Can one be dry while in water? Can they breathe while drowning? That’s where I find myself. I can’t touch the ground, but I can still breathe in air. I can’t see anything, just pitch black and blurry lights in long rows, wavy from the water glazed over my vision. The light is far from me, allowing the darkness to practically swallow me whole. I try my hardest to steer closer to the light, but it’s like this black void is tar – I don’t budge. I extend my legs, trying to search for a surface. My toe touches something hard. 

The floor?

My body tries to squirm to the tough bottom until the tar melts, and I slam my knees against the ground. It crunches between my joints. My knees sting on top of the pebbles flaming underneath. I flinch, startled by my voice bouncing in an echo around me.

I stand and the floor adjusts around my feet, my echo halts within seconds.

I don’t remember how I got here, or how long I had been floating in silence for. Whatever the cause, it wasn’t right, it doesn't feel real. It feels like only a few minutes, but I start to worry it hasn’t been just a few minutes. Worse, how much longer would I be here? Hours? Days? Forever?

I walk towards the rows of lights since it seems to be the only place of reason to go to. The ground squishes beneath my feet with a wet crunch, as if it were gravel. Rows of jail bar-like lights morph into one large source of luminosity. There’s another echo, but the voice doesn’t belong to me. Another voice swirls around the first. They flow together in a harmony – but even still, they don’t sound like they belong.

“Are you mad at me?”

Muted and inhuman.

“Joseph?”

My name. My mind must be playing tricks on me.

I continue walking, and the pitch black enclosure grows fickle as the light overpowers the dark. The light was no longer just a light, it was the sun.

Was I trapped in a cave back there? I couldn’t have, there’s no kind of caves like that by where I was last.

Where was I last again?

I inch around cautiously as my eyes adjust to the orange sphere in the sky, slowly setting beneath the hills and trees around me. This place looks so familiar, I know I must have been here before, but something feels different about it. It feels…artificial.

A flat boulder that appears through ripples of sunlight; row by row it fades into my line of sight. Thick, black heaps of smoke appear on top of the rock, building up like a fog. Through the grays and blacks, there’s something that stands out. A little blue flag planted in the ground, waving against the orange horizon, the words “Praying Mantises” sewn on the fabric.

It clicks, I know where I am. I remember this place.

The black fog morphs into solid figures, still retaining their color. I feel my feet creep closer to the boulder, the flag waves on. The closer I get, the more color appears on the backs of these figures, their bodies facing the sunlight. I take another step, the figures become people, and the background behind the people shimmers into view. Pavilions, trees, swing sets – just like I remember them.

“No. But, I don’t want you to leave,” the one on the right says,

“I don’t want to go either, I don’t have a choice.” The left side answers back.

The left is a boy with medium cut black hair and a skinny frame, the right is another boy with long brown hair, much more stout than the former.

“Do you know when you’ll be back?” The right asks, the left shakes his head.

“No clue. It’s for a doctor for my legs. It’s all the way in Maricopa.”

“Where’s that?”

“It’s in Arizona.’
“Oh.”

I shuffle my feet and a branch snaps beneath me. I gasp in surprise, but they didn’t hear me. I don’t think they can.

“What’s wrong with your legs?”

The thinner boy turned to his mate on the rock, his brow furrowing with worry. His lips open and close, as if he’s trying to say something, but the words can’t make it to his tongue. Blue eyes meet brown, they can’t help but look into their eyes with forlorn.

“I have cancer, it messes with my bones. My legs are always hurting. But, the doctor in Maricopa is supposed to help with it. That’s why I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

It’s Acute Myeloid Leukemia. I don’t know why I know that, but I do.

“Since when did you have cancer in your legs?” the shorter boy asked. “Since I was eleven.”

“Why didn’t you say anything before?”
“I was scared.”

They froze, and the world around them starts to change from an afternoon sunset to a deep night. Summer nights have never felt this cold. The boy on the right is gone, the taller remains. He looks over to me, as if he knew I was here the whole time. His expression is unreadable, blue eyes piercing through my own.

“Joseph?”

He knows my name. His tan face is drained to a desaturated blue, making his eyes look like they belong to hawks.

“Joseph?”

It hit me: I know who this was, and I know who that other boy was. I was that other boy. The boy in front of me was an old friend. He wasn’t real anymore. He was dead.

“I’m sorry,” is all I can manage to reply. “I’m so, so sorry, Eddie.”

Eddie’s hawkish eyes stay locked on mine. I can feel tears prick my eyes, my throat begins to clog.

“I’m sorry,” my knees buckle as I continue to chant it. The words all mean the same thing, I don’t know why I keep bothering to say it. I feel something cold clasp on my shoulder, causing my neck to jerk into itself. I look up to see him looking down at me. His eyes grow softer as his lips peel into a weak smile.

“Thank you. I wish you said that sooner.”

The world around us turns to black, and he fades along with it. I’m back where I found myself before, drowning in thin air. I curl into myself as the void swallows me whole. I wonder why I was reluctant to reach out to Eddie when he was still alive. I wonder why I was so selfish and ignorant when I was younger. And now I find myself wondering where Eddie could be now beyond this void. Was he happy now? Was he still in pain? My questions seem redundant as I spiral into the darkness, time's arrow still moving forward.