By Nina Watson
I’m an average person, I live an average life, and I do average things. Like eat fast food and take really long showers and I’ve always wanted a dog but never had one. I hate my high school and enjoy sports. I’ve never really liked my life. Until when I was about 9 I read the secret life of Walter Mitty. He created his own fantasy completely different than the actual life he led. I wanted to do that so I created my own fantasyland. In it I’m a Junior Olympics champion in lacrosse basketball and track.
I have a big golden retriever and I live in a mansion with my parents and we never fight. I go into my world whenever I can. Lately when I go into my world it feels ‘realer’ and I find it harder to get out. Like last night during family diner, I was running on a track with weights on both of my feet practicing for a competition when I heard people yelling my name from the stands “Cindy, Cindy, Cindy!!!”
I stopped running and stood there in all of my glory when I realized all the people in the stands looked like my mom and dad. I felt dizzy as I went back to reality and saw my actual mom and dad yelling my name after I didn’t answer a question they asked me about school.
After dinner I was washing the dishes when I went into my world and accidentally left the water running. I went into my room and finally had a moment of peace to go back to my world.
I was running so quickly that you could barely see me fly by. But this time it was actually a competition. If you could even call it that since I was winning against everyone else by miles. I saw the finish line right there so close but it felt so far I used the last bit of my energy to pass the finish and beat everyone else by a landslide.
As I passed it news reports and fans cheered and rushed up to me asking so many questions. It felt like I was really there that I was Cindy the best teen athlete in history. I realized that I must have been dreaming for hours now and that I should leave so I try to snap out of it but I couldn’t.
I tried to stand up in real life but I felt weighed down then suddenly like a camera changing its angle in a movie I saw myself but not me athlete me. She started talking to me but I couldn’t hear her it felt like a nightmare. I didn’t know what was happening and then finally I snapped out of it.
It took me a minute to catch my breath but I felt different, I felt the other Cindy inside of me. I thought I probably just needed some sleep and went to bed. The next morning I still felt off. It felt like someone was following me and breathing down my back. I went to school and couldn’t concentrate. While I was walking back from school I decided when I got back home I would go back to my world and see if I could make things right.
When I got home I went to my room sat down and went into my world. Already I felt normal again like no one was following me anymore. I was in my room and I looked into a mirror and it seemed normal at first but then the girl who was supposedly me started moving around and walking closer to me. I jumped back in fright then I saw her foot come out of the mirror then her other leg and she stepped out.
I started screaming saying “I want to leave, how do I leave!” The girl said “Hi I’m Cindy” I tried to get out and I started feeling the weight and pressure on me that I have been feeling when I try to leave lately but the other me grabs me and pushes me to the ground.
I lay on the floor in absolute terror as she says “ Sorry Cindy, this time you’re not escaping” The word escaping scares me even more, does that mean that this is a place that I should be trying to escape from? Cindy said “You created this place to escape your sad life like a dream but you forgot that dreams can turn into nightmares so quickly. You started to abuse the power that you gave yourself with this world and now you must be punished” Suddenly everything started to almost disintegrate into thin air.
The walls broke down, the floor disappeared and all there was left was nothing. Just an infinite void of nothing even Cindy had floated up and disappeared.
I yelled out “ Hello! Hello!” But no one was there. I was trapped with nothingness surrounding me. But I felt like I was suffocating at the same time I yelled and screamed for what felt like hours, then I heard voices.It was my mom and dad. I yelled out trying to get their attention in case there was even a small chance of them hearing me. I gave up and listened to what they were saying. “ Hey Cindy, how was school” I was so confused how were they talking to me? Then I heard me. Or I guess the other Cindy,she stole my place.
That’s when I realized I was never getting out.