MidReal Story
Mike woke up in the
Scenario: Mike woke up in the morning and found that he had traveled back to 17th century Samoa and had become the son of the local chief.
Create my version of this story
I woke up with a start, only to feel like I'd been in a bar fight the night before.
My head ached, my vision swam.
Shit, I thought.
I'd told myself I'd never drink that much again.
I'd woken up after weeks of school and work under similar circumstances, but I didn't let it bother me.
I usually woke up with a slight hangover and a night of memories I'd rather forget.
I recognized the pounding in my head, but my body didn't feel right.
Struggling to sit up, I surveyed the room, but nothing looked familiar.
I remembered falling asleep in my bed in California.
Wherever this was, it wasn't home.
I began to panic as the events of the past few hours came rushing back.
Reaching out for something to hold onto, I grabbed the sheets and tore them away from the bed.
They were rough and stiff and felt like they were made of straw.
My mind spun out of control as I tried to figure out where I was and how I got here.
There had to be an explanation for what was happening.
As I tried to pull myself together, the door opened and a woman entered the room.
She looked around for a moment before her eyes found mine.
Her long dark hair cascaded down her back, and she wore what looked like a traditional dress that hung past her knees with designs on it I didn't recognize.
She looked Polynesian, but not like any Polynesian woman I'd ever seen before.
Her dark eyes searched my face with concern as she came closer, but I didn't know what to say.
So I just stared at her like she was an alien that had just landed from space.
She spoke softly, but the words made no sense to me.
I shook my head, thinking maybe she was speaking Polynesian, but her words were garbled and made no sense at all.
"Wait," she said, taking a step back.
My head throbbed from the movement, but I couldn't look away from her as she searched my eyes for understanding.
"You do not speak our language?"
I tried to speak, but my mouth was so dry that no words would come out at first.
Finally I managed to croak out, "Where am I?"
Her face brightened at the sound of my voice.
She approached me cautiously as if I were some wild animal that would bolt at any moment.
"I am Leilani," the woman said.
"I am here to make sure you are all right."
"Where am I?" I asked again.
"I do not understand."
I tried to clear my throat, but my voice was still hoarse.
"What is this place?
How did I get here?"
Her face scrunched up in confusion as if she didn't understand the question.
"Please," she said softly.
"You must be joking with me.
You are not an American?
This is not possible." With that, she turned on her heel and left me alone in the room with more questions than answers.
Definitely not California.
I looked down at the clothes on the floor in front of me—clothes that were definitely not mine—and realized this was definitely not the start to an ordinary day.
My heart raced as I tried to piece together everything that had happened.
It made no sense.
Reaching for the clothes in front of me, I dressed quickly, trying to remember how I'd gotten here.
I remembered drinking with my friends in California, but I didn't remember getting on a plane.
I didn't remember traveling anywhere.
Leilani returned with a glass of water in her hand and handed it to me.
I took it gratefully, but I had no idea how long I'd been asleep or how I'd gotten here.
The only thing I knew was that I was definitely not in California anymore.
"Where are we?"I asked, sipping the water slowly and trying not to think about the pain in my head.
She watched me for a moment before she answered, but when she did, she spoke in English.
"You are in Samoa," she said with a small smile.
Samoa, I thought, but I knew next to nothing about Samoa.
In fact, if you'd asked me where it was on a map, I wouldn't have been able to point you in the right direction.
But at least it wasn't someplace too far away, right?
"How did I get here?"My voice shook as I asked the question.
I tried to think back to the night before, but everything was so hazy.
I remembered drinking with my friends, but that was it.
As I thought back to that night, I realized that I'd drunk way too much vodka and passed out sometime in the early hours of the morning.
I didn't remember boarding a plane.
I didn't remember taking off or flying to Samoa.
So how had I gotten here?
"It was a long flight," she said as she watched my face.
"How did you find me here?"
I shrugged helplessly.
"I don't know." As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized they were true.
I had no idea how I'd gotten to Samoa or how she'd found me.
I had no idea how long I'd been here or how she knew who I was.
The only thing I knew for certain was that none of this made any sense at all.
"We are not on any map," she said after a moment.
I frowned at her words, trying to understand what she meant.
I didn't know much about Samoa, but if it wasn't on any map, then how had I gotten here?
That was impossible.
How could a place exist that no one knew about?
"I don't understand," I said at last.
With that, she turned and left me alone in the room once more.
Lying back on the bed, I tried to make sense of what was happening, but the more questions I asked the more confused I became.
She disappeared for what felt like hours before she finally returned with a tray full of food.
In her absence, my headache had gotten worse and my stomach had begun to growl, so I'd spent the time pacing back and forth in the room.
I'd used the time to try to piece together what was happening and how it was possible, but the more questions I asked the more answers she gave me that only led to more questions.
"It's impossible," I muttered under my breath as she approached me slowly with the tray in her hands.
"I do not know what you mean." She watched me carefully as she set the tray down in front of me, but her eyes remained unreadable.
"This village is a sanctuary for those who are lost between two worlds."
I frowned at her explanation, but it made no sense to me at all.
"What do you mean?"
"You are not in California anymore."
She said the words as if they explained everything, but they only left me feeling more confused than ever before.
"I know that," I said through clenched teeth.
"But I don't understand how it's possible."
"It is not possible at all," she agreed.
I nodded, relieved that we were finally in agreement.
I couldn't be in Samoa, not when the only way to get here was by plane, and the only way to get to California was by boat, so how could I have gotten from one place to the other without having any memory of the journey?
It didn't make any sense.
"It must be a dream," I muttered under my breath.
The woman who stood before me was far too real to be a figment of my imagination, but that didn't mean that she wasn't.
I'd never experienced a dream like this one before, but there was always a first time for everything.
If only there was some way to prove it one way or the other.
Or maybe I was just delusional.
Maybe I'd hit my head and this was all some elaborate hallucination.
I reached up, pressing my palm against the back of my head as if that would somehow make the pain go away, but it did nothing to stop the throbbing ache that echoed inside my skull.
How had this happened?
What had happened to me?
The last thing I remembered was going to bed in my apartment, safe and sound with nothing to worry about.
Everything else was a blur.
Had someone attacked me and brought me here?
Leilani stared at me for a long moment before turning away and disappearing into another room.
I'd hoped that would mean the end of our conversation, but it was only the beginning.
"You were found on the beach," she called out to me after several moments of silence.
"The sun was high in the sky and the tide was coming in when we found you there."
I frowned at her words but didn't respond.
I couldn't remember how I'd gotten there, but this woman was giving me more information than anyone else had so far.
The least I could do was listen to what she had to say.
"It's not uncommon for people to come here," she continued.
"Many people have found our village and some have even been able to go back to their world."
I stared at her as if she'd grown another head.
"What do you mean go back to their world?"
"Exactly what I said."
She returned with a bowl of soup in her hands, offering it to me after setting the tray on the table in front of us.
"You think you can send me back?" The words came out more harshly than I'd intended, but my mind was spinning too quickly for me to keep up with my thoughts.
She nodded, taking a step back from me as if my anger could somehow harm her.
"Tui Masina has done exactly that in the past and he will be able to help you as well."
"And who is Tui Masina?"
This was all too much for me and my head couldn't keep up with my thoughts.
The only thing that mattered right now was finding some way out of this nightmare and returning to my own world.
