Chapter One - Awakening:

When he became aware, he was lying on his back in the street. Nothing seemed wrong with him, he felt no pain, or saw no blood, he wasn’t dirty or his clothes torn. In fact nothing at all was out of place, except for the fact that he was in the middle of some crowded, inner-city street, lying on his back. He did not know this street. The street apparently did not know him either. He found it odd, being in this position, that no one seemed to notice him. People passed by in all directions; some even stepped right over him. Not a one so much as glanced in his general direction, which was down.

He seemed to be able to move with no problem, so he attempted to get up. There seemed no resistance in getting to his feet, so he stood. A passer by nearly walked right into him, and with a surprised look, she excused herself, and stepped around him slightly off balance.

Looking around, there were buildings on either side of a street that went on, in both directions, for as far as he could see. Other streets seemed to intersect at regular intervals; he assumed that it was some sort of a grid arrangement. The buildings around him weren’t overly tall; four stories at most, although most were one or two. Some were made out of wood, some of stone; some looked to be nothing but windows. Most, though, were made of brick, and most of those were brick red bricks. The area looked well maintained; it was clean and well trimmed, with enough trees, flowers, plants, and whatnot to create a pleasant balance between man made and natural. Most of the buildings looked older, maybe forty or fifty years, but all of them were well kept. The wooden buildings were painted vibrant colors; lots of yellows, oranges, reds, and blues, with a certain stylish character that only seems to come from a well established neighborhood. Everywhere, it looked alive, and healthy, although ‘wealth’ wasn’t a word he would use to describe it, but neither was ‘poor’.

He appeared to be on the edge of a valley, with hills that rolled off to distant mountains. Mountains that appeared close enough to touch. The whole way looked littered with forests of evergreen that had freckles of what looked like poplar.

The people streaming by of all races gave no hints as to what country he was in, and the street signs were either numbers or symbols. He felt panic start to rise within him, but he fought it off. He felt urge to run, but he couldn’t think of what that would accomplish in this particular situation, so he checked his pockets instead. In them, he was surprised to find a few handfuls of remarkably pocket like objects: a key ring with six or seven various sized keys, a pen, some pocket lint, a couple of pieces of paper with a few numbers on them, a couple of candies, gum, a foreign looking pack of cigarettes with a lighter, and a thick wad of currency that, along with everything else, did not look familiar to him at all. He wondered how much was there, but figured that counting it here, in the middle of the street wasn’t such a good idea. Counting it would be pointless anyway. How much of what would it be? He glanced around, and discretely put it back into his pocket, and decided that smoking a cigarette was a better idea. He pulled one out of the pack.

Being robbed didn’t seem to be the reason that he had been lying on his back, so he contemplated what the reason for that might be while he smoked. He pulled the pieces of paper from his pocket again and examined them more closely. There were two small chunks torn from larger sheets with what looked like phone numbers on them, two or three on each. He wondered whose numbers they were, but saw no payphone to use, and he didn’t seem to have a cell phone. He stuffed the scraps of paper back into he pocket, and decided to stop a passer by to ask where he might be. He stopped a friendly looking older, grey haired man in a suit, and with a little embarrassment, asked him where he was. The man appeared not to understand him, and peered at him with somewhat of a sideways expression over the rim of his wire framed glasses, muttered a few things, and carried on where ever he was originally off to.

He needed to sit down; this was all a little overwhelming. He noticed a couple of wooden benches up the street, across the street from a blue, three-story apartment building, on the other side, so he made off in that direction. He tried not to look lost, and out of place, but couldn’t help feeling that way. In fact, that feeling was starting to consume him. He fought panic again. This moment appeared to be safe, he figured; no one appeared to want to harm him. No one seemed to pay the slightest bit of attention to him at all, really, except to walk around him. Their complete indifference to him disturbed him; it was as if someone of reasonable age, and perfect health, lying on his back in the middle of a busy street, was quite an everyday sort of thing. They looked like your everyday sort of people. He found nothing at all remarkable about them as they bipedded along their various paths. They, apparently, had the same reaction towards him.

He reached the benches, and had a glance around before he sat. He was surrounded by what mostly looked like smaller, brick apartment buildings, with a simple blue apartment building on the other side of the street, all on well-landscaped lots. People were migrating in this direction, as well as in that direction, and in all different directions. Though no one direction specifically. Alone, in pairs, and groups, all in their own separate direction. He tried to imagine where they might be heading, but drew blank after blank. He dropped his smoke on the ground, squished it out with his foot, and sat down. It was a beautiful day; even the biggest complainer would be satisfied in nothing more that shorts and a t-shirt. The sun was shining in a big blue sky. It was warm with a gentle breeze. He could hear birds chirping, and saw a couple of squirrels skittering around, chasing each other about as they leaped fearlessly from tree to tree. He guessed from the length of the shadows that it was around midday. It looked like a nice enough place, he just wished that he knew where this place was.

He was suddenly slapped with the realization that he hadn’t seen a single car. Listening to the background din of the city, he heard no fingerprints of the internal combustion engine. The city had a quiet, organic, peaceful hum, and seemed to pulse with life in all directions. He heard peaceful voices he couldn’t understand, children laughing, birds, the footsteps of people, the occasional barking of a dog, leaves rustling in the soft breeze. He though he could hear the sound of a river off in the distance. The word “odd” floated around his mind, and attached itself to nearly everything his perception presented him. Odd in a way that he couldn’t quite put his finger on properly. The energy that the city gave seemed somehow reassuring, and inspiring.

He started to relax a little, although his situation still greatly disoriented and disturbed him. He seemed to remember his whole life for the most part, and even the memory of putting on the clothes that he was now wearing floated to the surface. He remembered leaving his apartment, where he lived with he girlfriend Alicia. They lived in Kensington, a trendy area in Calgary, Alberta. They had a couple of cats, but no kids. He was a bike messenger and rode a “Surly” single speed, and remembered making deliveries that morning (at least it felt like that morning, he wasn’t sure if that was actually the case though). His memory seemed normal; he felt no big holes in it, except for the one that the explanation of why and how he got here fell into. To him it felt as though he had simply disappeared from where he was, in Calgary, and that in the same moment reappeared here, lying on his back in the street. He suddenly wondered what had happened to his bag with his trips in it. It seemed to have vanished.

He wished that he had actually called in sick this morning like he wanted to. He had had a feeling about this day, and he thought that he needed to start listening to those. He wondered what his boss was going to say about the envelopes in his lost pack. He could almost hear him screaming at him. Every time his boss got to his name though, the word wasn’t understandable. The rest was fine, but he couldn’t understand his own name. He tried to remember other people using his name in conversation, and couldn’t. Scouring his memory, no mention of his own name, first or last could be found. Fear suddenly jumped back into him, and danced in the pit of his stomach.

In his life, he had never felt as alone and isolated as he did right now. He felt removed from the equation, as life went by all around him. He wondered, for an instant, in his stretched and torn mind, if the world he had known had actually existed, or if it was just a delusion that he had been having all this time. He figured one of these worlds must be a dream, and this one, to him seemed far too real at this time to be a sleeper’s oasis.

“Fear happens when you feel that the universe doesn’t love you,…”

His reflexes snapped his head around, almost painfully, to see a little girl of about eight sitting on the same bench, next to him. He blinked.

“…when you don’t believe that it has plans for you. Big plans. Oh how I do wish your people could see that.”

He was speechless; in his stunned brain, not a word formed. She was wearing a reserved expression of concern on her face, framed by flowing locks of curly red hair. Her green eyes seem to put emeralds to shame. They were magnetic, and hypnotic; he felt himself falling into them. They were very wise for a girl of eight, he thought, finally. She smiled at him and it made his heart ache with its warmth.

“Come” she said. “With no doubt, you will want to see what we’ve been preparing. You were hand picked! Personally chosen by us! Its all very exciting, you know.” And with that, she hopped to her feet with childlike energy and skipped off in the direction of the blue wooden building, just across the street. Her bright yellow sundress scattered with many simple, little blue flowers bounced and swayed to the musical rhythm of her footsteps, first this way, then that.

She hesitated when she realized that he was still just sitting there, with a stunned look on his face. Surreal refused to begin describing the way his surroundings felt to him in that moment. He felt overloaded and overwhelmed. He couldn’t even fathom what lay beyond that door, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Since he found himself here, his mind hadn’t been able to attach itself to a single thing in this place. It was all so foreign to him.

She giggled, and skipped back to the bench. Standing there in front of him, he felt her power and her strength as she seemed to probe the depths of his being with her eyes so crystalline green. He found himself thinking about his girlfriend, and their failing relationship, and how he wished she were here with him right now. He thought about his job; images of piloting his bike down the dotted white line, between lanes of moving traffic, it made his heart beat faster, he loved the ordered chaos of it. Pictures of his mother and father floated to his mind’s eye. He thought of the world he was from, and its anger, and loneliness. He wished he had more money. And more time.

She took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly, puffing out her cheeks. Her expression had turned to one of sadness. “Come,” she said softly, with a sigh, “they are waiting. Time is short”. She grabbed his left hand with both of hers, and heaved him off of the bench to his feet. She held his hand in hers as she led him across the street to the blue apartment. Her hand felt warm. His hand dwarfed hers.

“We had some problems getting you here, and must apologize for leaving you in the middle of the street like that. Your situation left us no other choice” she said apologetically. Her expression grew to one of playful curiosity. “Do you remember your arrival here?”

“…Uhh, no. No I, ahh, … I don’t really think that I do”. He was surprised that he could even speak. “Who? Who are you? And where the hell am I?”

She giggled again and smiled at him. “For the moment, you are here, and you are safe”.

Like everything else, he wasn’t sure what to make of that.

They climbed the stone steps up to the painted red front door of the modest blue wooden structure. She grabbed the simple handle with her free hand, and paused, looking him up and down with an expression of mixed excitement and awe. Then, after a moment, with a serious overtone, she spoke with smile: “I am a friend, and always have been.” She pushed open the door and pulled him inside.