A force draws my legs forward, the unbelief of my face in front of me. Green eyes piercing into my own, the ember green I've only ever seen in my reflection, studying me. They absorb the features of my face, all the while I do the same to him. There's no way. To see his face without so much of a picture, let alone my memories.

How is he here?

Why is he here?

My brain struggles to comprehend this, thinking perhaps it might be easier to believe this is a work of my imagination at play, concocting a father after the realization set how far gone my mother may be. How far gone I may be. But deep down, with the entirety of my being, I know that this is as real as it gets. That this man is him. That in front of me stands the person who had left me years ago, and a long-gone nostalgia crashes into me. A longing sense overwhelming as I stare at him, his face.

My father's face.

In all those weakened moments when I wanted a father to whisk me away from this insanity, to save me after the accident despite what he's done, I used to imagine him. I mean, it's not like you ever want to imagine the person who left you, but still, you can't help but wonder. And in all that wonder, this is the face I had seen.

The darkness around begins to fade, the trees shrinking to a vision gone smaller, swallowed by a menacing fog. A veil of my dream yanking away the scene around us. I'm not ready to go. I finally am seeing the man who shares my blood, my eyes. I'm not supposed to wake up, not yet. I need more time.

The questions that crumple inside my brain scream in the back of my throat, but my jaw hangs too heavy to form any sentence past my lips. I don't know whether to plead with him not to go, or remember this is only a dream that can be forgotten with a pinch. A wispy fog envelops and smoky tendrils wrap around, a thin haze spreading across our feet before rising tall until it's the two of us. Everything vanished into an indiscernible gray, a gray similar to the one hazing over my mind.

He smiles, one soft and reassuring, letting that be the last thing I possibly will ever see of my father before he is swallowed by a sea of mist.

My eyes snap open, sweat covers my pillows and dampens across my face, blending with the tears that are still leaking from my eyes. My breath catches in my throat, a tightening in my stomach wrenches inside as I sit up. Green eyes engraved into my vision, tearing through its surface like a stained memory. The single word once again falls past my lips: "Dad."

A pull within hauls me from my bed, pulling me to do something I've always been afraid to do before. Walking through the hallway, I stop in front of her door. Don't do it, you're letting your dreams win. They aren't real. Turn around, you don't have to do this. Remember the difference between reality and insanity. But what if reality is insanity?

The cold metal of the door knob bites into my fingertips, sending a shiver through me, a final warning that if I go forward, there is no turning back. Yet I turn the doorknob anyway, opening the door of my mother's room and likely sealing my fate, my ultimate shove into the madness.

Visions of our past dance along the room that hasn't aged, has never changed since the moment she was taken away. Following the boards that form their own brown wooden path, they take me to a frame that holds my mother's memories, a closet stuffed with my last true memories of her. Tossing out every piece of clothing, every kept trinket of a stored away memory, every scrapbook and picture, shuffling through each document and box stuffed inside, I scramble and search every object.

A distant voice of my mother ringing inside my head, telling me how despite his absence, her heart's beat for him never hesitated, never faded. How every single night since he deserted her, she felt his presence in this one photo she could never tear, burn, or throw away. A photo I've never had any interest in, before now at least. It was always so much easier to pretend he didn't exist, to try to pretend he didn't exist. That way, I was never weighed down by the anger or sadness of him. And now my mother is gone, or at least gone to the point where each time I want to see her involves a visitor's pass and having to watch drugs being pumped into her.

A part of me wishes I could forget her instead of forgive, to try and pretend our past is nothing more than history we all eventually forget, but I know that she never gave up on me, not intentionally at least.

Tearing through the boxes, scanning all the pictures trapped inside, I come across one scrapbook with the words 'Beats as One' sprawled across in black marker. Tugging it from the bottom of the cardboard box, photos spill out, pictures of me scattering across the floor in front of me. Time reverses the further I flip, from a young me to my pregnant mother. Images of her when she was around my age and some of when grandma was her age. Then I reach the end and I see it. I see him.

A small polaroid carries a snapshot of my mom standing beside a boy around her age. Immediately I recognize him from the man in my dreams, granted he's a bit younger here, but his eyes are exactly the same. His arm rests across her shoulders, her head lies on his, they look so relaxed next to each other, so normal. My eyes carry down onto her stomach, a small bump faintly seen from the figure of her dress, this must be right before he left. Flipping the polaroid around, white marker covers the back of the film: 'Aryce, Abria, and Baby Lone - 5 December 2001.' About five months before I was even born, and by my birthday, 26 April 2002, he was gone.

The whispers sound, drawing out any conflict pacing in my brain. Then their words transform, I hear them drawing closer and closer, so close that they could be right behind me. Their words grow louder until they are no longer words at all, but rather a mournful howl chorusing all around me I can't ignore.

Through the cries of the wolves, a voice rises above. So many questions, Serelia. When will you understand there are no simple answers? It's him, my father. I know it is, the same way I had known his face. His voice is firm and resonant, like a rising storm, one that makes the hairs creep along the back of your neck, all somber and serious. You know what you must do. The map to finding me is already within you, listen to your instincts. I'll be here waiting.

As his voice disappears and the echoes fade, the howling begins to die down, quieter and quieter until there's nothing, like a deaf man in a ghost town, or a person in a psychiatric cell, padded from every wall. A twisted pain strains inside my chest making it difficult to breathe, surges of anxiety and panic overwhelm. For a moment, I get lost in his eyes, trying to conjure up why he would ever need me, why now? Focus.

Standing up with the picture anchored between my fingers, leaving the remaining, forsaken remnants of my mother's room behind, I tread back through the halls. The floor feels heavier this time, or maybe it's my feet, trudging through wooden floors as if they were waves. Or maybe tar, trying to drown me under a cool and weightless world below.

"Hey sweetheart, are you okay?" Her eyes trail to the photo in my grasp.

"Everything's fine," I say, perhaps a little too quick in response. "I was trying to find something for a project I'm doing and found this picture I liked."

Truth is, I won't know how she'd react to me looking through mom's photos, especially one with my dad in it. Instead, it might be easiest to bend the truth.

Despite a questioning look in her eyes, furrowed eyebrows and a crinkle in her forehead, she doesn't push any further. "Okay," she pauses. "Do you want anything for lunch?"

"I'm okay. Thank you."

Still with her questioning gaze, her eyes visibly bouncing between my own, she turns to go back downstairs. I know that it must be hard for her. It is my mother entrapped in the institution, but sometimes I forget that it's also her daughter. More than that, instead of being able to move on or grieve or do whatever any sane person would do in such a situation, she has to take care of me. Grandma has her own stories, has fought her own battles. Watching as she descends down the stairs, I try to remind myself it's not only me who feels the burdens of insanity—whether it's living with it, or probably worse, seeing someone you love live with it.

Crutching onto the picture still tight in my grasp, I close the bedroom door behind me and head for my desk. Pushing open the laptop that sits on top of some old homework and papers, I prop up the photo against the lower corner of my screen.

"Lupa...Valley...High...School," the words mumble between my lips as I simultaneously type them onto the keyboard. Clicking on the Alumni page, a series of students whose surname begins in 'A' fill the screen in a lined order. Looking up the name 'Aryce' and the year I know my mom graduated there, my finger flutters as it pushes against the Enter key.

An image pops up on the laptop, my eyes immediately catching the scintillating green eyes that stare back in the pixels. 'Aryce Bade.' His picture so clear in front of me, the man who I saw less than twelve hours ago. It's him. He really exists, somewhere in the real world and not only in my dreams. He's real.

Studying his features, zooming in on his face and taking in every pixelated letter of the information under his profile. At least the information the Alumni page gives you, and I print out the page. Then curiosity takes over before my brain can catch up with my fingers as they type out 'Abria Lone' in the search box next.

Aside from her darker eyes, I finally get a bit of understanding on what people mean when they say we look as if we were twins. Probably not to that extent, but I leer at her picture. How she looks so different than she does now, not only younger, but happier. A genuine smile behind eyes, a life years ago when she had no clue what would soon become her future. I miss you so much. I wish I could've known you like this. How did everything change in you so quickly?

If only all of this insanity within me can finally bring you back to me.

Readjusting my focus back onto the screen, a new thought pops into my head back to my visions- the twisted branches of the thick greenery surrounding, the gardens of flowers all of varying colors, dulled by the night sky painted with glistening drops of heaven and a hanging crescent above.

Though I can't say for sure if it's real, the forest, or where it would even be, I know what it looks like from my dreams. Maybe. Just maybe. Clearing the current search tab, I type in 'Forests in Lupa Valley.' Zero results found. Widening the search, I type in, 'Forests in Oregon,' and unsurprisingly the amount of results spans pages and pages of sites. This is going to be difficult.

Opening up the first few images to find anything that may bring any sort of recollection, I press the arrow key and inspect each image closely. After a few or more images, a ringing sounds, building up the more images I go through. It reaches the point where the sound resonates into my brain, a blur crosses through my sight and forces my eyes shut. Scratching my nails against the wooden desk before gripping the end to anchor myself, a pulsation moves through my veins.

An image appears before me, though my eyes remain closed. The pulsations become pain, a bullet shooting past each organ in my body, as if it were tearing each and every blood cell, freezing their movements before melting and soon burning beneath my skin. At first, there's nothing but meshing colors fighting a battle in my brain. Clearing up, a vivid picture focuses to reveal the place that haunts and intrigues me all at once—the forest.

The smell of trees fills my noses with each breath. The sound of a river, trickling through the stream across the dirt, unknowing how far it reaches. A gust of wind brushing my skin, causing my hairs to rise and shiver as it touches the grass below. A canvas in my mind more real than any image online.

Then, as quick as a snap, my eyes open and I'm back in my room as if nothing ever happened.

***

Pictured at Top: Levana Veres

Until then,

-Xxx