“Give it to me.”
The words are hissed into Darek’s ear as he writhes under the pain of his twisted arm.
“Just let me go and I’ll give you the money,” Darek pleads. He gets shoved onto the ground by the bonde boy and he slips the few dollars out of his pocket.
“That’s nothin’, but” the blonde boy says, “you’re poor.” The boy and his two friends swagger off. Darek picks himself up, dusts himself off, and heads home. Why do they pick on me? What did I do?
Twenty minutes later, he slips through the front door of his house and drops his bag on the brown entry rug. His mom pokes her head out of the kitchen. “Hi, honey. How was today?”she asks.
“I dunno, good I guess, same as any other day,” he mumbles. He opens his bedroom door and shuffles inside. Why can’t I be somewhere else? A different dimension or something? He collapses on the bed and sighs. As he falls asleep, Darek thinks about how much better his life would be, if only he had more money.
Darek sits up, rubbing his eyes then frowns. Why am I outside? He studies the small clearing in the forest he sits in. Where’s the house? Darek glances up into the sky. A faint smudge of smoke drifts upward from a place not far away. He decides to explore where the smoke drifts up from. He pushes his way through the forest and stumbles into to a small town.
Darek gazes at the horses, carts, and lanterns. He wanders about, and meets new people. Darek is finally happy.
But in another world, another place, a mother searches frantically for her lost son.