I round the corner of the trail as the crisp breeze rustles my jacket. I look at the sign telling me where to go, it seems it should only take around half an hour to get back to my car. Wait, car? We haven’t used cars for years, this can't be real. The fog in my head clears and I recite the facts: I am on a space station somewhere around planet Balik so there is no way I can be on a hike in England. Groaning I continue down the mountain, if this is the only way I can experience earth again after it blew up so be it. 

Sam must have been messing with the oxygen again, putting one of his concoctions in to test it on the team. I step into the creek near the path to test my theory. Yep, my foot isn’t wet, just as I thought. So this must be a memory or is it fear?  Sometimes it's hard to guess with Sam, he’s extremely unpredictable, and it's annoying at times. I’ve asked on multiple occasions for Sam to be removed from our team and transferred to another space station but I’ve had no such luck, he’s apparently “too important to lose” as Nick says.

Nick is the new team leader who took over after Zach disappeared. It’s a shame, if Zach was still here Sam would’ve been kicked off the moment I asked it to be so. I had Zach wrapped around my finger, Nick not so much. I take deep breaths taking in the nonartificial air that I have missed so much. In the space station, the air is thin and dry so it’s not the best to train in. I’m pretty sure everyone has gotten asthma from breathing the stale air. Chuckling I kick the water in the creek cause why not, I won’t get wet from it anyway. 

My thoughts wander to my family, they were lost in the earth's explosion. I watched it happen in real time, the explosion, on TV since I had already been sent into space with all the other kids in my quadrant. Captain Anya told me later that night that my parents hadn’t made it, she then became like a mother to me.  My brother was taken to another space station, Space Station Y-39, it was one of the first tests of the space station. Not long after its launch, it exploded, I just assumed that my brother had died in the explosion, by that time I had learned it was best not to question. 

A hand clamps down on my shoulder bringing me back to reality or I guess the reality that Sam’s program wants me to think is real. “Excuse me, ma'am, could you perhaps point me in the direction of the parking lot? It seems I have lost my map.” The man’s face is familiar. Should I be scared? Most of the people that I know don’t really like me, they either think I’m too b*tchy or too manly. I’ve tried to find a median but to no avail so I decided that I didn’t care what anyone thinks of me. The man clears his throat reminding me he is expecting an answer. Against my better judgment, I talk to him. 

“Of course you just take this trail to the bottom, if you parked in the VIP parking you will need to take a left sooner than me though.” The man chuckles. 

“I didn’t park in the VIP parking lot, do I look like the type of person that would park there?” Between the man’s accent and his long black coat, it’s hard to decide whether or not he is telling the truth or teasing. 

“I mean I don’t know if you will take offense to this or not but you kinda do.” The man just laughs at me again. I’ve decided I don’t like his laugh, there's no reason it just kinda makes me want to punch him in the face, hard, with a chair. I smile at the thought. I haven’t punched anyone in a while. I'll have to change that. Perhaps I’ll punch Sam when I get out of this mind trap. The man and I have a delightful chat as we head down the path, and it seems we are into similar things, although he doesn’t reveal any personal information. I wish he would tell me his name but in all fairness, I haven’t told him mine. 

I was so lost in thought that I didn’t realize that we had reached the parking lot. “Is this your car?” I point to a black Honda with no license plate. 

“Yeah, this is it.” He says it’s his car but he doesn’t go to take his keys out. My heart starts to race, something isn’t right. 

“Alright, have a nice day.”  I turn to leave but he grips my arm, spinning me back to face him. 

“Leaving so soon Lex?” I am pulled up against the man whose accent is suddenly gone. A chuckle comes from behind me and I turn to find that two more men have come out of their cars. One of the men’s faces is littered with scars, some of them are quite nasty but I’ve given people worse. The thing is the scar-faced man looks familiar, like something from a dream. 

“Hello again, sister.” I feel the blood drain from my face as my brother gets closer. This is just an image put in my head by Sam’s program, this isn’t real. I start to hyperventilate as my brother’s face inches closer to mine until he is only inches away. 

“Kal.” My brother just smiles as he motions for the man behind me to secure my arms. 

“That’s right Lex, I’m not dead.” I can barely breathe now as my brother puts his hand on my cheek. “And it’s Kaleb now, the man who was Kal died in that explosion.” My brother chuckles again as he tightens his grip on my face. The third man comes up behind Kal and hands him a cloth. He clamps it over my mouth and I feel myself start to relax, it must be nitrous oxide. I didn’t know people actually did this. I throw my head back trying to escape the man's grip but Kal grips my face harder pulling my head so that I am looking into his eyes. “Sleep tight, sis.”

I mumble something inaudible as my mind goes blank. 

---

I wake up gasping for breath on the floor in my room. Slowly standing up I reach for the light switch that is located both by my bed and the door to my room. My head is pounding like someone tried to drill into my head. If I ever see Sam again I am going to kill him. My door slides open and Nick’s silhouette glows in the doorway. 

“Nice of you to drop by,” I say with a chuckle. Nick only rolls his eyes at me and drapes my arm over his shoulder as he leads me toward the Med-center. “Nick, I don’t need to go to the Med-center, I just have a headache.”  

“We don’t know the full extent of the effect Sam’s serum had on you yet, this is just a precaution.” My legs suddenly give way, almost dragging both Nick and me to the floor. “See you can’t even walk by yourself.” I chuckle pushing against Nick and the floor in an attempt to prove him wrong. Instead of standing like I planned I sink further toward the floor. So much for that plan. “Lex, please just cooperate for once.”

“And why would I do that?” I know the answer will probably have to do with training and the alien attacks that are slowly destroying our Space Station but I ask anyway just for the fun of it. 

“As you are well aware, we are constantly under attack from the alien species in this quadrant, and whether I like it or not you are our most valuable soldier.” Did I call it or what? All it’s been these past few months is aliens this and aliens that. Occasionally, Nick will talk about something of interest but those days are few. “Lex, are you listening?” 

“No, you lost me when you started talking about the aliens again.” Nick groans in frustration as I slip to the floor yet again. To solve the problem of getting me to the Med-center in an ‘efficient time frame’ as he would say Nick slings me over his shoulder as we round the final corner to the Med-center. “Nick put me down!” 

“Lex, I value your opinion more than you probably want to believe but right now would you just shut up and let me do what I need to do!” I chuckle as everyone looks in our direction when we enter the Med-center. I am the only one who can ever make Nick lose his cool, it’s like a special talent of mine. As Nick drops me on the nearest bed. Sam rushes over and I have to fight the urge not to strangle him to death. 

“What did you see there? I bet it had something to do with your family since it was a major loss that changed your life. It was your family, wasn't it, I’m sure of it.” Sam rushes around the room grabbing different tools, his voice following the speed of his walking. “Let’s see, we will need to run a blood test and probably a scan to make sure the serum didn’t damage your brain, as well as a physical check-up just in case you were physically injured while in the landscape.” My brother's scarred face appears in front of my eyes for just a moment and my headache blazes up again.

“Whatever you're going to do Sam do it fast this headache is a killer,” I say with a chuckle at the end so as not to show weakness. Sam looks slightly annoyed at me even though he was the one who put me in the situation in the first place. Just as Sam was about to put the needle in me so that he could extract some blood for the test the Med-center door flies open and Ryker storms in with Kate on his heels. 

“Ok, what the hell was that?” I can’t help but chuckle at the sight before me. Nick is having to hold Ryker back while Kate is just standing in the doorway in shock at the scene before her. 

“Hey Kate, how are you doing?”  She just continues to stare at the floor while Ryker is attempting to get to Sam who has now finished extracting my blood for the test. “Kate!” 

“What?” She looks up as if only hearing me for the first time. “Oh, Lex, I’m fine just fine.” She nods slowly trying to convince herself that she is truly fine. Sam walks over to Ryker with a syringe in his hand, it’s a sedative because as soon as the liquid enters his bloodstream he crumples onto the nearest bed. Kate squeaks from behind me, I don’t have to turn around to know that she has paled. Kate has always been skittish around doctors or even just their tools from the first day I met her, I don’t know why, she won’t tell me. 

“Lex I’m going to need you to lie down while I get the scan ready. I am going to give you a mild sedative so that you are calm while going through the machine.” I nod not listening to what he’s saying, I’ve been through enough of these to know how it goes. There’s a pinch in my forearm as the needle enters my arm, a few moments later my vision goes fuzzy and there’s a ringing in my ears. Other than that I am weightless and nothing could bring me down, not even the whispers of danger that were slowly sneaking their way into my head.

I wish I could stay this way forever, in a world where music was whatever I wished it to be. In a world that was apart from this one. A world where I could make my own reality. A world I could escape to, away from our lost humanity.