Happiness

I stepped into the freezing cold. I loved the feeling of fresh snow falling from the sky, turning your cheeks and nose red as you strained to look past the bushels of snow swirling and falling from the sky. I was so happy. Everything always seemed to go my way.

“Daydreaming again Kara?” My friend Remi grinned. “One day, you’ll get your head stuck in the clouds. Or the dome, I guess.” 

Remi agreed with me on everything. We’ve been best friends since I fell off the swings in first grade, when the Earth fell and everyone had to move to this base on the moon. I don't really remember my time on Earth, but from what I heard it had been dying for a long time and then it just...became uninhabitable.

“Just thinking.” I reply. “Let’s get to school before class starts.”

We race to the school, the wind whipping our hair. We stop at the courtyard, out of breath and tired, but with grins on our pink cheeks. 

“I won.” I say, gasping for air.

“No way.” Remi pants. 

“Yes, way. Come on let’s go inside.”

When we get to our seats, no one is there yet. I take out my book and read for a few quiet minutes before a stampede of other students crash through the door, catching up on all the things their friends missed over the weekend. I roll my eyes and catch Remi doing the same next to me. We burst into laughter. 

“Ok, Ok, quiet down class. Let’s get started.” Mr. Bun walked into the classroom, wearing something different than he usually does. Most days, he just has a boring dark suit and tie, but today he wore armor, complete with a helmet and sword. Remi and I almost burst into another round of laughter.

“Today we will be learning about battles and how they were….” Mr. Bun’s voice drowned out as a flood of random things rampaged through my head and a massive headache was brought on. I braced myself as one main memory stood out. A man in a breastplate and helmet, soldiers standing alongside him, shouting commands and shooting targets. Sweat dripped down my 5 year old face in the blistering heat and a small dog stood at attention by my side as the man in armor shouted something unintelligible. I snapped out of my weird hallucination. This was the 5th time this had happened this week. It felt like I was seeing memories of myself. Except… I had never done any of those things before. 

“Everything ok, Ms. Starlin?” Mr. Bun asked. I looked up. Great. Now everyone in the class was staring at me. 

“Ummmm, yeah.” I replied, my face burning with embarrassment. 

“I hoped you’d like this fun day I have planned. It seems more your style.”

“Umm, yeah, it seems fun.” I glanced around me and everyone was smiling at me, like they were...happy for me. That was weird. Or was it? Did that usually happen? I frowned. Everything always seems to go my way.... Suddenly, everything blurred together and blurs I fall to the ground and clutch my head as a barrage of memories, but not memories keeps flooding through my head, though all of them slip through my mind like silk, none of them staying in my mind. Then I slipped into the inky darkness of sleep.

I woke up with Remi standing above me with my parents. All three of them smiled with relief as they saw my eyes open and my parents wrapped their arms around me. 

“What happened?” I ask, my throat dry and raspy.

“You passed out in school.”My mom says. “We took you to the hospital a few days ago, but eventually they let us take you back home so you could be more comfortable.”

“A few days!” I shout, surprised by how much I slept.

“Yeah. But now we can go out and play, since you are better now.” Remi says, a grin appearing on her face.  

“But wait? Shouldn’t I rest first?”

“Unless you want to.” Remi replies. A frown appearing on her face 

“I mean, I don’t want to, but shouldn’t I?” I say.

“Why would you need to? You can do whatever you want.” Remi says.

As I thought back on it, I could always do what I wanted. Was that wrong? It was. But why? My head rebelled in pain again as different things pushed against each other, like my brain was going to war with itself. I got up, no one helping me. I didn’t want help, but shouldn't they have tried anyway? Or should they? It felt as though 2 realities were coming together in my mind, 2 realities that were totally different, but also the same. I stumbled across the living room, gathering my bearings. I glanced at the living room table, doing a double take as it seemed to blink in and out of existence. Then more memories came coming back to me as I started to piece things together. When the Earth collapsed, nobody went to the moon, we were in a... I couldn't latch on to that piece of information, but now I guessed I was in a VR world. Then, a new memory surfaced from the depths of my mind. A way out. The world around me started to crumble around me, glitching in and out as I regained more and more of my memories. There was a code word to get out, what was it? I ran as I thought, ignoring Remi's calls for me that kept getting cut short because she kept blinking in and out of existence. I stopped at the park, searching my memory for the word but It was like trying to find a needle in a pile of other identical needles. There were too many memories. This was too crazy. I glanced at my favorite tree. Something was engraved in it. I traced my fingers over the words and remembered why my instincts told me to go here. I softly whispered, 

"Remi."

I woke up again in a room awash with blue light. A woman stood in front of me, frowning slightly as my eyes fluttered open. 

“This was not supposed to happen.” She said, turning around, probably to document something.

“I know.” I said. “You said I wouldn’t wake up. That I would be happy all the time in

there.”

“I know what I said.” The lady sniped back. “But you did something we did not expect.”

I frowned.

“What?”

She turned back towards me. 

“You remembered.”