Adrian died. At least that's what he thinks. Everything had happened too fast - the girl, the forest, the dream, then the attack. That's the most he remembers before finding himself in 'here'.
"Where's here?" he would often ask the girl - to which, she'd vaguely reply: "Mmm, it doesn't matter."
---
Before the girl, Adrian remembers how he lived in a town near Seattle, living an archetypal lifestyle as a high school senior. He was that gentleman who was brought up nicely with doctors/lawyers/business people (something like that) as parents, learned at least one instrument, often known as 'Mr All-rounder' who always earned truckloads of trophies and awards for God-knows-what, and had an equally infinite amount of hobbies. He was that dude who everyone knew and hung out with, but never really quite got to know; that kid who was happy to be by himself in his over-looking hilltop/clifftop house, but also wouldn't mind joining the illegal raves and parties.
Despite his almost perfect and unblemished-seeming life, Adrian was also privately the lonely kid whose life consisted of forlorn emotion, heartbreak, and shell hearts guarded by iron walls. Inside his fabulous golden unscathed armour, he was a cowardice knight. The problem was that Adrian never took risks. With his life and background, he felt that he never really needed to take risks. He had everything he could ask for.
He's had a couple of relationships in the past - lost both of them due to the lack of trust and the failure to take risks. The first one (whom he thought was his first love) got tangled up in a cheating rumour. She denied it, but he didn't take the risk of trusting her and broke up the relationship. The second one wanted to go 'further' with their relationship - he was unready, untrusting, and unable to risk it; thus the breakup. As sincerely as he had loved them both, his timidity always caught up with him. This broke his heart. Not only was he torn by the shallow people he loved, but also by his own weak self. He never really got around to picking up all the pieces and instead built walls around his shattered heart.
Since his last relationship, he's been living a monochrome, dull-as-fuck life of longing and loneliness, craving the affection that his parents were never able to provide him.
Then came the girl.
She was great. She was Grace. Grace --something; he forgot already-- She was new to the school. She had the smile, the gentleness and personality to match her name, and the ability to talk her modulated honey butter voice into his stomach. He could have sworn she was love at first sight, because it was day 1 when she began appeared in his daydreams during the long and boring classes he took that day and the daydreaming he did before he went to sleep that night. She herself was a daydream, he thought.
Remember how he had an infinitely-seeming number of hobbies? Well, one of them was forest landscape photography. It was something he did when he felt inspired, and after meeting Grace, boiiii he was inspired alright.
The forest was somewhere he'd wanted to live in someday. He often visited the forest near his town. On good days, he'd take on photography. On not-so-good days, he'd go and wander away his worries. Most times he felt more comfort there than in his own home. He'd always contemplate settling down in a modern forest cabin - and of course, he wasn't thinking of settling alone. With Grace walking into his life, he began to wonder whether she'd like to settle there too.
At this point, he'd seen the girl, been to the forest, and had the dream.
Next came the attack.
It was really random, uncalled for, and just devastatingly unexpected.
While Adrian was busy picking up pieces, building walls, meeting Grace and daydreaming, erratic terrorist attacks and civil wars began raging on in other parts of the world. 5 major cities were affected in a matter of 2 months. Perhaps it slipped his mind, but Grace had briefly mentioned how her family migrated to Seattle for safety and evacuative reasons.
--
One week. That's as far as Adrian got with getting to know her. All he knew was her smile, her voice and how she made him feel. That's all his heart needed to know and that's all he remembers too.
The attack killed him. It killed him and everyone else at school that day. Adrian died. Well, at least that's what he thinks had happened. He wasn't so sure.
