A pale glaring light shone through a small smudged glass window, illuminating the disheveled, unkempt interior of a boxed-in apartment. The apartment was small and disjointed, furniture and stacks of materials making makeshift walls around the large center room. A small doorway leading to an even smaller bathroom extruded out from the corner of the room. A singular shower head rose against dark ill-repaired tiles aligned with a cracked mirror. Kitty-corner from the bathroom a small kitchen, drastically lacking basic inventory ,lay abandoned, the sink over flowing with days of unwashed dishes.
At the top of the room a small single bed lay aligned with the wall and window, a dreary blanket covered the occupant of the bed. She lay sprawled against the sunken bed, her hair a wild crown of tangled strands. Her plain face twisted and contorted in a pained expression, sweat beading her forehead.
Her name was Sara, she was having a nightmare
Sara stumbled forward, her bare feet sinking into the cold, hard stone as she moved through a twisted wobbling road adored with litter and neglect. The road was dark and sullen, stretching for what seemed an eternity. Cracking and crumbling under the pressure of her steps, looking back her path to this point seemed undiscernible.
She inhaled sharply, a pained expression adorning her as the stale stuffy air filled her lungs, depleting her strength and will. Every breath felt slow and jagged, yet loud and insufferable. Her ears strained, catching the scratching skittering sound of a single black skeletal tree suddenly hanging imposingly in front of her. A single branch stood out like a claw, threatening anyone who came close. Yet, on top a small.. object? animal? stood standing on top of it.
Sara squinted up at it her heart pounding, then moved to cover her ears as the bird let out a ringing caw. Then a second and third caw came out and sara blinked again, and again begging it to end.
Then it did.
Her eyes opened again, through her hazy vision her ceiling hung unimpressed above her.
Is that.. Light?
Sara suddenly bolted up, panicked, and desperate
Oh God I am going to be late! How?
finding her phone under her pillow, she flicked the screen but it didn't respond.
Ehhh..! I charged it last night!
Sara hurriedly dove around her room finding something.. anything that would suit for an appropriate outfit. A few moments later she looked at herself through the broken mirror, her plain gaunt face looking back at her. Her small dark eyes looked at her somewhat disproportioned nose and thin lips. Taking a moment she put on a minimal amount of makeup to cover her tiredness and blemishes.
She wasn't ugly or unsightly by any means, just perhaps plain and marked with years of late nights and stress. Her white dress shirt hung loosely over her somewhat thin body, desperate to be ironed. Long black hair hung in dull uneven strands against her back. Sara squinted at herself and continued to engage in the self judgement she punished herself with every morning.
She sighed, I wish this wasn't my life.. she did everything right in her life. Studied hard, even missing events and spending time with friends and family to do so. She told herself it would eventually be worth it, when she was successful she would have the time to do everything she missed.
After school, she spent years clawing her way up the corporate ladder, only to remain stuck in this same lifeless apartment. Her first job went well, she reached a mid-level management role in just a few years. But then the company collapsed in a corruption scandal, the executives implicated, the fallout devastating. Despite her innocence, she was tainted by association.
Years of rebuilding led to betrayal, another coworker used her as a scapegoat to advance his own career. She was thrown back to the bottom.
Her thoughts were interrupted as panic surged through her again—she was incredibly late. Grabbing her purse and the dead phone, she rushed out of the apartment and down the stairs.
Stepping off the curb, her thumb helplessly typed on the black screen of her phone, willing it back to life. The noise of life around her hummed uselessly against her ears. The walk sign had been red for several moments already but she didn't notice, caught up in the drivel of her existence. She didn't notice the blaring lights of the SUV billowing towards her, she didn't notice the roaring engine or piercing scream of the horn. She didn't notice,
Then..
Brakes screeched
A horn uninterrupted
Someone screamed
Sara looked up
Oh.. this must be it.. I wish.. I wish it could have been different..
Sara shut her eyes.. waiting for the end..
but it didn't come
The noise and desperation of the city was suddenly gone, in its place the small trickle of running water. She opened her eyes, but what met her was unexpected. Blinking to adjust to the brightness, her vision washed over the scenic view of a beautiful marble fountain, gushing with clean pure water at the top, pouring into a intricate engraved bowl surrounding it. The sky was awash in brilliant large stars that shined bright enough to illuminate the ground. She stood on a large plat form, on smooth symmetrical white stones that contrasted strikingly against her dark heels. The plat form was perhaps 100 meters across, she could not see over the edge. The outer ring of the platform was lined with well kept green grass and various flowers.
Sara stared at the fountain again, her eyes adjusted better to the light, on the side of the bowl depictions of.. sex acts were scrawled into it intricately. The art was beautiful.. yet so lewd. Simple figures engaged in the deepest recesses of passion and lust.
A woman on her hands and knees with men straddled on either side.
Several men forming a circle around a voluptuous women, phalluses pointed at her.
And even a buxom women evidently staring up at the designer of the drawing
"What is going on here!?" Sara shrieked, her face red and hot.
"Its okay.. you can admire.." a warm melodic voice rang out, seemingly everywhere at once.
Sara hesitated then looked towards the voice.