The school bell rang and she jerked awake, furiously rubbing away drool from the side of her mouth. There wasn't the usual shuffling of tables and chairs as students prepared to move to the next class, nor was there chattering, nor laughter. All the chairs were neatly pushed under desks, the bookshelves empty; the date on the calendar read 8 April 2004. Looking down, the girl ran her finger across a desk way too small for her, tracing the scratches, the crudely-carved words: freak, liar, loser.

She stood up and moved towards the window, one hand resting lightly on the frame. It was midday, judging by the position of the sun, high in the sky. A cool breeze blew in, carrying the sweet scent of spring flowers-- and when she turned back, the room behind her was empty. Light glanced off the surface of the whiteboard, the reflection obscuring words that she could have sworn weren't there seconds before. She reached out to touch it, but the minute the tips of her fingers brushed the surface it splintered into a thousand fragments-- and then the wooden floor gave way below her. Everything around her was dissipating, turning to blackness, and she found herself falling-

- When she opened her eyes again she was on what should have been a busy street, people pushing past each other in the peak hour rush. Instead it was empty and silent, completely deserted. The pavement was rough under bare feet as she walked, occasionally pausing to press her face against the glass displays of shops. She remembered, very vaguely, doing this before, but she couldn't remember anymore what she had been looking at then, only the faintest traces of some lingering desire. She crossed a road, lightly skipping across a zebra crossing,making sure to only touch the whites.

White was familiar. White was comfortable. Twirling around a streetlamp, she closed her eyes again-

- And found herself leaning against a tree in a yard she had not seen for ten years. She had no idea how much time had passed, or how long she had been here. You couldn't count the days when every door or window led you to a different place, a different time of day, a different year. The only thing that stayed constant was the emptiness, that feeling of loneliness, of something missing. She reached out to tug the metal chain in front of her, using it to pull herself away from the tree and towards the swing, settling down and beginning to slowly rock herself.

A little further, and she felt like she could reach out and touch the stars. Just the littlest bit further..

Without warning the chain snapped, and she was flying, weightless, free, until with a hard tug gravity pulled her downwards. She did not close her eyes this time, watching as the ground opened to swallow her up into complete darkness. Maybe this world was done toying with her. Or maybe she would simply keep falling, forever. She couldn't stand the thought of that- neverending darkness, neverending solitude.

The black phased into a deep purple, tinged with orange, dusted with the same stars she'd tried to reach out for moments ago. She felt the dull thud of her head hitting asphalt, but there was no pain. The impact, though, seemed to have shaken the world, she could feel it shifting and changing.

The ground beneath her began to crumble away.

Run, a voice whispered, right into her ear. Come to me, come home---

Home. With a shriek she jumped back up onto her feet, turned, and ran. The city's skyscrapers simply collapsed, showing the clear blue sky, the outlines of suburban houses. She knew this street, she had walked down it every day for years. She counted down the numbers- 518, 402, turn a corner, 341. So close, so close-

She pushed open the gate of 279, and slammed it shut behind her, leaning against the cold metal to catch her breath. The world had stopped moving, shaking, everything had simply stopped. Tremulously she turned back, clammy fingers gripping the iron bars tightly. The world outside was dark, tendrils of shadow twisting, moving closer to her, threatening to tear apart even this small sanctuary.

Sobbing, she backed away, then turned and ran into the house. The TV was on in the living room, static flickering across the screen. The image stabilised just for a split second, the face of someone she didn't know, distorted by white noise, and then this room, too, was starting to crumble away. There was nowhere to go, or to hide, maybe one of these falling chunks of ceiling would pierce through her, killing her for good--

There was a sharp pain in her mind, as if even she was starting to break, a jolt of what felt like recognition, a mental image of a run-down building, of a blur of dark, feathery creatures, of someone dying..

Hurry, the voice urged, though it was beginning to fade out, just like everything else. you--- this----- a little more--

A light blinked on, illuminating the stairs in front of her, and she lunged to grab the railings, clinging on to it as she scrambled up each step, until she reached the top. She sprinted down the hallway, towards her room.

It looked the way she left it, before she'd gone back to college again for the year. Flower-patterned comforter smoothed over her bed, a black desk piled with books and trinkets in the corner, curtains tied neatly to the sides. She took a step forwards, and then ran towards the bed, throwing herself in it. Home, home, home, this was all she wanted, to go back to life before--

Before what?

In the next moment the scene had changed again, and the person-not-quite-a-person from the image on the television was standing on the opposite side of a chasm, one hand outstretched. There was something familiar about them- and the large building behind them, something she couldn't quite place, she was sure they had never met before, that she had never been there before-- but then the ground beneath her was beginning to tremble, and she realised there was practically nothing left to stand on, nowhere to run. For a moment she thought she would rather die here than go forwards, go towards the girl, but her body was moving on its own, crouching down in preparation.

She breathed, closed her eyes, and leapt forwards. All she felt was a hand, ice-cold, reaching out to grab her own, and an excruciating pain, before everything went black for the last time.