Prologue

Elena is dreaming. It's one of those dreams where she knows she's asleep, but she's also powerless to wake up. Luckily, there's nothing icky or frightening going on right now that would make her want to be awake. No monsters, no one chasing her, just a feeling that something is going to happen, and that it's important for her to watch it happen.

The big room she's in is crowded, which makes her nervous, and people keep rushing by pulling suitcases. She knows that this must be an airport because her daddy flies quite often, and she's even flown a few times herself. Elena recognizes the long rows of chairs, the ticket counters with lines of fidgeting people standing in front of them, the blaringly loud and sometimes overlapping announcements, and, of course, the walls of windows.

It becomes obvious that no one can see her when an elderly couple--yelling good-naturedly at each other much like her own grandparents do--walks right through her. She screams soundlessly at first, quite horrified, but then, after her heart slows down a bit, is rather elated by this ghost-like ability. Tentatively, she reaches out her hand as a fat man wearing an almost painfully bright Hawaiian shirt hurries past, and the ends of her outstretched fingertips travel through his arm. She expects to feel something when it happens, a cold chill maybe, but there's nothing.

For the next several seconds, Elena amuses herself by standing in front of, walking through, and even ducking her head into and out of the people who pass her. Just as there's no feeling when she's moving through someone, there's also no view; only darkness until her head emerges. She decides to test her newly discovered ability on the wall to her right, but then sees her father.

"Daddy!" she cries, running through several inconveniently positioned travelers to reach him. "Daddy, look what I can do."

As with the elderly couple who first introduced her to this new world, her father walks right through her. Aghast, she follows him slowly, her game of a few moments before totally forgotten. This is her father. He's not a dream; he's alive, just like she is. Unless ... Does his being here, his inability to see, or touch, or hear her mean that she's dead? She stops, the horrible idea she's just had rooting her to the spot. Her father steps on to an escalator heading downward, and is carried out of sight.

The tug on her consciousness is so sudden and unexpected that she begins desperately wind milling her arms, trying to remain standing. This time, what she feels is not a vague suspicion that something is going to happen in this place that she should see, but a certainty, with her father at its focal point.

Wait! Stop!

Everything is happening too fast. losing her balance, she is pulled off her feet, and then through the people boarding the downward escalator, through the escalator itself, finally coming out just above the airport's ground floor. Elena's fear of being dead is now supplanted by this new experience. Her father is visible again, walking quite quickly towards an exit, and she is floating behind him, pulled along by the invisible tether which now seems to bind them together. It's almost like flying, and she loves the sensation of drifting through the air with no effort whatsoever, but at the same time she has no control. No way of stopping, turning, or going slower or faster should she wish to.

Both she and her father are outside now. Elena notices that he's still wearing the jeans and short sleeved shirt she remembers him having on earlier that day, and is swinging the small overnight bag he travels with when he doesn't expect to be away for very long. The same bag she had watched him carry out to his car that afternoon. He's still hurrying, which is normal for her Dad, and not paying very much attention to what's going on around him.

He arrives at the down curb, and begins rummaging in the overnight bag for something. Not bothering to look up, he steps forward and begins crossing the street. Elena is already screaming; struggling to free herself from the confines of her observer status, to leap forward, to pull him back, to be there before the yellow car speeding towards him arrives. But, she can do nothing.

This isn't real, it can't be real. I want...

Horn wailing, the yellow car skids through the crosswalk with a screech of brakes. The invisible tether which had so recently bound her to the man now lying on the pavement snaps, and she can move again.

I want out! Let me out!

She slowly sinks to the ground, tears cascading down her face, obscuring the event she has been forced to witness.

The world is fading. She can feel it, as though everything around her, everything she has seen here will soon dissolve into nothingness. Rolling up into a tight ball on the ground, she waits to die.

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