Tomorrow?

Leaves weigh down her body, every limb submerged in a heavy moss. Though her surroundings are unfamiliar she does not move. She does not wrestle with her situation or make any attempt to escape. Not until the pressure of nature subsides and the gravity of the situation releases her. By now the early morning breeze she often found herself enjoying with a nice tea or coffee has morphed into a stagnant late morning air. She finally musters the strength to attempt an escape when the leaves and moss practically peel away on their own accord. She ignores this and brushes what she can off before getting up.  

Now standing, she finally comes to terms with her current dilemma. Where is she? How did she get here? Situated in a thick wood with only glazes of sunbeams in an otherwise light-barren forest, she is completely alone. The tree she found herself lightly buried alive beneath stretches tall and wide like a mighty arm reaching up through inferior forestry to the sky. She can feel it wanting escape but knowing the roots that extend deep in the ground bellow her would never permit such freedom. She reaches out to touch the bark; though she feels the roughness of wood beneath her fingertips she is hesitant. Something isn't completely safe here. And it isn't that she has no idea how she came to be here in the first place. Where-ever here is. Something about this is incomprehensible.

Her stomach releases a deep and bellowing growl. She hasn't even realised that she has not yet given her body any nourishment, all this inquisitive thinking and low-grade panic has exhausted her brain so much that she has ignored her slow rising hunger completely. If not for the echoing rumble she might not have considered eating at all. This mattered little anyhow, she is in an empty woodlands, which does not care about her current predicament. She stops herself as she realises her thoughts have personified a bunch of trees. She quickly corrects herself for this wood has not the means to care about anything at all. Feeling foolish, she browses her surroundings mindlessly. A single strawberry that seemed completely out of place caught her eye. The red flag that popped up in her mind shared the same pigment as this misplaced fruit. She, somewhat capriciously, ignored that and ate it up without thought.  Hopefully, this will satiate her hunger and the intrusive growling of her now less-empty-than-before-stomach.

The heavy burden of her reality finally dawns on her, her hands shake frantically as her knees yearn to bury deep into the soft ground. She submits to the stronger forces of helplessness and their numbing effect on her aching body. She is somewhere she has never even been before and she has no idea how she came to get here and not even an inkling of how to get back. She finds herself, once again, tucked tightly back in the bed she had just prior woken up in. The sun passes slowly overhead, reminding her of a time when she would watch this very same sun make her attack bedroom a kaleidoscope of colour. She had spent more money that she could afford to on a stained glass window because sometimes a vibrant display of colour is the only reason she ever got out of bed. Of course she could watch it whilst tucked tightly under her quilt but she enjoyed sitting on the ground directly beneath the rainbow beams that were cast in her room. Allowing every single colour to introduce itself to her skin and fill her with a fantastical energy. The only colour she saw now was a collection of greens. Never the less, she stays on the ground and doesn't move an inch for many hours.  

Her hands lay flat on the grass and for just a moment one seems to sink, but not into the soil. It seems to sink through the layer of grass completely and deep into nothingness. It lasts a moment but it is enough to throw her up from the ground and drop her directly into a panic. The uncertainty she had felt from before has returned but much bigger. What was this place? Why couldn't she ever recall arriving here or really any moment that had happened directly before this? She can't even pinpoint the last dated memory she has. 

She picks a direction and runs, her legs pounding against the ground to the rhythm of her past paced heartbeat. As she does the trees got closer and closer together until she is clambering through a thicket of tangled trunks. A dense cloak of doubt suffocates her as she runs straight into a low branch knocking her immediately unconscious. The world slips through her fingers as she floats out into a vast emptiness. 

Her eyes peel open to the sight of a dazzling rainbow. No leaves or moss or thick brick strong branches to be seen. The pain on her head is still present and throbbing but the forest floor is now laminate and the sun that had just been setting, releasing stars out into the night is now high in the sky once more, casting romantical shadows through her coloured window pane. It was a brand new day back home. Safe. 

She looks around excitedly before wincing in pain as the quick movements made her brain bounce back on her skull. or at least that's what it feels like. The room is exactly how she left it, now that she is piecing together the time she last saw it. Pillows thrown aimlessly across the room. Blankets and sheets scrunched up in a ball. Every bit of crap and tatter that was once left scattered on the ground was pushed as far back as possible leaving her a circle around her of clearness. of just herself and the colours. The room is an embarrassing state but she is just happy to be back. 

She clenches her fists in excitement but realises she has ahold of something. Her hand, that had become so used to the grass that was beneath her, was now wrapped around a plastic container. Dread runs down her spine like sweat on a scorching day. The room seems to darken for a long, drawn-out second. She realises she is still alone. In or out of the hellish woods, she is isolated. So long had this one vessel caused her anguish. She had felt pain and fear and shame because of it but truly felt much worse things in its absents. She had refused to let it become a part of her and in that denial, it had almost ruined her. But she is still alive, in the real world and out of that fictitious purgatory. And that plastic container is empty. She finally appreats the appeal of tomorrow, but if she doesn't act quickly she may never see it. She picks up her phone and dials.