When I opened my eyes, I found myself laying down on a wide stretch of grass. There were a row of colorful houses standing in front of me with green hills rising softly behind them. Above, the sky was a deep, vibrant blue, with clouds drifting lazily across it. 
"Yume! Yume!" 
A voice snapped me out of my daze. Someone was standing next to me. "Stop daydreaming already!" 
It was my friend Maya. A short-haired girl with brown locks who was always smiling, no matter what. She reached down and grabbed my hand, pulling me up with a cheerful urgency.  
"Come on! Let's go to the park together!" 
Before I knew it, she was dragging me through the street until we reached a park. The slides gleamed in the sun while the swings swayed in the breeze. Their chains jingling softly with a light, musical clink. It was a quiet, playful sound, as if the swings themselves were laughing with us. 
We raced toward them, tumbling into laughter as we slid down the slides. Then we sat on the swings, swinging back and forth and when we were high enough, we leaped off and pretended we were birds set free in the open sky.  
It had been a long time since I'd felt this happy. More and more kids joined us as the afternoon wore on, their laughter mixing with ours until the whole park seemed to hum with life. Bouncing up and down on the seesaw, straining with my tiny body just to launch Maya into the air. Spinning on the merry-go-round until the world blurred into streaks of color. Clinging to the springriders, like they were real horses charging into battle.  
We darted through games of tag, feet pounding the dirt, until we finally collapsed in the grass—breathless, dizzy, laughing so hard it hurted. 
Eventually, Maya and I slipped away from the park and wandered down to the river. The air smelled fresh and clean. The river ran clear as glass and schools of fish darted beneath the surface—some small, some big, but all of them were either green or gray. 
I crouched down and reached into the cool, fast-running water, my fingers cutting through the current. A flash of green darted past. I lunged, but the fish slipped away with a sharp swish of its tail, sending ripples fanning outward. The circles widened, chasing one another across the river's surface until they vanished into the steady rush of the current, as if the whole river itself had swallowed my failure. 
Maya laughed and dipped her own hand in. With surprising speed, she scooped one up. The green fish wriggled and twisted, nearly escaping, but she managed to lift it onto the shore where it flopped frantically in the grass. 
"Whoa, Maya, you're amazing!" I said, wide-eyed. 
"Thanks, Yume," Maya said with a smile as she slipped the fish back into the river. It vanished beneath the ripples, leaving only a shimmer on the water's surface.  
I looked up at the sky. The sun was setting, spilling its orange rays across the horizon. "We should head back. It's getting dark." 
"Alright," Maya agreed, standing up. 
We walked together until our houses came into view. Just before stepping inside, I turned back to catch one last glimpse of her. I couldn't wait to play with her again tomorrow. 
... 
When I truly opened my eyes, I found myself laying down on a wide stretch of yellow, dried up grass. There were rows of houses, the same as the ones I saw before, standing in front of me, their color faded from time, walls crumbling, windows shattered. Behind them were hills that were the same color as the grass I was laying on. Above, the sky was a heavy red with almost no clouds in sight. 
For a moment, I almost expected to hear someone call my name. 
But no one did. 
Only silence answered me. 
So I pushed myself up from the brittle grass, unsure of where to go, my mind clinging to scraps of memory. The park... wasn't it the park? 
I started walking, letting my feet carry me. I walked down the street as I searched for something familiar.  
Pushing past a few overgrown bushes, I stepped into what was once a park. The ground crackled beneath my shoes, each step crushing a layer of dead leaves. The slide stood crooked and rusted, its once-shining surface dulled and flaking. The swings hung limp, chains groaning when the wind nudged them, one seat half-buried in dirt where the links had snapped. The seesaw lay split in half, its splinters jutting out like broken bones. The merry-go-round was a skeleton of itself, handles snapped clean away, leaving only jagged stumps. Even the springriders were gone, nothing left but bare patches in the earth where children once bounced and laughed. 
I walked slowly among the ruins, observing the destruction. Only then did I realize how much taller I had grown—taller than the slide that once towered over me. For a moment, I thought I heard children laughing, the sound of small feet racing around me. But the sound slipped away, leaving me to wonder if I was just losing my mind. 
I made my way to the river. The air smelled foul and acrid, each breath scratching my throat with the stench of ash and smoke. My footsteps crunched against dried up leaves as I approached—only to find not a river, but a wide, dry gorge cutting across the land. 
I crouched down at the edge, peering down, as if a single fish might still be waiting there. But there was nothing. Nothing but fallen leaves and broken twigs. 
I stood slowly, turning my head to the side, half-hoping—just for an instant—that someone might be there, with a fish in their hands. 
But there was no one.  
I remembered then who that someone was — Maya. Her smile flashed in my mind and I remembered the way she used to laugh as we ran around the park. But she was gone now. Long gone. 
I trudged back to the patch of brittle grass where I had woken. The world felt stripped of any future; it was bleak and hollow, and a cold certainty settled in me: I couldn't — and wouldn't — stay in a place like this. 
So I made a choice. 
I would escape. I would slip into my dreams and live there until everything ended.  
I lay down on the same spot, staring up at the red sky one  more time. Around me the world smoldered and burned; the ash tasted of endings. I closed my eyes and let the dream take me. 
And then I opened them again — into somewhere else, into the warm certainty of childhood — and a voice cut through the silence: 
"Yume! Yume! Stop daydreaming already!"