I woke up slowly, and tried to piece things together. I felt totally wiped out, that whole-body exhaustion that you get sometimes when you've been sick, but otherwise I felt alright.

"Testing? Oh thank fuck, I can hear." So the thing with my eardrums rupturing and blood gushing out of every part of my face was probably a dream. No surprise there, since it had also involved me being on a snowy mountaintop.

It didn't look like I was in a hospital, or even a group home. The room was extremely small, barely big enough for the bed, but it had this super rustic look like a cabin - plain plaster walls, rough wooden beams for a ceiling. Sitting up took a lot of effort, and I pulled the curtains aside to look outside. Snow, more snow, and some enormous mountain peaks. So, pretty much the furthest from Phoenix you can get.

I've had some emotional issues, and my mom had some stuff too, but as far as I know elaborate hallucinations weren't ever part of it. Likewise, it didn't seem like it could be a dream - it was too real, too intense. I pressed a hand against the glass of the window and that feeling of extreme cold... yeah, not a dream. This led me to a more complicated explanation.

With no home, and since the hardware store had probably fired me after being late to work due to the cops, I had given up on my attempts to be a responsible adult. Going back to my previous habits of shoplifting, breaking and entering, and panhandling had gotten me enough money to travel all the way to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado where I had suffered a head injury and lost my memory of the last few months.

That's when I saw that the back of my hand, and more specifically the number 5010205 that was scrawled there. 5010205 is the stock number for a hook to hang power tools on, and I had written it there after caving to a customer's demands to check the back room. It hadn't been in the back room. It's pretty much never in the back room. But the point is that it was written in regular ballpoint pen, not even permanent marker, and it was still there clear as day. I hadn't lost even a week, let alone months, unless I had been very careful to not wash my hand that whole time.

My revised theory was that I had - despite having no money - made my way onto an airplane which had struck a whole flock of Canadian Geese. The engine had exploded, tearing a hole in the side of the plane and sucking me out into the void. I'd fallen to the ground below, surviving only because I landed in the snow. A few feet of snow. With no serious injuries at all. It wasn't a great theory.

I was wearing some sort of nightgown rather than my clothes and the lack of shoes in particular meant I wasn't going to be making a break for it so I gave up and called out.

"Hello? Is someone there?"

There was immediately a rustling sound from somewhere outside the room, and a young guy in an orange vest opened the door. He had a funny look to him, like when you mess with the sliders too much during character generation in a video game. Too-large ears, too-tiny eyes, a super wide mouth. He was smiling though, so that was reassuring. I opened my mouth to ask him what was going on but then I just... couldn't. I was too embarrassed to admit I had no idea where I was. Instead I settled for "Uh, was I injured?" which is pretty weak, but as it turned out it didn't matter because he didn't speak a word of English.

Instead he answered in some language I've never heard, and then when I shook my head he tried another - this one with an almost musical quality to it. After that it was one with way too many consonants, and that was it. Three languages, none that I recognized. This was another blow against my already shaky Rocky Mountains theory. Now, if anything, Europe seemed more likely - but that would be even more money, more time, and I'd have needed a passport.

The man returned with a tray of food and carefully positioned it on my lap before propping me up with a pillow. There were some sort of sausages, and something halfway between a cracker and a slice of bread, and some squares of something that I think were probably cheese. My stomach rumbled loudly, and the guy laughed. I was on edge, still expecting to be arrested or committed or something, but I was also extremely hungry and the odd-faced guy seemed harmless enough. I thanked him, and he said something in response in that strange language before leaving my tiny room.

I started with the sausage, biting a big chunk off the end. It was spicy and sweet, and I couldn't place the flavor. It was good though, so I ate the rest and started poking at the cheese. I had a tickle in my throat, or some phlegm or something that just wouldn't budge. I put down the cheese and tried a sip of water to wash whatever it was down, but I ended up sputtering and could barely swallow any of it. I'll admit it took me way longer than it should have to realize my throat was swelling shut. By the time I did it was too late. I couldn't breathe, couldn't call out for help, and I was still too weak to stand. Thankfully the guy from before must have heard the tray clattering to the ground as I flailed around.

He barged in, said something to me in that language again, and then turned around and ran back out, yelling. After that, the next thing I could remember was waking up in the same bed but even more tired and so hungry I felt like I was going to die. A peek out the window showed early morning light, meaning I'd lost another day. After reluctantly calling out again, a woman - with those same odd features - came in and offered me some water and a piece of that cracker bread stuff before long. No meat and cheese for me I guess. I nibbled on the bread and once it was clear my throat wasn't going to swell shut she nodded and left. A few hours later I was throwing up uncontrollably despite there not being much of anything in my stomach. Just heaving and retching, so hard I thought I was going to crack my spine. Also I'm pretty sure I shit myself, which I hadn't done since the first time I got drunk. Don't let twelve year olds get at a bottle of strawberry schnapps.

The woman came running back in and held me down, and I felt something very warm wash over me before passing out yet again. So. Wake up, appear somewhere strange bleeding from every orifice. Wake up, throat swells shut. Wake up, my body starts trying to puke my actual organs out. It's no surprise that when I came to again I was very nervous about what would happen next and seriously considering the possibility that I was in hell.

I'd come close to dying before, four times. I ran out into traffic when I was five, chasing after a kitten. Then there was a thing when I was eight that I don't like to think about. Then when I was twelve Sarah Harkin almost drowned me because she was convinced I put something in her shampoo to make her hair fall out. That was a close one. And then at fifteen I fell off a building because I'd been watching parkour videos online and... well, I was an idiot. But those, you may notice, were spaced out over many years. So nearly dying several times in a row was stressing me out.

It might have stressed me out more, but since arriving I'd been in low empathy mode. On low empathy days, not only do I need to work harder to remember to be nice to people but all my emotions are a little muted. Being in a strange place, not having my things, not knowing what was going to happen next, almost dying - these were all stressful but my overall mood was more annoyed than panicked.

The next time they fed me it was just some sort of broth, and they sat and watched me for longer afterwards before deciding it was going to stay down. It wasn't super filling and I felt like my body was going to actually eat itself, but understandably they made me wait a while to get another bowl. Meanwhile I started trying to play charades. I introduced myself and learned the broth woman was named Letta, and then ran into a string of failures. The universal sign for 'phone'? Nothing. Pretending to type on a keyboard? Nothing. Trying to ask where we were? If Letta understood then her answer wasn't anything I recognized. I did get her to bring my clothes back after some particularly expressive gestures, but my phone was dead and I'd left my charger in my backpack.

In fact, the tiny room I was in didn't even have outlets. I could tell there was electricity because there was a funny-looking light bulb set into the ceiling although I didn't see a light switch. I decided it was on a timer. When they finally let me out of the room to wander the following morning, I found there were no outlets in the common area either. In fact the whole place was infuriatingly rustic - I'd already been forced to use a porcelain... bedpan? Chamber pot? Whatever it was. But now, up and walking around, I found that the "real" bathroom wasn't much better than an indoor outhouse. If it hadn't been for the lights, I would have said I had been sucked back in time. And to make those even stranger, when I pointed at them trying desperately to convey "hey where are your electrical outlets and do you maybe have a phone charger" through nothing but gestures Letta just reached up and plucked one of the lightbulb things off the wall.

It was just a sphere. I didn't see any seams, even though I was sure there had to be batteries inside. But at least that confirmed that there really were no outlets. We were off the grid. This of course sent my brain reeling down a side path, deciding I'd been taken in by some sort of doomsday cult. I had some very uncharitable thoughts about the odd facial features and inbreeding. I'm not proud.

The common area had some chairs, a board game that looked like chess but with hexagons rather than squares, and a few books that all looked like they'd been hand lettered. I put another tick in the "time travel" column, despite the fancy lights and physical impossibility of it. There were six of the little rooms like the one I'd woken up in however many days ago it was - I'd lost track, between the lack of clocks and my near-death experiences. Two of the doors were shut, the rest were open revealing stripped beds.

There was also a kitchen, which Letta wouldn't allow me near - she did a pretty good job miming choking to death, which was a fair point. Lord knows what part of those sausages I was allergic to. Other than that there was just a door leading to a covered walkway, which I was likewise signaled away from - this time with less choking and more stern looks. Staff only, presumably, since it was clear Letta and the other three I'd seen didn't live in this building. I was tempted to sneak over there, but it was too cold to seriously consider it even though I had my shoes back.

The other closed bedrooms had no such barrier, so as soon as Letta was off in the kitchen I poked into the other rooms. The first had an old man sleeping in it, with the same features as the rest. The other had a grizzled-looking woman with deep olive skin, whose legs stopped just below her knees. She yelled something, and while I obviously didn't speak the language I felt pretty sure it translated to something deeply unpleasant. I started to apologize but ended up a bit distracted by the way her hand had just burst into flames.

It didn't seem to be bothering her. She was just using that hand to gesture at me, and much like the words I was pretty sure I got the gist of what that hand motion was trying to convey. It was a high empathy day of course, and the thought that I was either losing my mind or watching a person begin casually burning to death had me teetering on the edge of a panic attack. My mind was racing - how was her hand on fire? Should I be getting help? It doesn't seem like she needs help, it's not actually burning her. Why isn't it burning her? At this point she threw a cup at me using her non-flaming hand, pegging me directly in the forehead.

If I'd been thinking clearly I wouldn't have charged out the door into the pre-dawn wilderness barefoot, but oh well. I made it maybe a hundred feet before tripping on something and rolling over onto my back as if I was getting ready to make snow angels. The cold air was burning my lungs, shocking me out of my budding panic attack and clearing my vision. I took a deep breath despite the pain, and resolved to think things through logically and calm down. Surely, this was like that stupid trick Janna at group home number four did with the lighter fluid and hand lotion, where it burned in her palm without hurting her. For a few seconds anyway. Poor Janna.

I rolled over onto my side to stand up, and in doing so got my first good look at the moon since I arrived. It was nearly full, with just a sliver left in darkness as the sun began to rise opposite it. It was almost fuzzy around the edges and there were pinpoints of light on the dark area, but most importantly on the light side... well, it's pretty hard not to notice those oceans.

So maybe not Europe either.