Above

Chapter 1.

            This place was as startling as it was unfamiliar.

            My every sense was bombarded with strange stimulants: colors and voices and the scent of spicy food. People rushed past me in every direction, speaking animatedly to each other, and though we were packed tightly, none of them so much as brushed past me. They held their eyes forward, not looking away as I studied them. Each seemed more and more out of place. They were dressed for varying climates and cultures; a woman wearing a fur parka was arm-in-arm with a man in a swimsuit. Their voices were clear and loud, and I could hear an assortment of languages. There were no grays or beiges here; boldness was the only constant.

            The crowd was packed up and down a cobbled walkway. To my right was a busy street; to my left stood kiosks and stores in tents. Behind the stores were buildings whose fronts were covered by wide red rugs.

            By instinct, my feet moved with the crowd. My eyes were fixed on the people around me. I should have been confused, but I was far too curious to care about finding out where I was.

             "Are you going to her party tonight?" a skyscraper girl asked languidly.

            "Only if you are," answered the shorter man next to her, shrugging.

            One couple whispered lovingly to one another in a musical language, rhythmic and full of vowels.

            I found myself at the edge of the street. The cars were as varied and colorful as the people, and they weaved and darted as deftly as the crowd did.

            A cushioned and open vehicle, resembling two couches pushed together, pulled up next to me. Sitting in it were two of the most beautiful girls I'd ever seen; in this city of beautiful people, they stood out immensely. They looked my age, but could have been decades older. Their eyes were filled to the brim with excitement and carelessness; they were rich, judging from the many bangles and necklaces adding to the vivacity of their dresses.

            “Would you like to go with us?” one of them laughed breathlessly.

            I didn't answer, but I could tell they knew my answer. They helped me into the open-sided vehicle with a strong, gentle grip on my arms.

            The car shot through traffic, darting into gaps that should have been too small. One of the girls, her hair flying back in the wind, clapped her hands together. “Oh, can’t we go to Euphoria?”

            The other girl smiled in approval.

            The car was soon whipping through traffic so quickly that everything around us was a blur, a red sunset-colored blur. I had so many questions that I dared not open my mouth. Instead, I looked out at the other cars. They resembled ours; open, simple, with no apparent driver or method of steering. I snuck glances at the girls as well. They were celebrities, gods, just by the way they held themselves. They were people that one would never expect to meet.

            Minutes later, the car slowed to a stop in a place identical to the one we'd just left. The girls jumped nimbly into the crowd. I followed more slowly, but they did not rush me. One held my fingers lightly as she manuevered through the crowd on the sidewalk, past stalls and kiosks, and towards the buildings hung with rugs. The girl in front of me, the shorter one with flowing black hair, pushed aside one of the rugs.

            Beyond the rugs was a world that provided a break from the endless people and colors and noises in the streets. A cool wind blew from beyond, cooling me from stifling heat. A clean space stretched to the left and right, beyond the limits of my vision. It was a hallway without a ceiling, completely white, lined with glass shop fronts. Unlike the stalls on the street that were packed with items, these stores boasted little; a couple of dresses, a few necklaces.

            Pristinely white, paper-thin curtains blew lazily from the entrance of one store, which the smiling girls guided me towards.

            “Euphoria,” one of them explained simply.

            Beyond the curtains was a small room, a mismatched bedroom with atrocious colors. A bed with a bright green blanket stood on fuzzy orange carpet partially covered by a ragged rug. It was the only thing I'd seen in this city that I did not find appealing.

            The girl on my right sighed, perching delicately on the old chair at the desk. "Isn't this wonderful?"

               How could my opinion be better than theirs? I decided not to answer.

            This furniture seemed familiar. In this strange place, nothing had felt familiar but this room. As I studied it even more, I knew that I had been here before. This was my room. My bedroom.

            What was it doing in this unfamiliar city?

            I decided to finally speak, asking a question which seemed obvious. "Is this a dream?"

            The shorter girl sat, composed, on the bed. "It can be anything you want it to be."

            I studied their faces for the first time. They were beautiful. It wasn't their hair or their eyes or their skin that made me decide this; it was the way that all of these features came together. Thick eyebrows, ordinary eyes, and a too-large mouth worked perfectly on them. They did not look similar, but they both had strange features that fit together like puzzle pieces, like clockwork.

            A world without these girls would be a sad world. This could not be a dream.

            Still, there was something wrong about this place.

            I realized that I had been leaning on a white desk: my white desk. I opened the top drawer. In it lay ragtag notebooks and loose sheets of paper. I picked up the item on top: a year-old birthday card from my aunt. I didn’t know how I knew she was my aunt, but there was no doubt that this was my room.

            "Where are we?" I asked, returning the card to its drawer.

            "Here." The girl on the bed shrugged. A trace of a smile was still on her face. I could tell how little she cared about the question, and I felt embarrassed for asking.

            "Anywhere," the other suggested.

            I could not argue with their logic.

I didn't know how I'd gotten here. The colors were vivid, and the details amazing; but this couldn't be real. How had my bedroom ended up here? It should have been at home.

            Home. I struggled to remember it. Surely if I could remember my bedroom, I could remember more -

            "We should go to Felicity's," announced one of the girls. They hopped up from the bed and took me by the hand, leading me back into the bustling streets.

            And so the mystery of Euphoria, my bedroom, was buried under a thousand colors and voices.