> April 3077. 07:00. A half hour after the arrival.

Kiri awoke the next morning, blinking away the blur of her surroundings and feeling an ache in her lower back. The sun was a blinding alarm that had woken her up far earlier than she could tolerate. She lifted her hand slowly to her face and shaded her eyes, groaning.

As she came to, she realized she was still lying in the boat. She was still in the plains. She had literally slept in the middle of the plains in a boat. What in the world has gotten into me…? she thought.

Nothing had changed since last night. She would still need to go back to her town with all the people who’d apparently hated her or pitied her. Not to mention, she would need to deal with the embarrassment of having been a reckless idiot for running off into the plains while listening to a lecture from Uncle Jim.

What was she hoping for? The possibility that the legend of the carriage in the plains was true? Maybe that a portal would transport her to some other world? How stupid. Even she, her school’s imaginative nutcase, wasn’t the type of person who would act on superstition like that. And yet here she was.

However, she recalled the inherent strangeness of a boat being in the grassy plains in the first place. Then she remembered the old man’s reflection in the mirror during the portal festival. She remembered how Dadrien had addressed her like he was looking deep into her psyche, saying something about the stars being aligned and the possibility of a portal reopening. Remembering that uncanny situation re-initiated the unsettling feeling in her stomach.

As she continued to wake up, something felt off. No, not just that—something sounded off and even smelled off. The usual rustling of the grass sounded more like burbling. Her nose picked up something she would smell at seafood restaurants in town.

When her eyes adjusted to the light, she brought her hand down from her face. The boat shifted. No, it didn’t just shift—it undulated. She widened her eyes. With one swift movement, she sat up, and the boat rocked violently. She grabbed the rim on either side of her and looked around frantically. Something sloshed around the boat. Water.

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“I’m dreaming?!” she yelled. “This can’t be right. This can’t—”

She carefully looked over the rim of the boat. Below the surface, she could still see the golden grass. Then she turned to look behind her. Caught sight of some islands in the distance. No doubt, those hadn’t been a part of the grassy plains she knew. She stared at them. Inclined her head and furrowed her brows.

The islands were of different sizes and scattered as far as the eye could see. One of the islands seemed incredibly large and even appeared inhabited, judging by the numerous tall buildings on it.

But inhabited by who? Even worse, what? She automatically assumed humans, but if this was indeed a dream, perhaps they were something much crazier.

She squinted for a better view of the largest island with the tall buildings on it. Her mouth opened and closed as if she were trying to speak. There was no way to rationalize this situation other than calling it a dream. A sea covering the grassy plains? A city on an island in the middle of nowhere? This was the stuff of Uncle Jim’s bedtime stories. She fumbled for her phone. Surely, that could indicate where she was. But then she recalled that it had died the night before.

Never in her life had she experienced a dream as vivid as this one. The only thing she questioned at this moment was her growling stomach and the pain it gave her. Everything about that was real and physical.

She bent over and clutched her stomach. That was when the real doubt hit. She would surely wake up intent on eating if she were this hungry. But she didn’t. Maybe she was some biological exception who could sleep so deeply that even hunger couldn’t get in the way. Maybe this boat was a prop from some plains drug dealer who’d slathered it in hallucinogens, and as a result, she’d become the victim of a horrible trip. Or maybe her brain was simply degenerating.

Her imagination ran wild. But at some point, she lightly slapped her face a couple of times and regained whatever sanity she had left. She shook the oars from their stuck positions on either side of the boat, then clumsily attempted to move it through the water. She began to head towards the nearest island—one with what appeared to be human-made structures on it.

Anything would be better than sitting in a boat for the rest of her life. The choice now was between possibly dying on some hallucinated island in the grassy plains or definitely dying in the grassy plains with a little bit of water on them.