I slipped going through the principal's door and fell face first in slime and stinking mud. I tried to push myself up. My hands couldn't find purchase and sank deeper in mire. Cold water swirled around my wrists and knees.

"Hello?" I called. Where was I? "Is anyone he-"

My head was shoved down from behind until my nose touched the mud. I swiped at whatever was holding me and felt a man's heavy hand and wool sleeve. "Let me go, please let me go!" I cried.

"Spy?" A man's voice to the left asked.

Spy? "No!" I cried. I wasn't even sure if I was answering his question or simply denying the fact that this was happening. Think, Brooklyn. I had been walking into the principal's office, but was now in a marsh or at a lake in the mud. The light was murky and the air stank of decay and wood smoke. There were at least two men, one holding me and another standing nearby. Was this what the message meant? These men were the ones coming for me? Had I passed out in school and been kidnapped?

My heart was beating so fast it was hard to breathe and all my muscles tensed. I sank deeper in the mud as the man pushed me down further. My mouth and nose would be under soon.

"No, I'm not a spy!" I gasped. I scratched the fist in my hair. Think, Brooklyn, you know how to do this. "Let me go now!"

"What's to spy on in these parts?" The man holding my hair jerked my head back and forth.

By then I had determined he was using his right hand. With my right hand, I grabbed his and twisted my body up and around. I jabbed my left elbow in his forearm, then chopped into his neck with the side of my hand. But from that distance, I didn't have enough strength. He snapped his head back, choking some and caught my arms. He laughed. I was pinned beneath him and sinking in the mud.

"Little spitfire we've got here, boys!" the man called.

"That so?"

My world reeled, bits of reality chipping off and falling aside. A Confederate soldier was holding me down. He called me a spitfire. I gaped at his crooked, rotting teeth, the tattered cap on his head, his greasy hair and untrimmed beard and thought how genuine he seemed. Not like an actor or a costumed freak, but an actual Confederate soldier with a thin wool jacket and tarnished buttons. One was missing.

I could see so many details crystal clear, but they were things that couldn't exist. Each unreal detail seemed to detach itself and grow until the things that should be my real world disappeared.

Confederate uniforms, another soldier behind him missing an arm, grimy skin, yellow sashes filthy with dirt, blood and water stains, burn streaks on cheeks, and the smell of chicory boiling nearby wafting over the sweet stench of rot.

"What'll we do with her?" said a young man coming up to look at me. "Think Feros'll want her? She ain't but part here. It won't do, I reckon."

"Take her to him anyhow," the man holding me said.

"Nah. Won't do. Gwine rile him up for nothing." The young man, a boy about my age studied me. His jacket was off and wide suspenders kept his trousers up. There was a blankness to his stare, as if he was only partly there, as well. He ran a thumb up the inside of one suspender. "Part here is worse 'n none here."

"Please let me go. I want to go home. I'm not here to hurt anyone or get you in trouble." I said as calmly as possible. What did he mean by saying I was part here? This whole situation was wrong. Too sharp and cold to be a dream. I started shivering.

"Push her back through, then, be the only solution," the man standing to the side said.

"I reckon so." The soldier holding me started to push me deeper in the mud.

"No!" I screamed. I tried to bring a knee up to kick him, but was trapped by his weight and the mud. Then something coiled around my neck. "No!"

Muck and water crept up over my head, onto my face and then in my nose and mouth. I thrashed and kicked at the man, but it didn't matter, he kept pushing me under. My chest was on fire, I lost all sense of thought but one: breathe! I opened my mouth to scream, watery mud filled it. I tore at him until something wrapped around arms and dragged me deeper. I was going to drown. I was choking and drowning, my head and lungs on fire.

I couldn't fight anymore. There was no air or strength left in me. Nothing was left but the tugging on my neck, arms, torso and legs as though I was pulled deeper by dozens of thin ropes. It was not unpleasant, but I knew I should feel something. Sorrow? Rage? Regret? There was an emotion I should have while I was dying, but I couldn't remember which one. I let myself be pulled....

Up into Principal Zhous' office. I gasped for air. He was frowning at me and I noticed he was holding my arms to keep me upright. Leading me to a chair, his mouth moved to ask me if I was all right. At least, I think that is what he was asking. He might have asked if I needed a cup of coffee. Maybe it was both.

"I'm fine. I'm better now. I take milk, no sugar," I said. This was right, this was where I was supposed to be. My mind instructed my mouth to smile at him.

"Ah, good. Just sit for a minute. I'll have the nurse come. Did you just ask for coffee?" he asked. He paced for a moment, looking at me, then called for Mrs. Johnston, the receptionist. After asking her to get a cup of coffee for me, he called the nurse. He started pacing again, hovering over me and asking if I was still light-headed.

"I feel much better now," I said. It sounded lame, but was true. I couldn't quite express how much better it was to be sitting in his office with a cup of hot coffee instead of being drowned in freezing mud. "What uh, what did I do?"

"When you came in you started to sway like you were dizzy. I tried to get you to sit down and then you almost fainted. That's all. It was just a second or two, but you really had me worried. Did you eat breakfast this morning, Brooklyn?"

"Yeah, I...ate and stuff."

"Today is a not good day for you, is it? Oh, here's the nurse. Do you need to sit a while longer, can I get someone to help you walk?"

He continued with his battery of questions, somehow getting in an explanation of my symptoms to the nurse, and finally letting us leave after I finished my coffee. It was, without a single doubt, the weirdest and worst trip to the principal's office I have ever had.

When we reached the nurse's office, she had me lie down on a cot while she asked me more questions and checked my vitals. I was in perfect working order. The words stress and grief were mentioned several times and I nodded. Stress, grief and...hallucinations, but I kept that to myself. It didn't seem real to me anymore.

Near the end of the period, Alicia tiptoed in to see me.

"The receptionist said you were in here. You passed out in Principal Zhou's office. Did they call your mom?"

"No, I'm not going home. I didn't actually pass out, I had a dizzy spell and almost passed out, but I'm better now. I don't want to bug my mom during her classes."

She stared at me. "You've got a...stringy thing in your hair." She pointed towards my neck. "Don't you think you should go home? Bum around in bed for the rest of the day?"

"If I go home sick, I won't be allowed to do anything else tonight." I willed the tears not to come.

"Right. That's how it works."

"Alicia..."

"Here's your book back. What the hell did you scream about in class, anyway?" she asked. She handed me my Algebra 2 book.

I hefted it in my hands a couple of times. Instead of opening it, I asked, "Have you ever had a vision or a hallucination that was so vivid and real that while it happened you thought it was real?"

"No."

I loved how she made conversation so easy. "It was really weird when I started to faint, like I was someplace horrible and there were these Confederate soldiers trying to drown me and then there were ropes pulling me under the mud. It really felt like I was drowning."

"So weird."

"Yeah."

"So...are you better now?"

"Yeah."

"In your hallucination, did you hear voices? Did they say anything?" she asked.

"They wondered if I was a spy. Then one of them said I was only part there so it was no good taking me to see Feros, and then they agreed that I should be drowned in the mud."

She furrowed her eyebrows and shook her head slightly, her frizzy bleached hair creating a puffy halo. "Feros?"

"Yeah, like Old Man Feros in that poem."

"Feros, the donkey?"

"Um, was he a donkey?" I asked.

The bell rang, making us both jump.

"So what made you scream?" she asked.

I opened to the page with the handprint, it had smeared onto the opposite page a little and was dry. After my ordeal with the soldier, the sight made me want to throw up. I held the book out for her to see.

"So?" She shrugged.

"Tell me what you think of the muddy handprint," I said. I hated it when she was obtuse.

"Brook, I don't see any muddy handprints." She turned to go. "See you at lunch."

I stood up slowly after she left, not trusting my body or my emotions. I grabbed my purse from the chair and checked myself in the mirror before going. There was green-black string in my hair near my neck. I picked it out. It was a thin vine. Kind of like the creeper vines that grew by the lake.

**** I hope you enjoyed this part and it wasn't too confusing. Thank you so much for reading and if you have any comments, let me know! Please take the time to vote if you had fun!!! ******