“Are you ready?” my mom demanded as she pushed my bedroom door open without bothering to knock.

“Almost,” I replied, lifting my arm again as I continued to straighten my hair and trying to keep the wince off my face as I did so.

I really didn’t want to straighten my hair because every movement caused my chest to scream with agony. Even just showering almost brought tears to my eyes. Every single movement hurt and by the end of it, I had to sit on the floor of the shower. I couldn’t do anything else. I couldn’t stand, I could barely keep moving. I’m pretty sure I even fell asleep for a few minutes because my head fell back against the glass and the next thing I knew, my mom was banging on the door.

I’m so glad that she didn’t pick the lock and storm in because if she saw me on the floor of the shower, I wouldn’t be able to explain it. Maybe she would just assume that I was too lazy to stand up and shower but I wasn’t sure. If she pushed it and demanded to know why I couldn’t stand, I wouldn’t have an answer for her. I couldn’t exactly tell her that I drowned in another world which caused me to almost drown in this one and that, now, I was pretty sure that I’d pulled a muscle or done some damage to myself.

At least I didn’t feel quite so nauseous anymore. The sloshing sensation in my stomach had subsided which made things a lot easier. The first time I went back to the other world, to the spy world where I was trapped on the bus, I had been hit with such bad nausea that I’d thrown up again. Luckily, I had already turned the shower on to warm up so there was little chance that my mom would have heard me.

“Honestly, I don’t know how it takes you so long,” she sighed. “You’ve missed some at the back too.”

I finished the strand I was working on before pulling my straightened hair over my other shoulder. I scanned it carefully, searching for the bit she’d said that I had missed and trying to keep the pain from my face. I couldn’t find it. I even ran my fingers through my hair to separate it and move it about but I couldn’t find the bit that she said I had missed. I glanced up at her just in time to see her leaving my room, a triumphant expression on her face.

I let my hand fall to my lap. I hadn’t missed anything, she just wanted me to feel insecure. It worked, briefly, but I pushed the feeling aside and continued doing my hair.

It took longer than it should have, much longer than it took normally. The sheer effort of repeatedly lifting the straightener to my head made sweat bead on my forehead and I kept having to stop to rest and breathe. It worried me a little but I was mostly just relieved to be done. I pushed myself upright, ignoring the ache in my legs as I did, and took a couple of slow, deep breaths.

I was struggling. It was obvious. I was probably just exhausted and maybe a little injured from almost drowning. That was it. It was manageable. I was sure that when I woke up the next day, I would be completely fine.

“Grace,” I heard my mom call sharply and I pushed myself to stand up straight before the door opened again. “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” I replied quickly. “I just need to put my shoes on and grab my phone from the pool and I’ll be ready.”

My mom sighed at me.

“Fine,” she said.

She didn’t wait for me to say anything else before she left again, expecting me to follow her. I started to instinctively, almost reaching the door before I realised that I had some painkillers somewhere in my bag. I moved towards it as quickly as I could, reaching inside and finding the foil-covered packet and popping out a couple of tablets.

I slipped them into my mouth and swallowed them dry. The pills stuck in my throat and I had to swallow a few times to get them down but it worked eventually. Sucking in another deep breath, I looked around my room for my shoes. I had a couple of pairs of heels that I had unpacked which I knew that I should wear. Mom always said that the dress I was wearing looked silly with flats or that it made me look too short or out of proportion, depending on her mood, but I just couldn’t bear the thought of wearing them.

I hesitated for just a minute before slipping my feet into the flats. They’d be fine, they had to be. At least in them, I could almost move around like normal, like I wasn’t injured. Glancing at myself in the mirror one final time, I left my room.

All of my focus was on standing and moving normally as I walked down the hall. My mom wasn’t there so it didn’t matter that much but I needed the practice. My body wanted to curl forwards, to limp. I wanted to move as slowly and carefully as possible but I knew that, if I did that, I would get questions. I needed to be smart. Moving did seem to be helping though, that or the painkillers were starting to kick in. I wasn’t sure but I feel like my movement started to get a little smoother, my body crying out less and less with each step.

As I reached the bottom of the stairs, my mom looked up from her phone. An eyebrow raised as her eyes scanned me and landed on my shoes but luckily, she just sighed instead of saying anything.

“Are you ready to go?” she asked, sounding fed up and bored of me.

“Yes,” I answered instinctively before realising that I wasn’t. “I just need to go grab my phone.”

She sighed heavily again.

“Go on then. Hurry up,” she ordered sharply.

“Okay,” I replied, doing as she said but probably not as quickly as she wanted me to based on the irritated noise she made.

I was sure that I had already told her that I needed to go get my phone. She could have done it for me if she really was in that much of a rush.

“Honestly,” I heard her mutter. “Young people these days are addicted to those things. They can’t go more than five minutes without looking at their phones. It’s ridiculous. Sad, really.”

I glanced over my shoulder at her. She was staring at her phone even as she complained about how young people are addicted to them, seemingly not aware of the irony of her words. I feel like she wouldn’t like it if I pointed it out either, no matter how tempting it was. I could almost feel the brief flash of triumph that I would feel as she realised that I was right and that she was addicted to her phone but I wasn’t to mine, which was silly because at least most of the time when I was on my phone I was texting Phoebe or someone.

She had no one, she was almost just scrolling through social media or playing stupid games. She was never actually talking to anyone. Oh. That realisation almost stopped me in my tracks.

She didn’t. She didn’t really have any friends or anyone that she spoke to. She sometimes met up with old classmates when we were in Scotland but I’d heard some of those conversations, back when she used to take me with her to the meetings. They were… strange. They mostly just talked about things that happened to them when they were in school and then bragged about how fantastic their life was now.

I remember the last time I went, my mom spent half the time talking about how I had scored so highly in my reports last term, even though I hadn’t, and that she’d spoken to a teacher about putting me on the gifted and talented track at the school. I wasn’t sure which teacher she had spoken to though and I was pretty sure that my school didn’t have any gifted and talented program or anything. She must have just been doing it to sound good. To sound better than her friends.

I mean, what was she meant to say? That she spent most of her time at home, drinking and watching TV. That she was in a bad relationship with someone who she didn’t really care about and that her only child, the one that she’d previously boosted about being talented, was a depressed average child who spent most of her time in daydreams to avoid being in reality?

That was the truth. And it wasn’t a nice one. It wasn’t pretty or something she could boast about and I understood it. It made sense. If she were to tell people, to admit that was all that her life consisted of, she wouldn’t be able to feel better than them, which I knew mattered to her. They’d feel pity for her. She’d feel horrible.

I get why she lies about it. It’s a sad life to live. A disappointing one. Maybe it’s better to live in a fantasy than to have to admit that. It had to be, right?

I mean, I wouldn’t want to admit it and I don’t want to live it. I don’t want to become her. I don’t want to marry a man I can’t stand, to spend my life taking out my anger and disappointment on a kid that I never really wanted and only had because it was expected of me. I don’t want to live my life in a fantasy, not seeing or understanding reality. I need more.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

But that is what I’m doing. I’m living in a fantasy and maybe I am seeing reality but I’m ignoring it. Am I no better than my mom? I mean, at least I’m not telling others about my fantasy, it’s strictly for me so that I’m not trapped here. I don’t know if that makes it better or worse though.

I like to think better but I just don’t know.

“Ready,” I said quietly as I approached my mom again, my phone clutched in my hand.

I hadn’t even checked it since I picked it up, I had been too distracted by my thoughts. My mom barely looked up from her phone as she turned away from me and walked towards the door. She pulled it open, disappearing through it and not bothering to check if I was following or to hold the door open for me. Part of me wanted not to. I wanted to stand in the hallway, unmoving, just to see what would happen.

Would she turn back and ask me what I was doing and why I was taking so long or would she get in the car anyway and drive away? The second felt like the more likely option. Knowing my mom, she would drive to the restaurant, take her time eating dinner and come back. Then, when she finally did arrive back home, she’d probably pretend to be surprised to see me there and pretend that she didn’t even notice that I was gone.

I started to walk before hesitating again. I kind of did want that. I could have the whole evening, or the next few hours at least, to myself. I could just relax and be alone in the creepy old house that I was pretty sure was haunted. It sounded lovely. Better than dinner would be at least.

No, dinner might not be too bad. Mom was generally not that bad when her parents weren’t there, even though she had seemed to not be in a particularly good mood this evening. Maybe it would get better once she was out of the house?

The car door slammed, jolting me out of my thoughts and I rushed out of the house. I could see my mom actively trying not to look at me as I hurried across the stones towards the car, getting there just as she turned on the ignition.

“Why are you so slow today?” she demanded.

My mind spun quickly as I tried to think of an excuse, knowing that I couldn’t tell her the truth.

“I got distracted by a text from Phoebe,” I said after a slight pause.

I knew that she’d seize that and, based on her smirk, she did.

“And how is Phoebe?” she said with a sneer.

I wasn’t sure why. She oscillated wildly between liking Phoebe and telling me that I should be more like her and insulting her.

“She’s good. She’s just in France with her family over the holidays to help her learn more of the language.”

“Good!” my mom said as she started slowly crawling down the road, the stones crunching under the wheels. “Good on her for going out of her way to improve herself over the holidays! You should be doing something like that rather than sitting around all day!”

I opened my mouth to point out that I hadn’t been sitting around all day and that I’d actually spent most of my time since getting to my grandparent’s house outside or in the pool. It didn’t matter. She wouldn’t listen to what I had to say anyway. She would just find a way to insult me or imply that I was in some way lacking.

I could feel the dizziness floating at the edge of my mind, waiting for me to give in. I wanted to. I hadn’t gone anywhere, not properly, since I had drowned in the other world. I had tried to. I had briefly started to return to the other world where I was on the bus but nausea had overtaken me before I could truly get there. I wanted to go back, even though I felt conflicted. I just didn’t want to stay in the car with my mom.

I reached out towards the dizziness, slowly and carefully. I could almost feel myself wrapping my fingers around it and letting it drag me back into the fantasy. I braced, expecting nausea to hit me and make me want to throw up but I slipped back into the world so gradually that I barely noticed it. One moment, I was sitting in the car and listening to my mom go on and on about how I needed to take the initiative more and do something with my life, the next I was on the bus.

I blinked a few times, the world feeling a little strange and unreal but it slowly came into focus. The tiny room still smelt of the lasagne that I’d had for dinner, even though the tray was gone, was my first realisation. My second realisation was that we were no longer moving. We had stopped.

I climbed out of my chair and rushed to the window, even though I knew that there was no point. I couldn’t actually see out of it. The image was simply a moving clip of the side of a road somewhere, as if we were still driving, which made me feel a little unsteady. It was convincing, the image so clear that it made my brain want to believe that we were still moving.

We weren’t though. I was sure that we had stopped. I couldn’t feel the movement of the bus or hear the soft hum of the engine which had been my constant companion for the last however long it had been. I wasn’t sure how long it had been. We could have been on the bus for weeks, I really didn’t know.

It couldn’t have been weeks. Surely not. I mean, firstly, where would we be going for that long and secondly, I would know, wouldn’t I? I would be able to feel the passage of time.

I gently touched the glass screen of my window. Maybe I wouldn’t know. I was trapped inside, time was meaningless. The only way I knew what time it was was through the clock on the iPad and they could have easily messed with that. I only know that it was night when the screens on the windows shows a darker video. I truly had no way of knowing. I could have been anywhere and any amount of time could have passed.

A knock came from the door behind me and I turned around quickly.

“Come in,” I called, stepping forwards away from the window as if I had been caught doing something I shouldn’t.

“Hello, Grace,” Ms Brice said as she opened the door. “Are you ready to go?”

“Yes,” I said quickly, excited to be able to go outside.

That would make me feel better, I knew it.

“Fantastic! Do you want to put your shoes on and we can go?”

I looked down in confusion. I had no recollection of taking my shoes off. I must have done it when I first got on the bus and just not thought about them since.

“Oh, sure,” I said, trying to surreptitiously scan the room for them.

They were placed neatly by the door and I hurried towards them, slipping them on and looking up at Ms Brice.

She smiled at me and turned, starting down the corridor away from my room. I scampered after her, my eyes taking in the screen that replaced the window in the path outside my room. It was still moving too.

I walked behind her, trying not to rush but also wanting to be outside as quickly as I could. I barely looked around the open part of the bus as we walked through it. I saw an iPad on the table next to a laptop, an empty cup of coffee in a holder that seemed to be built into the table and the empty driver’s seat. That almost made me stop.

Where was Mr Parner? I just expected that he would still be on the bus, sitting in the seat. Where else could he be? Maybe they had bedrooms too? Maybe he was taking the opportunity to go for a nap. That made sense. I mean, he couldn’t be driving solidly for the whole time, he had to sleep at some point. But then I had never noticed the bus stop for more than a few minutes or so at a time so how did that work? Maybe Ms Brice drove whilst he slept?

My thoughts stuttered to a stop as Ms Brice stepped out of the bus door and I felt a gentle breeze blow the hair back from my face. I paused, halfway down the steps, my eyes falling shut as I simply enjoyed the feeling of fresh air on my skin. After a moment, I realised that Ms Brice was probably waiting for me and I opened my eyes, feeling foolish. My gaze found her immediately and I felt blood rush into my cheeks as I hurried off the bus and onto the tarmac of the car park.

“Sorry,” I muttered to her, unable to look her in the eye.

I had caught a glimpse of a smile on her face before I had looked away though. She didn’t seem annoyed at me or irritated by how long I was taking. She seemed happy which made me feel uncomfortable.

“Don’t worry at all, Grace! You’ve been on the bus for a long time, it must be nice to be outside again,” she told me.

“It is,” I agreed, finally looking around.

We were standing in a car park but our bus was the only one there. A long road that disappeared behind trees seemed to be the only way in or out but I couldn’t see what was beyond the trees.

“Shall we?” Ms Brice asked with a smile, gesturing towards whatever was behind the bus with her head.

I nodded and hurried after her, wanting to see more of wherever we were. I couldn’t see much though. The space behind the bus was huge and open. A playing field or a park or something. The giant green space was surrounded on all sides by huge trees, meaning that I couldn’t see anything else. I couldn’t see beyond the trees and there was nothing above them, just the darkening sky.

We walked in silence as Ms Brice led me towards the beginning of a worn path on the sunbaked field. It had been a hot summer so far in reality and, judging by how dry and parched the grass looked, I assumed that it had been warm in this world too.

It was still really warm. I might have just been used to how cool it had been on the bus because of the constant air conditioning but the evening air was hot. It was almost a little too warm and humid which unsettled me. It might have just been a very hot summer evening but I wasn’t sure. For all I knew, we could have been in a different country. We could have gotten a ferry or gone on the channel tunnel. We could be almost anywhere in the world and I wouldn’t know.

Ms Brice had documents saying she was part of the British government though, she had said the programme was an English one but… what if it was a lie? What if I was being taken somewhere else, being trained somewhere else?

“So, how are you finding the modules you’ve completed so far?” Ms Brice said, breaking the silence.

“They’ve been good,” I answered automatically before feeling the need to add something. “I really liked learning about the GSOD earlier.”

I could just about remember it but it became more clear the longer I thought about it.

“Ah, wonderful! That bodes well! You’ll be spending a lot of time in there. Maybe not at first but you’ll get there, I have no doubt,” Ms Brice told me. “What do you think of Day in the Life? The software we made?”

“Oh, the reporting one that looks like a game?” I checked. “It looks really cool. It seems like a really interesting way of reporting things.”

I felt like my answer was lame, like it wasn’t enough, but Ms Brice smiled at me, her face lighting up.

“Ah, yes. The normalisation of children having access to technology has been fantastic for our sector. Back in the day, it was a nightmare. Day to day reporting was so much more difficult and we had to rely on much more physical means like hand written reports, radio, morse code and a number of ridiculous things but now… Now it is a completely different game,” she said with a chuckle. “Most children learn how to use technology in the first five years of their life. They’re given phones with incredible processing capacities not much lately. Any child can have a phone and that phone can have anything on it. You never know who to trust or what anyone might be capable of. It’s incredible!”

It didn’t sound incredible. It sounded terrifying. She made it sound like the streets were full of child spies. Like, at any minute, someone could snap and murder a person or do something else terrible. It made goosebumps break out on my skin and panic swell within me.

“How are you finding your time on the bus?”