*Yawn*

I woke up with a very sleepy yawn, slowly sitting up and collecting the thoughts on the dream that had just ended.  It was a strange dream, even for me.  I’d been running around a Candy Land board like I was one of the game pieces.  My mind was really screwy sometimes.  As I opened my eyes to help myself wake up, I looked down to the ground.  The bed felt a little more flat and hard than it should.  After blinking a few times, I found out why.  I wasn’t on a bed at all.  When I woke up and traced my covers around, I realized that I was on a bed-like futon.  The kind you’d expect to see in a traditional Japanese home. 

I covered my eyes for a moment, still adjusting to the line around me.  A few deep breaths and I revealed them to look around again.  Sleeping on a futon is something I wouldn’t normally do, seeing as how I don’t own a futon.  As I looked around the room, I realized that wherever I was wasn’t a place I was familiar with.  Aside from the futon, this room was very small, only big enough for maybe a few tables outside of the futon where I was sleeping.  It was very long and thin, and the futon was the only thing within it, other than me. 

“Where am I?” I pondered.  There was a sliding door at the end of the room that I could probably use to leave and see where I was.  Before that, though, I stopped to storm my brain and try to remember what had happened.  I hadn’t remembered going to bed the night before, but my memory was hazy.  I could remember images, visualizations, pictures.  I remembered going to work.  “Work.  Then I’d been spending some time with the doctor.  But then….what?”  The words rang around the room a few times, playing over and over again in my head, hoping it would spark some sort of memory.  But there was nothing. 

I sat there for a long time, no knowing what I should do.  I didn’t know where I was.  So, what could have been outside that door?  Or who?  There was a part of me that thought it would be a better idea to just stay in the room until something happened to explain the situation to me a little better.  The only other choice would be to wander out of it and hope I wasn’t in some sort of dangerous place.  Amidst my indecisiveness, I could hear footsteps nearby.  Footsteps that were coming towards the room. 

Before long, the door slid open, and a figure slowly walked in.  My head was down at the moment, but I slowly moved it up.  Past the hard floor, I could see a pair of socked feet slowly walking towards me.  Above them, a petite-looking body covered in what looked like a Kimono, or at least what I believed was a kimono.  I’d never seen one before, outside of the media, but it definitely flowed and looked like one.  As my eyes slowly traced up the body, I finally came to the person’s face, whom was looking towards me with a small smile on her face.  It took a moment to recognize, but I soon realized that it was the Doctor that I’d been meeting at work. 

“Doctor?  Where am I?” 

The words were pretty straightforward and to the point.  She was a familiar face and she was here with me, so she had to know something about what was going on.  As she approached, I got myself on my feet, hoping that she would explain and take me somewhere.  I wasn’t really thinking everything through when I’d first seen her.  I wasn’t all the way awake and didn’t realize the state things were really in for me.  I should have known more about the situation just from it right there.  I find myself in an unfamiliar room.  She walks in in a kimono and socks.  I should have immediately realized. 

The only problem was that’s not the only thing I should have realized.  No sooner had I gotten to my feet and straightened the sheets of the futon had I turned around and immediately went into shock.  After I’d stood up to my full height, the doctor had made her way over to me and was looking down at me.  And I was looking up at her.  The shock took a few moments to hit.  But my jaw dropped and I fell backwards when I realized that my eyes were barely level with her stomach. 

The shock hit me all at once and I slid back on the floor as I did so.  She didn’t say a word at first.  If she did, I didn’t hear it at all.  I picked myself back up as I felt my heart start to race and I closed my eyes.  It was me.  I was still sleepy.  I was still dreaming.  I had to have been.  There is no way I could have stood up to full height and only been as tall as her waist.  There was no way!  It took a few minutes, but I opened my eyes again only to realize the same thing.  She was still walking towards me, her waist right at my eye line. 

It was like a horror movie in my head.  The closer she got, the more I retracted further into the room.  She didn’t say a word, and all I did was sweat and panic as I moved backwards.  Eventually, though, I found a wall behind me.  I was starting to get scared, my legs shaking.  Then I realized what victims in horror movies must have felt.  When logic just didn’t apply and fear directed you in the entirely wrong direction.  Then you realize you’ve trapped yourself in a room with someone that you’re afraid of, and you have no idea why you’re afraid.  You just are. 

Soon, I was face to face with her again.  I was back against the wall and her petite body, now easily twice as tall as my own, standing there keeping me from going anywhere.  She hadn’t done anything hostile.  She just walked in the room.  I wasn’t afraid of her.  She’d been nothing but nice to me.  It was the fact that she was twice my height that scared me, and that fear just wouldn’t let go of me.  As she knelt down to get both our faces level with each other, I felt more fear settling in.  Tears began to run down my cheeks.  I was scared.  Frightened. 

In response to that fear, her arms went around me and I felt an overwhelming warmth hitting me all over, giving me goose bumps all over my body.  She wasn’t being too tight.  She wasn’t being forceful.  She wasn’t hurting me.  But it gave me all of the fear of being harmed and in a dangerous situation.  Then the words came out.  The first words out of her since she entered the room.

“Don’t be scared, little one.”