PROMPT: You have Dimensia. A rare Disease in which you occasionally wake up in random dimensions
My eyes were closed, half-asleep. I could hear the rush of water as it fell on maybe a pond, or a lake, perhaps? The atmosphere was colder than usual, I tried to reach for my blanket, but touched something like grass instead. My eyes flew open as I realized.
I was not in my room!
I sat up and scratched the back of my head. My eyebrows scrunched in annoyance as I looked around me. “Not Again!”
I had this little condition called Dimensia. Ran in the family. We woke up in random dimensions once a month and couldn’t go back for three to four days. Similar to how my younger sister got her period.
“Ugh! Annoying!” I mumbled as I stood up.
Infront of me was a pond and a huge stone wall which hoisted the waterfall that fell into that pond. And behind me… nothing but grass lands. It was like Minecraft flat world with nothing but grass growing at random places, not even a single tree or bush in sight. My only way out must be somewhere around the waterfall… or under the pond.
I rinsed my mouth and washed my face with the pondwater. There probably wasn’t much bacteria considering the water wasn’t stagnant with the huge amount of water falling on it. What was weird was just how high up the water fell from. No matter how farther away I went, the source did not come into sight, it was as if the water fell from the heavens.
What was even more weird was how small the pond underneath was. And no matter how much I squinted my eyes, I found no trace of the bottom. It was truly devastating.
“Is this one of those dimensions with magic that my father usually talked about?” I thought aloud.
He did talk about how magical dimensions that had a water body; usually had a weed we could chew on to breathe underwater. I looked around the pond and found commonplace weed and a dried-up bunch of sea grass that was infested with tiny black insects.
“It’s got to be the weed, right?” I laughed nervously as I stared at that atrocity. I tore off a weed from its roots and bit it down. “Ugh… bitter!” I mumbled before pushing my head underwater. I mentally count down from three and tried to inhale. I didn’t feel anything for a long second and then, it came. The burning sensation you get when you take in water from your nose, or laugh so hard that it shoots out of your nose. I coughed so hard I could almost feel my throat scratching from the air and water being expelled.
After I finally calmed my symptoms down, I looked at the infested sea grass with squinted eyes and a helpless expression.
“Why must you do this to me?” I mumbled as I ripped off the grass by its roots and shook the grass brutally to get the insects out, but the damned sticky creatures just wouldn’t leave. I tried to wash them off with water, but only a few got out. Giving up on doing it the hygienic way, I started scraping them off with my nails.
Pinching my nose, I chewed down on the bland yet jelly like thing with much effort and then I did the breathing test again.
One second after inhaling…
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five…
“It worked!”
I looked down at the invisible pond bed and gulped in anxiety.
“Get it together Alan Rover,” I mumbled to myself as I slapped my cheeks. “You can do this!” With a deep breath to calm myself, I dove into the pond to find a way to get out of there.
My eyes were closed, but I could feel the freezing water surrounding me. I hugged myself at a feeble attempt to keep myself warm. I was still too scared to open my eyes in the water and I could feel myself sinking deeper and deeper into the water body. After a while, the light that had been coming through my eyelids also disappeared. That was the trigger I needed to open my eyes.
“Damn it.” It felt like I had gone blind, And I could no longer tell if I was going down or sideways.
“Remember what father said. Keep your cool in situations like this. If I flail around, I would only lose my orientation and forget which way was up.” There wasn’t a single streak of light around. And it was NOT easy to keep my cool.
As gravity slowly pulled me down against the buoyancy, my heart started to get heavier. Fear started turning into terror as I sunk deeper. Just as I was about to lose all my wits, I saw a tiny ray of light coming from under me. That ray was enough to break the fear that was gripping my heart and push me to reach there faster.
As soon as the beam of blueish light touched the tip of my toe, I suddenly felt nauseous and…
“Alan! You are finally back.” My little sister hugged me as soon as I regained consciousness. I was sprawled on the ground in my flat’s living room and my parents were looking at me with some concern at my wet clothes and drenched hair.
“I should go take a shower,” I mumbled as I forced myself to get up. Apparently, three days had indeed passed in my world.