Walking up the hill, the metal bucket of water that I was carrying banged up against my knee. I feel my feet slip out from under me, flailing as I hit the ground. 'It seems' I think to myself, 'that whenever I go to fetch water, I end up swimming in most of it.'
'Where did the bucket go?
I look up. Stuck at the top of my cherry tree, among a sea of pink blossoms, is a barely visible glint of silver.
So I climb.
I realize that I don't remember thinking, I had just started climbing on an impulse. It's nearly winter and the branches are just about frozen, so it's hard to climb at first. It starts to get easier. I'm climbing that tree so fast now, that it feels like I'm flying.
Oddly enough, I think I actually am flying.
Well, it's more like floating.
What? No way. Impossible, right?
Apparently not.
I float up and up. Where to? Who knows? My jungle of blossoms starts to get thinner, until I am just floating in a strange mist.
"Live, live. Come, come. Join, join."
A chorus of scratchy voices rings in my head. What is this nightmare?
My eyes burst open, and once they adjust to the light I realize that's exactly what it was, a nightmare. It is dark out now and I can see the moon through the blossoms above me, so I must have fallen out of the tree after I got the bucket (which is sitting next to me, slightly dented), and then fallen into unconsciousness.
'I'd better refill this thing,' I think, trying unsuccessfully to fix the dent in the bucket.
I climb the hill back up to the well, tie my bucket to the rope, and drop it down. I try to pull the bucket back up and realize that it's heavy. Way too heavy to be normal. 'This is probably DJ's idea of a joke...Put a magnet in the well! When will she grow up?'
The bucket - or something beneath it - pulls. I try my hardest to resist it, but I fall into the well. I'm not even falling, because the bucket is pulling me so swiftly that it's moving me faster than gravity ever could.
"Live, live. Come, come. Join, join."
Oh no, not this again!
"Don't fight it, live, just let go."
Wait. Everything stops. They aren't saying "live"....They're saying "Liv"....My name... Liv....But....
How?
Who?
No - not who. What?
"What are you?" I yell.
"We are not."
"What does that mean?"
"We are those that do not exist. We are not."
"You mean, you're people who have....died?"
"No. We are not. We have never been. We no longer live, but we have not died. You will understand....soon."
I feel a sort of tugging on the inside of my stomach. It is small, but soon it gets stronger, until I can no longer bare the pain.
Then it stops.
I feel powerful. I am indestructible. I feel as if I can do anything.
Then suddenly the amazing feelings leave me.
Now I am......I am....
Just nothing.

"No," my voice, suddenly raspy and eerie, joins the others

"We are The Nothing."