New Orleans, Louisiana, 9:52 A.M.  

The smell of burning jarred me awake.  My eyes snapped open, alert and dangerous.  I sat up on the rickety old spring mattress, fell out of bed and stood up frail.  Thinking to myself, I soon realized I had no memory of anything except for the common names of objects. The smoke was coming from the window, pouring in with huge gasps and puffs and hanging around the ceiling like dark rain clouds.  Walking over to the cracked window,  I slammed it to stop the smoke and once the smoke cleared, I glanced outside.

  No one.  There wasn't a single soul in the streets.  A dark, ominous feeling started to consume me as I frantically kept looking for any sign of life.  All that was visible was the entire apartment complex across the street.  It was engulfed with bright red dancing flames, almost mocking me as I stared blankly out of the busted window..  Running back, I hurled myself into the bed, grasping the paper thin sheets over my head as I drifted off to sleep...

...

Alton, Illinois, 6:37 p.m.
            

I awake to a vibrant lime green room.  The room is empty other than assorted trophies on the crooked shelving.  I shuffled over to the window and gazed out at neatly trimmed fields with smooth rolling hills in the background as far as the eye can see.  The sun set as the grass swayed creating a beautiful utopian mindset in my head.  I gazed, paralyzed, at the beautiful scene when the sound of clanking awoke me from my daydream.  Tiptoeing out of the bright  room, I headed for the top of the worn, carpeted stairs. A more familiar clanking of forks and knifes on plates was heard.  The faint smell of food whipped up my nose.  I sauntered groggily down the stairs. 

I followed the sound and found a small room with a neatly decorated dining table and four people sitting around with one lone chair.  A woman, blonde, with green eyes and a green sweatshirt greeted me with a smile "Hello Adam".  A man, sharply dressed with a tie, sat talking to two boys that seemed to be identical twins.  They also greeted me with a smile.  "How was your nap?" said the smallest twin.  I didn't know how to answer so I just said "Good".  I took my seat at the lone chair and the woman handed me a full plate of steak, what looked like mashed potatoes and about a handful of Brussels sprouts.  Whatever it was I gobbled it down unusually fast.  "You must have been hungry Adam" Said the woman. "Sure was" I said.  I sat for about 10 minutes when the woman told me and the twins to get to bed.  I could hear the faint talking of the parents in the kitchen.  Slowly and quietly, I crept to the top of the stairs. There were only a couple of sentences I could make out. "I wonder how he feels," and "Where to next?"