a silky mesh veil, it engulfed him. Ate him up like warm blankets on a cold winter night.

I remember I called out to him though he was quite a ways away by then. He didn’t hear me, just kept walking away with his back towards me. I don’t know why, but I still dodged the doctors and nurses while my little legs pumped quickly to catch up with him. Thinking back on it, I probably still thought it was a dream and that it wasn’t even real.

“Hey!” I remember calling. Maybe he was like everyone else; maybe to him I was just as invisible, and tears began to well in my eyes. Mommy and daddy couldn’t see me or hear me; all the doctors used me as a doormat, almost literally. There was no one in this strange world between times. My legs worked over time for sure, and my hand latched onto his arm, causing him to stumble backwards a step or two.

My eyes grew wide, there was solid mass contacting the skin of my palm. The young boy turned around, he sure had pretty sharp eyes… Deep, almost black in color. His nose was large and round, with an upper lip that nearly devoured his bottom lip. I must have looked a mess because he eyed me up and down before scoffing at me. But I sure don’t blame him, I was seven years old. Possibly lying dead in a hospital bed. It was cold here, everyone ignored me and tears were the only things that seemed logical at that time.

“You must be new to this, huh?” He sighed, picking my fingers from the skin of his arm, “You don’t have much existence to you…”

“Where am I? What are you doing? Why can’t anyone hear me!?” I cried, snot running down my upper lip and threatening to fall into my mouth.

“You’re at the hospital, duh.” He whined, he was mature yet rude for being about eleven, “I’m traveling.” He answered my second question quickly, “And so are you.”

I didn’t understand what traveling meant back then. Was it like a vacation, or a trip? Because it certainly didn’t feel like it. This felt more to me like a nightmare than anything else. My hand wiped away the mucus leaking from my nostrils and I looked up at the boy. I just wanted to go home…! “I can tell this is your first time. Listen, you aren’t very bright.” Rude, again. “Don’t be deceived by what you see here. This is a hospital and it’s crawling with people who want you. I suggest you find your way back quickly before someone else beats you to it.”

My eyes grew wide, people wanted me? What for? My heart raced what felt like as fast as a bullet train. What kind of game was this? I wanted to stop playing. Not that anyone asked me to play in the first place…

“B-But… I don’t know how to get back!” I sobbed, was I ever going to see my mama and daddy again? This had never happened to me before, fear had overcome everything else. The boy with the bright light around him frowned in annoyance and placed his hand on my chest, applying a light pressure.

“Follow this.” He pointed to the place where he had pressed into my chest, then his finger pointed back down the hall that I came from, “It will take you back. Follow it and the rest will happen naturally. This is your first time, your link is weak. Go quickly and don’t dawdle around.” My eyes widened when I turned around to see a faint silver cord had suddenly appeared from my chest and ran the length of where I had chased the boy down to and back to my room in the hospital.

“But… What about you? What are you doing here?” I asked again, I suppose that first answer wasn’t good enough for me. He let out another sigh and crossed his arms.

“I told you, I’m traveling. Don’t worry about me; I’m not the one with a time limit. And I also told you not to waste time, so scram.” He reminded me of a bully that I had encountered in elementary school, rough and mean. Always acting like he was so cool. It was annoying in all honesty.

“Th-Thank you!” My young self grinned widely and quickly left the boy behind me. I grabbed onto the cord and tugged myself along like a game of tug-o-war, the cord disappearing within my ribcage. Just as I had entered the room at full speed, everything went black for no more than half a second and my eyelids had shot open to reveal the plastered hospital ceiling.

What happened next was a mix of happy tears, tight hugs, and many phone calls being made to family members. There was an exhaustion that made me ache all the way down to my bones, and a thirst that made my throat feel like the driest desert. I never told my parents about what I experienced, and they were never going to know. That boy with the white light and silver cord remained my special secret. Well, until I spilled it to my best friend one night when we were staying at school after hours to study. Like I said, we didn’t talk after that.

When I asked about what happened, all my parents could tell me was that we were in the family room back home. Everything was a normal Sunday afternoon, my parents watching the evening news as I played with my dolls on the floor in front of them when suddenly I fell over. Kerplunk! My head slammed against the carpet and there was panic for days, it was chaos! When I asked how many days I was asleep, she responded with about four or five.