The Stump
Huh, huh, huh, I was out of breath, I slowly reached for the tree, but then the room turned black. I collapsed to the floor in an instant and began to listen to each little beat of my heart slowly get louder. I was swallowed in the darkness, and even though I couldn’t see anything I knew that it was there with me. I sat there hoping my eyes would adjust to the darkness, and slowly I felt the fear of being alone and trapped. Panicking in terror I began to scream until the room went silent and I felt it. Crawling up my arm and around my neck until I found myself not being able to scream for help. I was trapped, I felt the pressure around my neck get tighter and tighter and... 

“AWWWW”, I screamed in panic. 

“Julia, are you alright?” 

“Yeah, I'm fine dad”. 

“Another nightmare?’’ he asked.  

“Yeah,” I said, placing a hand on my racing heart. 

My sweaty palms stumbled out of bed and I stood there for a minuet waiting for my eyes to adjust to the light. I followed my dad down the stairs and into the kitchen, quickly grabbing the half-eaten granola bar I had left on the counter from the night before. Then I ran and jumped face first onto the brown couch where my phone lay beside it on the newly vacuumed carpet. I picked it up and began to text Christain. 

“Christain, will you go to the pond shop with me today?” I read out loud 

Ding! My Phone buzzed with the same jingle that I had kept since 4th grade.  

“Sure! I would love to, let me just clean my room, then we can go.” He replied.  

In a world win of excitement, I rushed upstairs to my room to grab my light purple T-shirt and my plain black leggings that had just been washed. 

“Bye Dad, I’m going to Christians.”  

“Bye kiddo, have fun.” 

I opened the door and let the cool air caress my face, noticing the branches of trees were moist, and the grass was soaked with water from the rainstorm that took place yesterday.  

“Hey!” Christain said with a smile.  

“Hey.” I replied 

Christain and I usually follow the canal to get to the pond shop, but today we really wanted to go through the forest to explore the nature around us, so we could get ideas for our science projects due the next month. As we began to go through the forest, I noticed the wind started picking up and along followed the rain. It began to hale, so we decided to go try to find a place to avoid getting soaked. Luckily, we came across a tall dark wood oak tree with a small opening in the middle of the stump. The tree felt farther and farther away as we approached it so we decide to start running so we could get out of the rain faster. Our legs grew heavier and heavier within every step, then we saw it, still in a hurry we rushed inside the stump and caught our breath. We were stunned, one second, we were in the forest and the next we were in a whole other world.  

There were no schools nor chores. It was a land filled with life and joy. It was a cartoon reality filled with adventure, love, and discovery. It was a world filled with talking dogs and singing cats. Christain and I couldn’t believe it, we were thrilled and scared at the same time. We walked through slowly, and saw beautiful vibrant green fields, and snowflake white cartoon daisies. As we walked deeper and deeper into this portal like dimension, we noticed other aspects that reminded us of home. Such as when we saw an ice cream bar along with a music station where music was discovered and shared throughout the small town. Instead of homes there where tree houses with bridges connecting to other trees.  

“Hey there, are you guys lost?’’ a young girl asked. 

“uhh no, no we are not!” Christain said nervously hoping they would fit in. 

“Oh okay, by then.” 

I noticed something about that girl that really stuck out to me, but I couldn’t put a finger on it. Then it hit me, it was my mom, but as a younger girl, she had the same chestnut hair and translucent colored skin and her beautiful rosy cheeks. Tears began to come down my face like boulders on a mountain. 

“Hey, hey, what's wrong Julia?’’ Christian asked.  

“I... I think that was my...mom,”  

“But that’s not possible because she is...” Christain started to become quieter. 

He knew how hard it was for me to deal with the loss of my mother and he swore he would never talk about it again. As I was trying to figure this all out it hit me, and I knew what I had to do to see if it was her.  

“Rose!” I yelled out. 

The little girl slowly turned around and said... 

“How do you know my name?” she questioned 

After that it went black, I couldn’t speak, and I felt trapped again just like in my dream. I took a deep breath and I said 

“I think I am your daughter”. 

“My what...” she hesitated.  

“Daughter.” I repeated louder. 

I began to feel confused as I watched Christain stand there with a puzzled look on his face as well.  

“Can you please tell me what this place is?” I asked. 

“This place is called The Land of Memories, and we come her after we have passed in the real world where we take new forms of our self either as a younger version or and older version, but no outside human is able to get in here, so how did you get in here?” she said. 

“We were walking in the forest and ended up stumbling into this stump, and that’s when we ended up here.” Christian added.  

“You guys must have the gift to see this place and us”.  Rose said.  

After that hours went by, she showed christain and I the town. In ways she did remind me of my mother which left me content and gave me a sense of warmth inside.  

“We better get back home,” Christian said. 

And so, we did.  

“Come back soon,” Rose said. 

And so, we did.