I opened my eyes and found myself in a cloudy, hazy atmosphere.  It took me time to adjust myself to this, but I appeared to be next to a paved road, but everything was covered in fog.  I stood there for a few minutes, allowing my eyes to adjust to where I was so I could find out exactly where I was and what was going on.  I scratched at my head, knowing full well the last thing I remembered.  I didn’t need to be reminded that I’d been in a terrible situation, but where was I now?  That’s what I didn’t know and wanted to find out. 

After my eyes got adjusted, I saw a street sign right up the road, where it looked like the fog was lifting.  Taking the luxury of more sight into account, I began walking towards that place.  As I walked forward, though, my expectations were not going true.  I fully expected to see that sign get taller and taller the closer I got, but it didn’t.  It looked normal to me.  So, I kept moving, just to make sure.  For all intents and purposes, the street sign should be two, three times my height.  The closer I got, the more I began to realize that I seemed to be exactly the height I was supposed to be.  I was almost as tall as the street sign, itself. 

A smile came over my face and a feeling of relief came over my body.  I wasn’t short.  I wasn’t small.  I was exactly my own, normal, regular height.  Even better, the sign I was near showed that I was on the road I lived on.  I could even see my house down the road from where I stood.  It raised so many questions but also made me feel relieved.  I wasn’t kidnapped in some strange place.  I wasn’t being taunted and teased by an overly tall Dr. Hiroshi.  I was right near my home, and right near the person I wanted to see more than anything else.  I sprinted towards the house, knowing that I would be able to see Rebecca again. 

The air rushed past me as I sprinted further down the road, the house getting closer with every second.  I was alive, and I was home on a foggy night.  No reaching upward to turn doorknobs.  No overwhelmingly strong kidnappers.  No awkward baths.  Only the joy of being home and seeing my Rebecca again.  I placed my hand on the doorknob and began to turn it.  It wasn’t locked.  No, of course not.  It was probably still the same day I thought I was kidnapped.  Rebecca was likely inside, waiting for me to come home, worried sick about this getting shorter thing. 

I opened the door and looked inside.  Just at the other side, she stood.  Rebecca, in all her beauty, right before me, with a smile on her face.  My eyes began to sparkle at the joy of seeing her again.  It was a dream come true for me.  Or, at least, I thought it was.  No sooner did I began to walk into the house that I felt something pulling me backwards.  I grunted and gripped the door-handles as this unseen force beckoned me backwards.  It wasn’t enough, though.  Within moments, I felt my body being yanked away from the door and Rebecca disappearing in the distance.  Everything was fading to white as I screamed out her name.

“R-R-Rebecca!!!!!”

I gasped as my eyes bolted open.  Sweat was running down my entire body and I was breathing heavily.  Everything around me was warm and hot and the image of Rebecca disappearing in the distance was still thrown in my mind.  I could see her face, her attire, every strand of hair on her head.  But I also saw my own reality.  I woke up and I could feel everything more intensified, more real.  I was still on a futon and two large, strong arms were still wrapped around me.  The fog, the street, seeing Rebecca.  It was all just a dream.  A dream I’d been torn from as I had called out her name at the top of my lungs. 

I wished I had only screamed in the dream, though.  That was my third mistake.  Not a moment after I screamed, I felt the arms around me begin to tighten, pulling me closer to Hiroshi’s body, still naked in the futon behind me.  Pulling, pulling, pulling.  It wasn’t like before, though.  Her gentle touch on me was very gentle.  This wasn’t.  Her arms went past gentle and began to constrict me into her body.  She was holding me tighter and tighter every second.  I felt pain around my ribs and stomach, and it was getting harder to breathe.  What was once a hug was turning into a tight grip. 

“Now, now, little one.  We don’t have those kinds of dreams here”

Her voice matched how she acted.  It was strict, serious, and deliberate.  The tone of her voice had a very disappointed tone, just like a mother who was disappointed that you broke something that belonged to her.  And her grip only tightened further the more I tried to struggle against her.  She out-matched me in every field of strength, and it was hurting me.  I could only assume that screaming out Rebecca’s name had some bad reaction in Hiroshi.  At the time, I should have known exactly why, but I wasn’t smart enough to put 2-and-2 together from all the other times I’d mentioned her. 

“P-Please….s-stop….it…h-hurts….”

I went from struggling against her to pleading for my safety.  With her strength, I didn’t doubt that she could snap me in two if she wanted to, and right then, I didn’t care to imagine what it would feel like.  I just wanted to plead to keep her from hurting me further.  Her grip on me did lessen, but it stayed tight enough that strained every time I took a breath, feeling the effort it took just to let the air flow through my body. 

It stayed that way for several minutes, but it didn’t make my situation better.  Every breath was harder than the last.  My heart was racing.  My ribs were aching.  I knew this couldn’t last forever.  But all she did was keep me in that situation and look at me with that serious, disappointed look on her face.  Not the gentle smile she had before.  It seemed far away, and I was regretting ever falling asleep and having that dream.  If I could have, I would have taken it all back. 

“I’m here now.  I’m taking care of you now.  You will dream about me.  Understand?”

I nodded my head as quickly as I could.  It didn’t matter if it was true, false, or somewhere between.  At that moment, I would have done anything to get her to stop hurting me.  As soon as I did, she let go and let me recuperate.  I wheezed and coughed into the oversized pillow I was near and a lot of thoughts poured into my head.  One thought in particular was higher than the rest.  The thought and lesson I’d just learned.  And something that was reinforced when I looked back and saw Hiroshi glaring down at me with unsympathetic eyes. 

I realized that I was in a much more dangerous situation that I had first thought…