In Response to Stephen

...That's all I could remember before slowly coming back into consciousness. As my eyes tried to adjust, I felt myself in a familiar space. I couldn't quite figure it out yet. A seemingly-nearby voice muttered something, but I couldn't make sense of it.

"My head!" I thought suddenly... I tried to reach up and feel on my head for a dent or something, but my arms wouldn't move beyond a couple inches or so. At this point, my vision was no longer blurry, and I jerked up my neck to look at my hands... I was lying on a bed in a therapist's office, and my hands were chained to the sides of the bed! In a state of terror and confusion, I screamed as loud as I could, but Dr. Brown came suddenly from behind me with a long, shiny needle in hand—a flash of blood-red clouded my vision, and, for a split second, I felt like I was being choked.

I awoke to the sound a little girl singing—I knew for sure I was dreaming, but it felt as real as ever—and I sat straight up. "Wait a second," I thought aloud, "where am I?" I wasn't in a beautiful meadow as I expected (and really hoped), but it seemed as though I had fallen into the ground. I looked around to see dark dirt walls and a couple small tables with bottles on them. To my left sat the same little girl from my other dream... "Alice?" I croaked hopefully. "There you are, silly!" the little girl exclaimed with a look of pure joy. "Why, I thought you'd never show up!" I sat in confusion for a while, trying to suppress the horrific memories of my recent nightmare and attempting to connect the dots from that point to waking up in Dr. Brown's office. "What's happening to me?" I finally asked. "That doesn't matter right now," said Alice. "You just need to get some rest." "No!" I immediately cried, "No, no, no, no, NO! I DON'T want rest! I wan't real life, and I want to wake up in my REAL bed in my REAL ROOM and be AWAKE!" I began to sob uncontrollably. "Of course you do, Jamie" Alice said. "And that's exactly what we're here to do. Come with me..."