"No, Crimson!"

It's too late. She's gone. "AGH! STUPID!" I yell at myself. I kick the metal wall. I pinch my fingers against the bridge of my nose. "Stupid, stupid." I slide down onto the floor and put my face in my hands.

This isn't happening. This isn't real. But it is. And I'm here.

My voice is barely above a whisper. "I want to go home." I'm never gonna see them again. Not Mom, not Dad. Not little Emily, who isn't even six. To them, I'll be dead. I might as well be. It's not much different so far.

I stay here for long hours, thinking about my family, my future. My life has been changed in a split second, but it has been changed forever.

Once, when I was little, my Mother was hanging laundry and I snatched a sheet. I hid in the bushes, cocooning myself and trying to become a butterfly. But the sheets were choking me and I couldn't breathe. So my Father runs over and pulls them off, and rocks me in his arms until I stop crying.

That's how I feel now. Choking, hidden from sight, but this time I will not be saved.

I will never see my family again.

After a time, a big, fluffy dog comes over and starts to sniff me. They have animals here, a small victory. I stroke it's golden-brown fur until I hear rapid footsteps coming my way. I stand up hastily and smooth the creases from my dress.

He appears, from around a corner. He has light brown hair and glasses that slide off his nose when he stops suddenly in front of me. He catches them and put them back. "Umm... Hi. Not expecting to see you here, new girl." He says.

"Oh, umm... Yeah, I got lost. Can you take me to wherever we sleep?" I say, trying not to be too awkward. "Sure!" He says, "I'm Brandon, by the way."

He clips a leash onto the dog and leads me through a series of twists and turns. We make small talk, and I find out that his element is Water, and his dog's name is Gears. We reach a door marked GIRLS SLEEPING QUARTERS 1-20.

"Do you know what time it is?" I ask, unsure. "Umm," he checks his watch and his eyes widen. "Around 11:30. I should be going, but before I go, have you seen Crimson around lately? I haven't seen her since you got here."

Oh no, Crimson ran off! I thought she just went to her house or something! "We need to find her! She ran off after-" I pause, "We had a fight and she- this is all my fault."

"Well, we need to find her first."

"First?" I ask, but he is pulling me through the halls already. We look in every corner, open every closet door, look behind every box.

More than once we see a shadow, a gray cloth, a false hope. Or the rustle of a blanket in front of a fan. It's almost midnight. "She can't have gotten that far..." I say with false hope.

We keep looking. Open a door, look inside, behind boxes, behind a barrel or two, back into the hall. A clue, a stray hairband. "She's close." A little after midnight. Another clue. A door ajar. We go inside.

Look behind boxes, behind the click click of a water heater. Nothing. Behind a humming pipe. There she is. Two braids, lots of freckles, a gray jumpsuit. Asleep. "I found her!" I call out. I pick her up and we carry her back to sleeping quarters. I put her down on a bed with her name above it, and an older girl, maybe twenty, comes and shows me my bed.

In the changing room, I change into a white nightgown and brush my teeth. I sigh. There is no way this is real. Just go to sleep and you'll wake up in your bed, in your house, with your family. I walk back to my bed and fall into a dreamless, deep sleep.