If I ever return to my childhood happy place, I will suffer a fate worse than death.

I first visited the field of gazebos seven years ago. It had been another long day at school that blended with the others. Bullies hounding me, teachers somehow not noticing, and not a friend of my own to turn to. I’d walk the short distance home to find my mother wrapped up in her own world, not so much as a hug for me. When my father made it back from work he’d barely have the energy to spare for me after he did everything that my mother was supposed to do but had neglected. He did what he could, but even then I felt like I was asking too much for him. I stopped asking my mother for anything. All it took was one wrong word and she’d snap at me or lash out. She never hit me, but at times I almost wish she had. I lay in bed listening to more than a few fights and arguments growing up.

With nothing but what was in my room to bring me comfort after giving her a quick hello and telling her I was off to do my homework, I lay down on my bed, propping my head against my giant possum stuffed animal as I shut my eyes. I tried to clear my mind, blocking out the sound of whatever she was watching on TV. I let my mind wander, drifting through whatever popped into my head. I almost felt like my bed was floating up past the ceiling, phasing through like it was nothing as it soared into an endless expanse of white. I felt the blanket underneath me, the slight breeze brushing my skin.

Then without opening my eyes, my imagination plopped me in the middle of a field.

I looked about and saw dozens of round gazebos. Equally spaced from each other, each unique in their own way, forming a ring around what could have been a field in the nearby park, short-cut grass without a rock or blemish to be seen. White carnations like those dad had planted for me bloomed, little pale islands in the sea of plain old green. I saw one particular gazebo surrounded by them, and something about it felt so… familiar. Like I had spent every day of my life under its roof.

“Hey there,” said a chipper voice, making me jump. “Where’d you come from?”

I turned around and yelped, craning my head up to look at who, or what, had appeared behind me. I was already one of the shortest kids in class, but even the tallest boy would have had his neck aching from how towering this newcomer was. It was clad in brown, rough-looking overalls that reached down to its bare feet, its skin a slate gray like the stones dad had used for his garden. It wasn’t just tall but big, bigger than any kid at my school. It smiled down at me with a smooth face marked by a tiny nose, wide mouth and big, glassy eyes like some of the pictures my grandmother had hanging in her living room. Matching gray hair flowed down its back in wild, curling locks that it played with in its fingers.

“H-Hi,” I trembled.

“I’ve never seen a human in the field before!” it said, smiling down at me as it rocked back and forth on its heels. “I’m Wotayatay! Wanna play?”

“You wanna play with me?” I asked. “But no one ever wants to play with me. They think I’m weird or say mean things about my parents.”

“You’re weird in the best way!” it said, beaming. “And I like you just the way you are.” It brought its big, meaty arms forward and pulled me close, giving me an enveloping hug like I had always imagined they would feel. Even if it was just in my head, I felt my worries melting away in the gentle grip of this gigantic teddy bear of a weird creature pulled from my mind.

When I glanced to the side, I spotted a single pastel rhododendron peeking its way out of some carnations, but by the time the hug was over it was gone. That didn’t matter, though. Wotayatay suggested we play some tag, and I was not about to refuse. I’d have to run from the gazebo surrounded by carnations to one surrounded by marigolds to win, and she’d have to make the return trip. She took it easy on me when she was it but even then she usually caught me, wrapping me up in giant bear hug every time.

So every day went for me. I’d suffer through school, do all my homework and chores as quickly as I could and then imagine myself back in that field of gazebos, off on another venture with my new otherworldly friend. It was always just us, and it was fun to keep thinking up more about this world and hers in turn.

“I come from another dimension,” she said while we were picking flowers and using long grass to wrap them together. I made bouquets of carnations, she of marigolds. “This little field and the forests and mountains surrounding it are like a little tunnel connecting us. Half of these gazebos go to my world, and half to yours.”

“So other girls like me get to come here, too?” I asked.

“It’s mostly boys,” she said, looking away at the ground to the side. “But I wanted another girl to play with. Someone who could be my best friend after a long day.”

“That’s what I wanted,” I said. “Everyone is so mean to me. I don’t have anyone.”

“You have me,” she said, placing a hand on my shoulder, engulfing it with her thick fingers. It made me feel better about myself that she was so big and monstrous. “I’ll be with you forever.” She gave my shoulder a squeeze, as if I was about to vanish into thin air. I smiled at her, feeling something warm within me.

It was always a shame when I had to leave the fantasy and return to the dull, empty world past my bed.

A dull, empty world with so little in it for me. I made a few friends through band and the track team, but none of them would ever consider me a best friend. I was a bonus friend, just along for the ride with the real main group. They didn’t hate me but things wouldn’t have changed much if I hadn’t been there.

But in that field it was just the two of us, and Wotayatay never failed to show how much she valued having me here. I’d spend the entire day thinking up new games for us to play and she’d suggest them before I could. Whatever I didn’t think up before I got to the field would just come to mind as I let myself keep imagining all the fun we had, each time playing with her seeming more real than the last.

Though some things snuck in when I least expected them. One time we were playing hide-and-seek in the forest, me going in deeper than usual to hopefully win. I’d grown through a growth spurt but I was still so much smaller than her, and for as good at hiding as I was she was a bloodhound, almost homing in on me. I moved into thicker brambles to try and fool her when I tripped over something, landing hard on the ground. I had imagined myself tripping? I could almost feel the ache, too.

I looked at what had sent me tumbling and spotted a lone shoe. It was a few sizes above those I wore and had some red stripes painted on it. On the inside of the heel someone had scribbled “Jake Hanlon” in black marker. Did I know a Jake Hanlon?

“I’m gonna getcha, so you’d better have–” Wotayatay stomped over to me, looming above. “Do you not wanna play anymore? We could do something else if you’d like.”

“Who’s Jake Hanlon?” I asked her, picking up the shoe and showing it to her.

I saw something in her face tighten as she reached forward, swiping the shoe from me. Her hand almost swallowed it. “Nobody,” she said. “Must be one of the others who come here and visit. Lots of other humans come here and have playmates like me.”

“I never see them,” I said. “Could we ever have a whole group together?”

She shook her head as soon as I finished my question. “No,” she said. “We keep things separate. Don’t worry. You don’t need anyone else here, do you? You have me! And I’ll be your friend forever!”

“Of course,” I said, “but we could also have fun with–”

“I just thought of something fun!” she said, grabbing me by the hand and pulling me onto my feet. “Come! It’s back in the field. You’ll love this!”

I let her drag me along, and it wasn’t until after I had returned to the real world that I realized I never saw what happened to the shoe.

Elementary school came and went, then middle school. I had some friends but none of them felt half as real as Wotayatay did, to the point I started wondering if I could sneak off during recess or breaks to disappear into the field if just for a little bit. Wotayatay always liked hearing about my world, the classes I was taking, things I was learning about, the people in my life. I told her everything.

I even told her about what what my mother had been doing to my dad. How many more pill bottles were appearing in my parents’ bathroom with my mother’s name on them. How long it had been since I had last seen him give me a real smile. Wotayatay was always there to wrap me up in an engulfing hug, letting me cry as I wished I could do something. My time with her felt more real than the actual world my body was trapped in, my friend’s embraces warmer and more fulfilling than any touch I had felt from anyone else. Even the field felt more real, with me able to sense individual blades of grass and pick up the scent of the flowers in the air.

How I wished I could take my dad into the field of gazebos with me so he could have someone to play with as well. But sadly, Wotayatay told me most grown-ups couldn’t go into the field. Dad was stuck in our world only.

Then came a day in high school I can’t forget. My mother had been on the warpath again, me walking on eggshells to try and get away before she took any single word I said, or me not saying at all, as an excuse to blow up. Me hoping she would calm down and get out of her headspace before dad got home so he wouldn’t have to deal with that. Me having just been left behind by the group I thought had considered me a friend. I was still just the add-on, tolerated but never needed. Never the best friend. I went to go visit the best friend that would never leave me, but as I vanished into my imagination everything felt wrong.

The field of gazebos was up in flames, the forest a blazing inferno, the once-blue sky covered in smoke and ash with nothing but orange breaking the blackness. The gazebos on the side with the one surrounded by carnations stood untouched, but just across the field all the others, including the one with marigolds, were blackened and consumed by unending fire. Even the flowers in the field were ruined, each carnation replaced with wilting rhododendrons. I could feel the waves of heat as I came as close as I could, my eyes widening, entire body trembling. A horrid noise droned in the background, like a rumbling Shepard tone that resonated in my soul.

This was my happy place. My escape. How could this be happening? I tried to imagine a thundercloud forming and drenching out all the flames, sparing the beautiful fields and forests and mountains, but nothing happened.

“No,” I whimpered. “Why? Just… why?” I turned away from the inferno, hiding my face in my hands.

“I’m sorry you had to see this,” came a voice behind me. I turned around to see my dearest friend suddenly before me. She had grown alongside me, still towering over me, still big enough to give massive, soothing hugs, still clad in those brown overalls that looked so much more worn after all these years. They smelled like leather. Her normal warm smile was gone.

“What’s going on?” I asked. “I didn’t imagine this. What’s happening?”

“It’s my world,” said Wotayatay, looking down at me with tears in her eyes. “The grown-ups did something horrible. My home is breaking down, unraveling, disintegrating into the void. I could barely make it here.” She turned to look over her shoulder as the gazebo surrounded by marigolds collapsed before returning to me. The Shepard tone kept droning. “That sound is it falling apart.” She sniffed, shuddering as she tried to hold back tears. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to me.” She flopped down onto the ground, trying to soothe herself by playing with her hair.

I felt an ache inside me as I approached her. I reached forward, placing my left hand on her shoulder as she had done so many times before for me. “It’s okay,” I said. “You still have me.”

She sniffed, raising a hand to my wrist and gripping it. “I do?” she whimpered. “But… you won’t want to come back here now. Half the field will be ash.”

“There must be something I can do,” I said. “Please. I’ll do anything.” I smiled, making a leap to something I had thought of before but had never had the courage to ask. “You can stay with me in my world! We’ll figure a way to get you over, okay? There has to be something we can do. Whatever it takes, I’ll do it.”

Her eyes widened and I felt her squeeze my wrist. “You… you would do that for me?” she asked. “You’d let me come to your world? Whatever it takes?”

“Of course,” I said. “You’re my best friend. I don’t want to lose you.”

The Shepard tone vanished and a massive, toothy grin erupted on her face. “You said it,” she cackled before tightening her grip on my hand and shoving it into her colossal mouth. Massive, sharp teeth like guillotines I had never noticed before came down, severing my hand at the wrist.

I shrieked as I pulled back, my stump slipping through my friend’s fingers. I wasn’t bleeding. It was like I was just a statue and a part of me had broken off. Yet I could still feel my severed hand. I continued shrieking in pain, barely staying upright as it felt like it was pummeled, crushed, ripped to pieces, shredded down to the last bit… and then nothing.

“You said you would help me cross over!” snapped Wotayatay as she started pulling herself up. I noticed her overalls splitting down the middle, her face rippling as her eyes moved away from each other, her little nose moving upward, her mouth widening as a massive cleft shot down her chin, her neck.

As her overalls parted I spotted the glint of countless mouth guillotines in a black void.

I tried to break myself free from my imagination to bring me back into a world that still had darkness but wasn’t this, but nothing happened. My friend cackled. “It might have seemed like pretend at first,” she said, “but my people have always been good at getting into minds. Making it seem like our targets just imagined it all up. This place is real. Just not for your physical body. I let you escape this field before. But now you’ve given me permission to take you.”

I turned and hurled myself away from her as fast as I could, her long shadow covering me. She fell to the ground on all fours, her front facing the ashen sky. She took off after me and I thanked every minute I had spent practicing for track. “You’ve been given so many bodies,” she growled, her voice devolving from her sweet tones to something distorted and vicious as the Shepard tone returned. “We’re only ever given one. But those beset by loneliness, their minds twisting and tricking them… we can connect to you. But there’s only room in your physical form for one soul, and it would be cruel to just leave yours here.”

I screamed as I ran, focused on that gazebo with the carnations even as the shadow grew closer, my friend’s new four legs carrying her at frightening speed. Her stamping footsteps shook the ground and the black form now opened to the sky like a flower with sharp guillotine teeth for petals. “My siblings settled for male victims,” she growled. “They’ve already moved into their new bodies. They’re planning how to do to your world what we did to ours. One was sloppy and left that shoe but you still hadn’t pieced it together. We had great times together, but eventually you have to stop pretending with the little piglet you raised for butchering and put it out of its misery!”

The monstrosity gained on me, the Shepard tone growing louder than ever as I watched the shadows of multiple tendrils rise up and cast ahead, flicking and twisting in the air. The gazebo was mere feet away. “You gave me permission!” she howled. “I only exist to hurt and ruin! Now accept your fate and let me take you!”

I leaped, reaching forward with the one hand I did have as I felt several slimy, grasping things encircle my legs, my fingers touching the cool wood just before they could pull me back.

I shot back into the world in the arms of my dad as he carried me to the car, attempting to look after me even as my crazed mother tried to grapple at him while laughing and howling with a horrid grin I had thought I just escaped. What they said blended together, me still trying to return to where I belonged as what I had endured raced through me. Moments mixed as he got me into the seat, tore away from our house as my mother laughed and chased us on foot, drove me to the nearest hospital where he kept close to me every inch of the way.

All the while, I couldn’t move a single finger of my left hand.

* * * * *

Things started to piece back together after that. Dad took us to my grandmother’s house and she was more than happy to let us stay with her. Doctors weren’t sure what to make of my hand; the nerves weren’t damaged, the muscles weren’t atrophied and everything was as it should be, but no matter what I tried I couldn’t so much as twitch my pinkie. It was alive and intact, yet might as well have been dead flesh to be amputated. They thought physical therapy might help, but after trying that for a bit I gave it up.

My body still had its hand but my soul did not. It was gone, consumed and ripped apart by that horrid monstrosity that had pretended to be my friend throughout my childhood. All leading to that very moment it had tried to eat my soul and take over my body.

But as my dad and I found our footing again things got better. Dad got my mother out of our lives for good and moved us to a different part of the city. Everything was smaller than before, a bit tighter, but we both were better for it. It was still a struggle to make friends at my new school but at least I had a happier home to return to. Though the loss of my left hand still ached every time I looked at it, there yet not.

Then one night I had been busy sketching something for art class. My left hand may be dead weight but I can still shift it to hold things in place, and this time around I stuck a pencil between its fingers so I could grab my eraser.

The fingers moved on their own, gripping the pencil tightly. My eyes widened as they shot toward it, watching the fingers adjust their hold, the hand moving in the wrist. I couldn’t feel a single thing it did, yet it moved.

And it started writing.

I’M SORRY

PLEASE FORGIVE ME

I’M SORRY I ATE YOUR HAND

I WAS SO DESPERATE

I DON’T WANNA BE ALONE AGAIN

YOU’RE MY ONLY FRIEND

PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME ALONE

This couldn’t be happening.

She hadn’t gotten all of my soul, but the part she had…

PLEASE COME BACK

I PROMISE I WON’T HURT YOU AGAIN

I COULDN’T STOP MYSELF

YOU’RE MY BEST FRIEND

I WANNA BE WITH YOU FOREVER

I tried to calm myself with the breathing techniques my therapist had taught me. Tried to find things in the room that gave me comfort, like that massive possum stuffed animal I still had all these years later and my grandmother’s gray tabby sleeping on my bed.

FINE

I SEE HOW IT IS

I SPEND YEARS LOOKING OUT FOR YOU AND LISTENING TO YOU

THIS IS HOW YOU THANK ME

HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME

I THOUGHT YOU WERE MY BEST FRIEND

I moved the hand away from the paper and ripped the pencil from the fingers, tossing it across the room and startling the cat. Once the hand realized it no longer had anything to write with or on it stopped moving, becoming a useless hunk of meat yet again.

From that day I’ve bound my dead hand in a sling, keeping my former friend’s influence in check at all times. I’m not sure how much she could do with only her hand in our world but I couldn’t risk it, nor could I talk to anyone else about this. Maybe down the line I’d fake a lawn mower accident and have the hand amputated. But for now, I’d survive high school.

Then a new transfer student appeared. Cold, alone, with glassy eyes that seemed to stare through everyone. Everyone but me. He never approached me. He never approached anyone; other students gave him a wide berth, and every time I saw him I felt my skin crawl. But I won’t forget when the teacher had him introduce himself in class.

“Hello,” he said. “I’m Jake Hanlon.”