I'm standing in the center of a white room. Everything is white. The floor, the ceiling, and the walls are all white. There's a quiet static emitting from some place I can't see. It reminds me of the snow. I am suspended. I am fluid. My arms feel like they're floating in water. When I try to move my legs, it's like I'm wading through the shallows. It feels right and wrong at the same time.

My eyes scan the room for any sign of activity or life. There are no windows, no lights, nothing on the walls at all apart from an old ticket dispenser. It looks like the kind you used to see in a butcher's shop or the deli. It calls to me. I approach it slowly and the static hum grows louder. I can feel the walls vibrating with it.

"Hello?" I call out.

Nothing.

"Is anyone here?" I ask.

A sound clicks above me and then quickly stops. It sounds like someone hanging up an intercom. I am eerily reminded of every single scary movie I've ever seen.

My legs struggle against the invisible water. I almost feel like I'm treading an ocean, my body bobbing up and down to the rhythmic current of waves.

I am right in front of the dispenser. The ringing is so loud I feel like my eardrums may burst.

I reach up and pull the ticket hanging from the reel.

The ticket glows in my hand and a voice comes over an unseen loud speaker.

"Welcome to the Fold."

I look around and try to find anyone who may be speaking, but I am entirely alone.

"Your time starts now. Please use the exit on your left." The intercom clicks off.

What is going on? I turn to my left and see a door ajar, a door that was not here minutes ago. I step toward the door and my legs feel normal again. My fingers close around the knob and I push open.

...

The first thing I see is an ambulance. I'm standing in the parking lot of Memorial Hospital. It's the only hospital in our town and the only one I've ever been to. I'm not sure how I got here, but it feels important that I stay. I look around for Hazel, but cannot see her. I assume she kept walking to the school.

My vision is obscured by glaring lights and the ringing from the white room has turned into harsh sirens. My neck feels stiff like it's frozen. My throat feels tight again and tastes a little like dirt.

An EMT runs from the front of the ambulance around to the back. I step closer, waiting in anticipation for the doors to open.

"What's going on?" I ask.

There is screaming and shouting and more nurses running out from the ER. I am ignored in the confusion. A second ambulance comes barreling toward me. I jump out of the way just in time and watch the ambulance drive off down the road.

"Do you need help?" I ask again.

"Out of the way," the nurse next to me says. She walks around a second nurse and helps open the metal doors. The EMT steps inside and starts to lower the stretcher.

I crane my neck to try and catch a glimpse. I am desperate to help, but no one seems to pay me any attention.

"Do you need any help?" My voice catches in my throat as I see the body on the stretcher.

My body.

Everything comes rushing back to me, flooding me, drowning me like the water from the reservoir. I can feel its icy cold claws dragging me into the depths. I can feel a strange pulling sensation on my left arm. I remember Hazel's silhouette disappearing in front of me.

Hazel. She hops down from the ambulance, her eyes bloodshot red. From crying or the cold, I can't tell. Her cell phone is clutched in her hand. She's shaking and I notice she's soaking wet. Her red scarf is dripping onto the pavement and her jeans are glued to her legs.

A car screeches against the blacktop. I watch my parents jump from my mom's car. Her windshield is still defrosting. Tears are streaming down my mom's face. My dad is as pale as the snow on the ground. Hazel runs to them and I watch the three embrace.

My eyes sting and I notice I am crying. Ghost me is crying.

It hits me hard. I cannot be lying on the stretcher and standing here at the same time. Only one of me is real. Only one of me is alive.

I clench my fingers and feel something in my left palm. I look down at the crinkled white paper. My ticket.

A voice echoes in the distant corners on my mind. Welcome to the Fold.

I don't know what it means, but I know where I am. This must be some weird soul limbo where people go to watch themselves die. I wonder if this happens to everyone. If everyone is sent to see themselves off.

Hazel follows my parents into the ER and I squeeze in the doors behind them. I know it doesn't matter. I know I could walk through the doors if I wanted to.

...

The three of them huddle in the corner of my hospital room. It's stifling warm and the lights are down so low they're almost off. A glow comes from the machines hooked up to my unconscious body.

A doctor walks into the room holding a clipboard.

"Any updates? Anything at all?" My mother asks, her voice panicking.

"She's stable for now. Because of her core temperature, we've placed her into an induced coma."

Coma. I'm in a coma.

OK. This is coma limbo. Now how do I get out of coma limbo?

I skirt along the edge of the room and do the only thing I can think of trying. I touch my own body. I try to. As my ghostly hand falls through my arm I feel a shiver down my spine. There goes that theory.

Come on. Don't panic, Quinn.

I look back to the hospital hallway. It's dark. I can tell from the windows that nighttime has fallen. It's quieted down a lot from earlier.

Come on. I think again. I look at my ticket like it will start speaking to me if I just will it. No luck. Right when I'm about to give up I hear it: The faint sound of a busted intercom that keeps clicking on and off. With one last look at my parents and Hazel, I walk into the hallway. It gets louder. The lights start to flicker. I look at the nurse sitting at her station and she's not fazed. Maybe I'm imagining it.

Of course I'm imagining it.

I follow the sound to the end of the hallway. It dead-ends in front of a closed door. The entire doorframe edge is glowing white like there's some brilliant light shining behind it. The reverberating noise is deafening.

I twist it open and find myself tumbling into the white room. My eyes search for the mini ticket booth again. The only thing I see is an old green board. It looks just like the one that used to be in my elementary school. I remember it because the wooden ledge for the chalk was dented on the side. Just like this one.

"Hello?" I shout out again.

I wait for the invisible voice to answer but it never does. My eyes fall back to the chalkboard. A single sentence is scrawled across the board.

Find Your Anchor.