“I’m so so scared,” Zoe’s insides rumbled.

  “I think I’m getting hungry,” Zoe told the two officers as she touched her belly. The emotional pangs were getting worse.

  “I really need some food,” Zoe said alarmed and scared.

  “Alright, alright,” Joe told Zoe.

  “Go follow the nurse and talk to the supervisor then call dispatch back. I’ll take her to the cafeteria and you can meet me there,” Joe then told Clark.

  “Let’s get going,” he nodded to the girl. They took the elevator one floor down and as they were roaming the hallway they passed a vending machine filled with snacks that caught Zoe’s eye.

  “This will do,” Zoe remarked gleefully in her teenage youth.

  The officer rolled his eyes and murmured something about a “balanced meal.”

  “Do you even have money?” He let out in parental desperation as he watched her choose between chips and cookies.

  “Yes, yes, thank you,” Zoe said in a predator-induced trance. Victory-or-defeat, there can be only one outcome.

  The officer put his hand to his forehead, remarking “I wasn’t offering…”

  His words went unheard as Zoe entered her change into the vending machine, the mechanical beeps and coins dropping blocking out all the remnents of noise.

  Grabbing her snacks and tearing into it. The officer remarked “you don’t want to go to the cafeteria anymore, do you?” As he counted the number of snacks she bundled in her left arm as she skillfully ate with her other arm.

  “Nah-omph, nah-omph”

  After a big gulp of half-chewed food, “Can I go see my grandmother now? I miss her so much already.”

  Joe let out with exasperated breath, “let’s go.”

  Zoe meticulously ate all her snacks while walking and not dropping a crumb! A few almost escaped but she caught each one.

  She had one bag left when they made it to her grandmother’s floor. She could have eaten the last bag in time but she didn’t want that numbing-consciousness-narrowing dull effect in the immediacy of her experience right before she stepped into her grandmother’s room. She wanted to give it some time to fade so she stopped eating.

  As they walked through the floor, the nurses station was empty, so they continued on into the room.

  Zoe could see her grandmother through the door’s window. It was dimly lit but what light remained captured the old woman’s image.

  Zoe felt hesitant and still, more in a paralyzed sense, yet almost as if outside looking in on herself. She watched as her arm swung upwards and her hand opened and released the doorknob.

  She walked in and the first thing she heard was the heart monitor. The room had two beds inside but the first, closest to the door, was empty and undraped.

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  Zoe walked towards her grandmother. “I’m sorry for not being there for you,” she found herself wanting to say. Somehow the thought made her more tired and feel emptier inside. She felt heavy and all her thoughts felt vague, obscure, and muddled together. One long diffuse pool of sensory input.

  “I don’t know what to say,” she wanted to tell Joe who hadn’t followed her into the room.

  Zoe found herself thinking about all the times her grandmother had lifted her up the ground as Zoe was learning to ride a bike. She was transitioning from not relying on training wheels, as a little kid growing up too fast too soon, and everytime she tried to ride to just toppled over and scraped a knee.

  Zoe didn’t want to wear kneepads because the velcro straps in the back rubbed the back of her knee raw.

  “You just have to keep going Zoe-baby,” her grandmother said sweetly.

  Zoe still had a mark on her knees from all the falls. “I’m going to take care of you now, the way you took care of me grandma...It’s my turn to lift you up now, we’ll get through this,” Zoe remarked.

  Zoe’s grandmother looked tired yet peaceful. As tired as a body that’s been experiencing and breathing for three quarters of a century could be.

  Zoe found herself getting hungry again.

  She wanted to stay longer by her grandmother’s side but she found herself feeling so physiologically restless, overstimulated. She couldn’t hold her own attention, albeit when is an ailing caretaker ever an easy sight to see? “I don’t know what to do,” she said again in different variation.

  Her insides were shaking, “how do I express all that I want to say?,” she thought. “I don’t know how.”

  It felt unsurmountable.

  She finally said outloud, “thank you for everything. You were the best thing to ever happen to me.” She wished her grandmother was conscious. That she culd hug her and be enveloped in the sense of comfortable she always felts grams to be especially when Zoe felt uncertain or lost inside. It was still something.

  Zoe was glad she had said something now. It felt good to start to put order to the confusion.

  She felt like she wanted to stay longer but as she also felt there was nothing left for her to do she wanted to go. The tension compounded her anxiety.

  Zoe heard Joe’s radio from the doorway. Something about a “code 4” there was a stream of indiscernible chatter usually there was just a burst from it up until now.

  “Zoe,” Joe popped in from the hallway. “I’m going to step away from the door. If Nurse McAdams or the floor nurse comes back let her know that I went to go get Officer Johnson from the cafeteria. He’s not answering his radio. My name’s officer Rowan by the way.”

  “Okay, thank you for bringing me here in the first place,” Zoe said outloud but as her words fell out of her mouth into reality and then her ear. They felt a certain heaviness as they punctured through into reality and so she only ended up saying “okay.”

  “So that’s what their names are,” she thought to her. Then also wondered “how am i going to get out of here now?” She felt trapped as if she had to wait for Officer Joe to get back now.

  She let out a deep sigh. Zoe didn’t realize how tired she was until she sat into the chair. Soft yet firm and unyielding, she felt the wooden structure underneath more than comfortableness of the cushion. It was soft enough though and Zoe quickly fell asleep.

  [some time later]

  “Zoe? Zoe? Is that you?”

  “Who’s there?”

  “It’s me, baby-cakes. Grandma.”

  “Grandma!?”

  “Why can’t I see you??!”

  You’re dreaming baby.”

  “I’m dreaming?... But why is it so dark? I don’t see anything!!”

  “That’s because you’re dreaming baby! Come on now, just come to me. Follow the sound of my voice.”

  “But I don’t have a body. All I see is darkness.”

  “Just try”

  Silence. The darkness creeped in and Zoe became more anxious.

  “Nothing’s happening! If this is a dream I don’t to be here anymore.”

  “It’s okay baby, I have a mission for you. I want you to take Hal and travel to the peak of Mt. Dominus. Once you’re there you can see the Valley of the Depths. And I want you to go there and shatter the crystal rock of Gibralter.”

  Zoe remained flustered, “Shatter what? Go to Mt. Hal and the Valley of Gibralter?!”

  “No baby. It’s okay. Calm down --”

  “But grandma I just want to be with you. I hate this darkness. I thought dreams were suppose to have images.”

  “Baby. Just listen. And this isn’t a dream anymore.”

  “So it’s not a dream!?”

  “You were always this stubborn. That’s why I always liked you and felt close to you. Not only because you were my grandbaby but because you reminded me of myself when I was younger. Now listen.”

  The dream voice continued, “You and Hal. Mission. Mountain Dominus. See and go into Valley of Depths. Crystal of Gibraltar go boom.” Then added, “Got that?”