Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

A s she moved through the hallway, she couldn't help wondering if this was actually a dream or if it was, in fact, reality. It felt real. Everything that she touched, smelled, and saw felt extremely real. Her imagination had never been this good. On the other hand, it was all just so unbelievable, that it couldn't be real. Some creature had stolen her body, her voice, her very being and that was impossible, wasn't it? It was impossible for her to now be this… this… this grotesque monster with the screechy voice and brittle hair. There was no way this could be real because that kind of thing only happened in horror movies and fairytales. She shuffled her feet awkwardly, moving faster after the creature. This new body she was wearing didn't work the same as her human one and it made her feel clumsy and gangly. She wanted her body back. She had to get her body back.

As she turned another corner of the hallway that seemed to be going uphill, the creature that had stolen her identity appeared at the end. It didn't appear to have anywhere to go from there. The creature who wore her face, who now inhabited her body, grinned at her, but the expression on what used to be her face was unlike any Mary had ever made when wearing it. It was very disturbing and just a bit frightening. The creature pushed on the wall and it somehow shifted, creating an opening in the stone wall.

Mary watched as the creature in her body jumped through the opening. She ran faster to catch up but stopped short as she reached the doorway. Peering through it, she was shocked to find a wall of dark water, but it was as though some invisible wall was holding it in perfect formation, not allowing it to flood the interior of the hallway. Curious, Mary reached into the water and drew her new gray hand back. Water droplets covered her clawed fingers. She stepped closer and peered into the depths of the water, looking for the creature who had stolen her body. She could barely make out her legs kicking through the water, heading upward.

“That's impossible,” Mary said. Once again she was surprised by the voice she heard when she opened her mouth. It sounded like nails on a chalkboard and made her cringe.

She looked around. There was nothing that she could do except follow the creature that had stolen her body.

She took a deep breath, deciding not to overthink it, and dove right in.

Mary knew how to swim. At least she had known, when she was in her real body, however this one was so unfamiliar she was struggling to make it do what she wanted. And now that she was in the water, she didn't know what to do. She thought about turning back, but suddenly the doorway was gone. Her eyes widened in fright. How was she going to survive? She spun around looking for the creature, but everything was so dark and murky she couldn't see two feet in front of her. However she knew she had to do something.

She held her breath feeling like her lungs were going to explode at any moment. Still she began to move her limbs, propelling her arms and kicking her feet as she attempted to move upward through the water. She was making very little progress as a dark shape moved beneath her. Is that a shark? Am I about to be eaten alive? She felt her heart hammering in her already tight chest.

The massive creature moved closer still, its large back directly below her feet and then suddenly, her feet were swept out from under her and she was sitting on creature's back, as though she were riding it. The creature rose in the water, to what Mary could only hope was the surface where she'd be able to breathe. Her fingers clasped onto the neck of the creature, but she did her best not to dig her new claws into it. She didn't want to harm the creature who seemed to be helping her. Her eyes trace upward, taking in the long neck, like that of a giraffe but attached to a whale. It was very bizarre looking. She could make out fins on either side of the creature and at the back of the massive body there was what looked like a tail of some kind. She'd never seen anything like it before.

She prayed this creature was actually helping and not planning to take her to its nest somewhere and eat her. As they moved swiftly through the water, she began to notice the water growing lighter, as though the sun or moon were penetrating it. Overwhelming relief filled her.

They moved upward until finally Mary's head broke through the surface of the water. She sputtered and gasped for air, as she continued to grasp onto the moving creature. She was fully out of the water now, astride the back of the creature. It was moving even more swiftly now, making its way toward the rapidly approaching shore. Mary was so grateful to the creature who really did seem to be helping her.

In the moonlight, she could now see the creature resemble one of the dinosaurs from the museum, except it was alive! It looked like a Brachiosaurus, which she knew was impossible for this creature to actually be one, because they had lived over a hundred and fifty million years ago and had been extinct for at least a hundred and forty million years. Also she was pretty sure that the Brachiosaurus hadn't had fins.

The creature swung its head around toward its back, as though to look at her and made some kind of barking sound. It didn't sound unfriendly, more like it was trying to tell her something. Mary patted its neck and said, "Thank you for your help."

The creature strangely bobbed its head and turned back around to face toward the approaching shore. The full moon showed that the shore wasn't too far off, but the shoreline looked more like that of a lake than an ocean. Even the water around them was still, except for where the massive creature was creating ripples with it's fins. She wiped some of the water away from her face with her strange new hand. She blinked her eyes and something in her vision shifted. Everything around her became clearer, more in focus. The colors sharper and brighter. She'd never been able to see so well at night before. She wondered if the reason was the strange body she now inhabited.

With this new ability she scanned the shoreline ahead for any movement, looking for the monster who'd stolen her body. The night was very still except for the water moving around them. She noticed how dark everything was with no artificial light anywhere to be seen. She found that to be quite odd.

Where on Earth could she be that had no artificial lights? On top of that, how had she gotten here? Was she even still on Earth? Now that she thought about it, she wondered how she'd gotten into that cavern she'd woken up in earlier in the first place. None of this was making any sense to her. She didn't want to panic though, so she concentrated on the first thing she needed to do and that was get out of this water.

The creature swung its head back toward her when they were about ten feet from the shore. It nudged her with its head, as though letting her know this was the end of her ride. Mary nodded and slid from its back as it descended in the water. "Thank you, you saved my life," she croaked out.

A moment later, the creature was gone. Not even a ripple in the water appeared to show where it had swum off to. Shivering, Mary turned back toward the rocky shore. She could see there was a muddy bank not too far off and she paddled her way toward it. Ten feet didn't seem like much, but in this new body, it took a lot more effort than she normally would have had to expend to get there. About two feet from the shore, she noticed the depth of the water growing more shallow, and she could touch the sandy bottom. She slogged her way out of the water and onto the bank where she dropped to the ground.

.

She laid on her back and looked up at the sky to catch her breath. The sky was full of stars and a bright full moon. It would be absolutely beautiful if her circumstances weren't what they were.

As she processed the last few hours, she once again had to consider that she was in a strange nightmare. Perhaps she was under the influence of some sort of anesthetic and it had induced all these nightmarish things. Of course, the massive creature who'd helped her hadn't been a nightmare, it had been rather helpful and friendly, but that was not the point. The point was that it even existing was an impossibility. And that meant this had to be a nightmare. A dream conjured by her own mind. Right?