Zipped

9: The Dream

Molly

The last thing I remember before the blackout was my brother yelling at me. He’d been telling me a lot of ‘what if’s, and I appreciated his concern. But, the thought of seeing Mom and Dad again so soon was so amazing that I didn’t care about the consequences.

But then I blacked out. I couldn’t hear my brother’s voice or see a single thing. It was all gone.

“Molly…” a voice called out from someplace in the darkness. It wasn’t the voice of my brother, or any of my friends that I had been with earlier. So who was it?

The area lit up and I realized I was home. I was lying in my own bed at home, the sunlight streaming through the windows to light up the small bedroom. The pink was overwhelming, like it had been when I was there before. Why hadn’t I gotten rid of the pink before? I hated it.

“Molly, I’m so glad you’re here,” the voice said again, accompanied by a door opening. I knew my eyes widened as soon I heard it, because it was the person I wanted to see the most.

Standing in the doorway was my mother.

“Mom,” I smiled sweetly and sat up in my blankets. I wanted to get a hug. All I wanted was to be with my mother, and now she was here.

“I’m glad you’re awake. Your father and I were so worried about you,” she whispered as she sat down on the end of the bed beside me. As soon as she had settled she engulfed me in the tightest hug she could.

“I’m sorry we jumped. We just had to help Elsie and we weren’t sure what else we could do,” I apologized profusely and chewed on my lower lip. “We didn’t think about what we were doing when we did it.”

“It’s okay. I’m just glad that you made it back safely,” she said sweetly and kissed the top of my head.

I smiled and cuddled in close to my mother. This was so great. I was glad that I could be with her again after all this time. I had missed her, as well as my father, so much while I had been down in the zipper. I’d missed the sunlight. The only time I had gotten any was when the zipper opened, and even then it was moonlight and not sunlight. Nobody had been sent down, which meant that the zipper didn’t get opened during the day. The nighttime was when someone sent things down to us.

“Your brother is worried about you,” she commented as she held me in her arms.

“Is he in his room? I’ll check up on him.” I let go of her to get up. “I didn’t know he was worrying so much about me.”

“He’s not here,” she said.

“What do you mean he’s not here? Where is he then?” I looked at the doorway and then at my mother, incredibly confused. I didn’t understand. Maybe I was just too tired and stressed out because of what had happened recently.