Where is the life that I recognize? - It's gone away.

In a grey place, where the grey goes on almost endlessly and for as far as the eye can see, a place where a low-lying mist hides the ground, feet, and ankles as two girls physically meet for a first time though their two-way connection has brought them close to one another long before they come to be in such a grey place.

This open area is a mid-way point, a corridor, a space between two worlds, a place that only they should know, a place that'll become the center of the combined universe, a place which will in time become a hiding place for something evil and a prison for all this evil wants to store, inanimate and living alike. A need will come to stop this something evil before it not only destroys that corridor but also the two worlds it connects.

It is the only highway that links a place of belonging with the place that should be home, for in order to go forward, a return may need to be accessed to prevent the ultimate tragedy. Still, this grey place is only part of something ... more.

To begin with, this corridor allows two unrelated sisters to come together through fiction and reality though if one were to think about it, then the question could be asked, which one comes from where? Which lives in fiction, and which one covers reality? Does that matter especially if one affects the other and visa versa? Is there even a difference? And indeed, it could also be asked, what if others do find their way into that grey place?

***

Never can one be so lost that he or she feels found in a place seemingly created specifically just for them, leaving behind almost completely where it is they realistically belong to and all it is that goes with that. Discovering or realizing such a fact, if such a thing can be done, would it then be too late to find a way back? Would a way back be wanted if you feel just as at home where you have come to as you do to where you come from?

Yeah, there is that corridor, though it is not open for just anyone and travel through it does come with some restrictions, and it simply just can't be accessed by just anyone. If anything, one could get lost in there. One could even pass through without realizing. On the other hand, what really could happen if such a place could be invaded? Not only invaded but also mastered? And how can one return there if such a person does not know how it is they came to or passed through it?

'

'Her hazel eyes searched as she stared deep into his bright blue eyes, Ellie knew she could easily lose herself in this moment. Steve was a big strong guy, he is a big strong guy, a handsome guy, well built, captain of the college football team, and he certainly is the general of popularity.

She is in no need of attention like this, her own bravado does not need to be pampered to, or perhaps it does, and she is only realizing it in this moment, for this fellow ... he could be anywhere he liked and with anyone he wanted at this particular moment in time, so Ellie could not believe that Steve wanted to spend this precise moment with her. Just as he leaned in to kiss her and waited for her to respond, a loud shout of NO echoed out around the yard in which Steve and Ellie stood next to alone within.

'What?' Steve asks looking around and not observing anything of notice, ... 'that was not me' replies Ellie after briefly looking around too. 'Well ... if that wasn't you then who was it? We are the only two standing here' ...

Judy was just as lost and confused as the two characters in the book she was reading were. For at the exact moment, she read that Steve and Ellie were about to kiss, Judy, in disgust, released out a shout of 'No'. Judy felt a connection to the character of Ellie who was and is featured in a series of books Judy had been following, so the thought that Ellie was about to kiss Mister Popularity was a thought that Judy felt was about to ruin this special connection.

That being what it may, there is that question, where did that shout of 'no' really come from? There was no way that Ellie and Steve could actually have heard Judy, was there?

***

It is easy to lose oneself and become immersed in the world of make believe and fiction when the real world holds nothing for you other than what you perceive as being only negativity. Judy Lester, a fifteen-year-old loner, is about to find out exactly what it is like to become immersed in that fiction.

She will not only become immersed in that fictional world, but she will also go there, live there and even have an important part to play within it as if it were as real a place as where she came from. She will become the centre piece to all that goes on around her. There will be so much joy, drama, and activity that it may become all too easy to let go of what came before.

Letting go completely, can she really do that? What if her own life, her very being is at risk? If her own existence is in jeopardy, what then? For a danger she could never see coming will exist and it won't be pretty.

When you feel invisible in the real world, it is not so difficult to become engrossed with a visibility in a not so real world. Reality can be a state of mind. If something looks and feels real, then who says that something like such is not actually real at all? Feeling so lost in one world and becoming so immersed in another, it'll only be a matter of time before both worlds collide.

The more time she spends in this other place, the more difficult it will become to return to reality or at least the reality she came from. As it is, was and ever will be, life continues until it doesn't. Indeed, just what is real and what isn't?

***

This may not be my story, if anything it is her story, it is Judy's story. I am however a part of it, a significant part as I like to believe, and in some ways, I am responsible for a lot of it too, maybe even for it all. Being honest, it is all my fault. To stay sane, I can't allow myself to think that way. I met her here, she took me there and I like to believe that despite all the time that has passed I have it within me to bring her back and keep her here.

After all it is I who bears the burden, I am the one to blame, I opened the gate she went through. She would be alive and well today if it weren't for the part I played. I had so much to learn back then. In many ways I still do.

I remember that Thursday afternoon as if it were yesterday. It was an ordinary day in an ever so ordinary world. Little did I know that something not so ordinary was on its way. Odd moments had come before; however, I guess I only properly began to take notice on this day. There was the treatment of my surroundings, to me they were ordinary even though I really did know better. Thing was that it just felt normal, I felt as if I belonged.

I remember I wore glasses back then and more often than not, they would sit at the end of my nose and that is not all I remember. There was something strange with the sun that day, the day I met Judy Lester. It had such an orange glow about it that it completely filled the room. As if some sort of ethereal presence had come, taunting me with its own existence, telling me it has come to have its way, I was too blind to see it and too deaf to hear it. There was indeed something a little extraordinary about this particular day and little did I know of what was to come.

To be honest, that day, I can almost still feel it, taste it, smell it, so much so that it doesn't take much for it to feel as I were right there within that day, within that moment right now. I knew right there and then that fate had paid me a visit. It was something that just was meant to be. Maybe I really could sense some sort of ethereal presence. I just didn't know it at the time.

Was it fate though? Or was it something else, a something else that possibly could have been explained to me? It stepped in and made the fantastic ... ordinary. Yeah, fantasy and reality are two powerful things. Anyway, as I say, that day was the real beginning point of something far from ordinary.

I had spent so much time trying to get through to her after she had been hurt and she just lay there. She was taken away and I facilitated it. However, it is not, was not like she had much of a choice, maybe she did have a choice. That was it, wasn't it? Once there, she chose to stay.

Now it's all or nothing. Leave my life as I know it today to go be with her in her world. Leave all that I have built, all that I fought so hard for. You know, there never really was any choice at all for she is my life. She became my life, my everything.

Maybe now if I can find her in a different moment, if I can actually get to her then it may just be possible to return to that Thursday afternoon and bring her right back with me and have it all to live over or have it all to change. Now wouldn't that be something?