I stood up, looking around. The only change in the landscape so far was the sandpaper floor. I decided to get to the distant wall. I began to walk. This is when I realized I was barefoot.

I looked at what I was wearing, and found that it was my clothing, but different. My black sweater had dark bloodstains, and my blue shirt had a large rip in the side. I had grey pants that were mangled and bloody. I also wore a brown belt, a black headband, and a dull silver bracelet.

I took a moment to reflect on what had happened. It didn't come fast at first, in fact it didn't come at all. I couldn't remember how I had died. They only thing before my death I remembered was... Falling. Yes, I had been falling. Perhaps I had jumped for my life. Maybe I tripped of a ledge. One thing was certain, I had died falling.

I had been walking for some time toward the wall. I had realized that by leaving my life, I had also left the need to sleep, eat, or drink. I was walking along, stopping occasionally to rest my feet from the roughness of the floor. That was when, halfway to the wall, the storm came again. It flung me to the floor, swirling, churning around me, blurring my vision with the rush of air. I threw my hand up, trying to see what was happening. A high pitched whistle screeched through my ears, and I wondered what I would face when it cleared.

I began to panic as the wind went on, this time with a hazy gray soot. I took of my sweater and held it over my mouth, inching my way closer to the wall.

After several minutes I gave up fighting the storm. It was too much. I relaxed my body and let the wind pick me up and throw me. I was flying, floating, but all to soon I was falling, and it was in that split second that I remembered my death.

I remembered fleeing from the house of my brother, clutching a knife. His stupid dog had alerted the neighbors, who called the cops. Unknowingly, I had lingered about, preparing to end his screams with a fatal slash of the knife. But I heard police cars approaching, and I ran. I took the wisest course of action and went for the woods behind the house. But I went wrong. The woods were unfamiliar to me, and I didn't know about the deep gorge within it.

I had stopped, catching my breath. I thought I was safe from the cops, but then they burst out of the bushes, and so I continued running. My feet were pounding the ground faster than my rapidly beating heart. I ran, and ran, and ran, and then, suddenly, there was nothing but air and several loose pebbles beneath my feet.

At that point, time seemed to freeze. I looked behind me and saw the appalled faces of the police officers, heard their shouts when, as a last resort, I threw my knife straight into the heart of the lead one. That's when time sped up, and I had a brief sensation of falling.

Then I was here.

A jarring pain sent me out of my flashback. I was crumpled on the floor, but no longer was the wind present. The storm was gone.

I lifted my head, wincing at the pain. Around me was a land quite similar to the one I left, only now the air had that strange, grey soot. I coughed. It smelled awful. Taking a deeper breath, I gagged. I easily recognized the smell. The smell of a rotting, festering body. I stretched my sweater, which had been tangled around my wrist, tighter across my mouth. Looking around, I saw something in the distance.

The man approached me, barely visible through the fog.

"You never told me your name." I remarked.

"What's yours?" I gritted my teeth. I hated it when he answered my questions with questions.

"I don't go by a name. What's yours?" Ha. Your move.

"My name's Ben." He saw my face and laughed.

"You weren't expecting such a normal name, were you?"

I glared at him, instinctively reaching for my knife, the one I had thrown at that officer. My fingers grasped the air, and I scratched my side to avoid looking like a fool.

"It changed. This world."

"For you, yes." I was beginning to catch on as to what was happening.

"It's changing to adapt to my fears, isn't it. My nightmares."

"Yes. I'm not seeing what you are seeing."

I looked around before my eyes settled on him.

"What are you seeing?"

Ben's face was grim.

"You wouldn't want to know, Ava."

I was taken back. As soon as I opened my mouth, Ben walked back, vanishing into the sooty fog. But I spoke anyway, my lips bursting to ask the question that came to me.

"Wait! Ben! How... How do you know my name?"