I come to my senses and shiver. There is sweat on my forehead. I don’t remember anything, including who I am.

I hear footsteps, slow and steady. There are whispers in the hallway. Finally, a door slowly opens. While some light enters the room, I am unable to see the shadow before me.
He says a name, but I do not know who it belongs to. They take a few steps closer, letting the door close behind them.

“Amy.”

I am unable to talk or move my hands to acknowledge the mysterious being in front of me.

He pulls a string, and a light bulb comes to life. I look around the room and observe my surroundings. I am sitting on a sofa and there is a coffee table in front of me. I am wearing a long, elegant, purple dress, no shoes, and I feel as though I have a necklace on.

The person, who I now realize is a man, walked behind the sofa. I hear a ripping sound and the tension in my arms disperses. He gently removes the duct tape from my mouth and stares at me with deep brown, gold eyes.
He put me in a trance.
“Amy, I know you are confused, but I need you to listen to me,” he said in a British accent that was somehow beautiful and horrifying at the same time. I nodded my head and rubbed my wrists. He looked familiar, and for a second, I had a sliver of a memory, which instantly disappeared.
“Please tell me why I keep seeing you everywhere I go.”

I try to remember what he was talking about and who he was.

“I do not remember anything.”
He walks around the room, obviously frustrated. The man leans close to my face and saay, “Well let me give you some background on who you are.”
He clears his throat and began, “You are Amy Brown, 17 years of age, live with your mom, dad, and brother. You followed me to a certain location and were knocked out after getting in a fight with your friend, Alexandra. I brought you here to care for you and thought it was an ideal opportunity for you to be questioned.”

It must have been just me, but did he sound like a stalker or what?
I open my mouth to reply but was interrupted by a sudden shaking. A worried look takes over the man’s face. He opens the door and leaves, leaving me with the light bulb that now flickers. Pieces of the ceiling fall, so I run toward the door.
It does not open.
I run and hide under the coffee table, hoping I would be protected.

Suddenly, everything stops.
I hear the door open but nobody comes inside. I scramble out from beneath the coffee table and run for the door. There is one long hallway, one end with stairs and the other bearing left.
I run for the stairs.

Lights hang from the ceiling every four steps and I notice a shadow while looking at the walls.
When I turn the corner, I crash into something hard.
I fall back a few stairs and regain my balance. As I look at what I crashed into, I almost completely collapse.
There is no word strong enough to describe him.
The eyes are lavender and sparkling. The hair is amazing & brown. The jaw line is flawless.
I hear something creak behind me, and when I turn around, my head is hit with a rigid object. Black spots appear at the corners of my vision.
I wake up, lying on my back in a bright room with paintings of people like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, George Washington, and a few others. As I look around the room, someone walks towards me.
Him.
He leans over me and feels my forehead. He steps back, relief on his face. I try to sit up, and he supports my back as I straighten my posture. He sits down in a chair and says, “You have been out for about a week.”
I can finally speak and say, “Who are you? Where am I? Who am I?”
He grins and says, “We are in the infirmary where you have been taken care of. My name is Zeke and you are Amy Brown.”
“You need to let me out of here so I can return to my family.”
“The boss still has questions for you.”
I notice that I am not wearing the purple dress anymore, or the necklace, and I am wearing a gown patients typically wear in the hospital. “Where is my dress? My necklace?”
He leans forward in his chair, grinning. “You really have no memory of anything.”
“All I know is that your ‘boss’ is accusing me of stalking him, and he obviously thinks that gives him a right to kidnap me.”
“We did not kidnap you, we just-”
“What? Just borrowed me? I do not think the police will take that as an excuse,” I say this as I swing my legs over the side of the bed. He helps me stand, and my legs buckle. I lean against him for support and he puts one of my arms around his neck. I turn and look into his eyes. They bore into me like lasers. He helps me walk a few steps, and we enter a hallway.
There is nothing in the hallway besides a rug with designs of roses and thorns. I am so intrigued by the designs that I do not notice the “boss” walk up. He looks at me and Zeke.
“Why is she out of bed,” he says.

“I just thought maybe she should walk around since she was out for a while, Travis,” Zeke looks intimidated.
“Please just ask me the questions you need me to answer, so I can leave this freakish place,” I say.

Travis looks at the ground, grinning. He starts going on a speech about how I need time to recover,all the while wearing a face that said he was not going to ask his questions until I had rested.
“I am not going to listen to what you say. I will get out of this place.”

Zeke looks at me like I am speaking a foreign language, “You can barely walk, and you do not have any defense.”
Just then, I notice Travis is holding his hands behind his back.
He looks at me and smiles. He lifts his hand, and I automatically start running to one end of the hallway. There is a door on the left up ahead and run into the room. I close the door behind me and listen for any sounds. Nothing.
I look around the room and realize that there are clothes. I grab a black T-shirt, black pants and a pair of combat boots to change into something besides a hospital gown. I find a ponytail holder, put my hair up quickly, and open a window.

I am about to go check to see if there is anything I can use for a weapon in the cabinets around the room when I hear footsteps. There is a window across the room, so I run over to see how long the drop is. It is not too far down, so I jump, feeling a small shock travel through my legs and up my back. I stand up and immediately start running. I hear someone yelling and a crash. I hear footsteps getting closer and closer to me. I duck into an alley with a fence at the end. I jump over it and keep running.
I hear footsteps in the alley behind me and pick up my pace. I see a police car ahead of me and debate whether to run to the car or not. I decide not to.

I am concerned because I could possibly be stalking a man, even though he kidnapped me. I do not want to be charged for something after I have just escaped another horrible incident. I see an open door towards the end of the alley, and I run into the building. I hear the police sirens wailing and watch as they speed past. I lean against the wall and sigh, relief flooding through me.

There is a light at the end of the hallway and another image comes to my mind: A television plays a movie where a doll jumps at those who stare too long at it. The memory leaves just as fast as it came.

I move towards the light and see another case of stairs. I am quite tired of climbing to places that may take me to even more danger, but something motivates me to proceed. No sound is heard, and when I emerge onto what I think is the second floor, a slight creak is heard far off.  I try to pay no attention to this and continue climbing another set of stairs.

I hear a crash somewhere below me and more footsteps. I see a space where two couches meet and run to hide between them. I squeeze myself into a suffocating position just before two men appear. I steady my breathing but they do not go up to the next floor.

They know I am here.

Travis begins to look in all the cabinets, whispering something to himself. Zeke starts to check the couches, while I try to steady my breathing. My heartbeat pounds in my ears, and I am worried that even Travis will hear it across the room.

Zeke steps closer and closer, growing more and more as he approaches. Our eyes meet, and he begins to turn to notify the other man that I have been found when he slowly turns back towards me. He holds a finger up to his lips to tell me to be quiet. I nod in response. He tells Travis that he should go up another level to search. Travis agrees and leaves Zeke and I alone.

Zeke helps pull me out from between the couches and walks me over to a window. He tells me to leave while I can. He tells me to leave because my family is searching for me. He embraces me in a gentle manner and tells me that he will find me after Travis stops looking. His last statement confuses me, but he opens the window.

I fall and continue to fall when all of a sudden I am looking at trees, all around me.

I close my book and stand up to begin walking back towards my house. I think about the world that will end when the book is finished. I approach my house hesitantly and a small figure emerges from behind a tree. My brother shoots me with a Nerf gun and I act as though I am about to chase him. He runs into the house and I walk in after him. I put the book back on my shelf and sigh, wishing to return to the dream that is held within that book.