text: Waking up, Cassidy was unaware of her surroundings. She looked left into the empty nothingness; she looked right and again just a baron wasteland. But where was she? She kept thinking to herself. How did she get here? She was all alone in a land of nothing. Cassidy tried to get up from the icy ground, she felt the arctic chill in the air but still she didn’t know where she was. Her arms were weak and hardly managed to pick up her own body. At the age of only 8 years old, she was scared, frozen in place, unable to stand. However, after a few agonising minutes, she managed to bring herself to her feet. Yet under unstable legs, every step was a struggle and a pain. She walked for what seemed to be an endless number of hours, yet she still only saw nothing. Another few hours of walking and still nothing and Cassidy had started to feel the effects of the cold; her whole body was shaking; she felt her hair turn hard under the influence of the ice in the air and her legs and arms were beginning to give way. Night began to fall, and Cassidy knew that if she didn’t find shelter any time soon, she would be in trouble. Yet all around her was still an empty, chilling hell. But then in the corner of her eye, she saw something move under the pearlescent snow. She stopped dead in her tracks. She tried reassuring herself that it was fine. Perhaps it was just a mouse on the ground or maybe just the wind blowing the snow. She calmed herself down but just as she began thinking that it was just her mind playing tricks on her, she saw it move again, whatever it was. She turned slowly in the direction she had just come from to try not to make her presence known to whatever she had seen under the frozen surface. Her movements were slow and gentle and as she started to walk away, she felt something grab her ankle in a weak grip. That was when she knew she had to run. She was sprinting at full speed into the dark, frozen night, away from something that could have just been her imagination. She needed to take a break to catch her breath, trying to reinforce her idea that there was nothing in this empty land of ice. Again, she started to believe she had just imagined the whole scenario, but just as she began to relax slightly, she felt a hand on her left ankle again. But this time the grip was stronger. Cassidy tried to scream out for help, but no sound escaped, not that it would have made a difference. She tried kicking her foot in order to escape the grip and after a thrash of panic, she managed to free her leg. She began to sprint again. There was now no sign of any light and Cassidy couldn’t even see her own hand in front of her face. She was out of breath and had to stop. Her legs felt weak once again and she couldn’t stand. As she fell to the ground, she felt like she had been to that exact spot before, a sense of déjà vu came across her. She began to close her eyes, giving in to her surroundings, knowing deep down that no matter how hard she tried to get away, she wouldn’t make the morning. As her eyes closed, she felt the hand again, but this time on her arm, pulling her over onto her side. Cassidy then decided not to scream or run, but this time to open her eyes and look. What she saw didn’t seem to surprise her though. Lying down beside Cassidy and grabbing a hold of her was in fact her. However, she looked pale and cold, weak and thin. That’s when Cassidy realised where she was. She was back where she woke up. But seeing this other version of herself, she realised that this was in fact her true body. Cassidy never woke up. She had been dead to begin with.