Genre: Fantasy

Plot:Waking up in a parallel world after an accident.

Words to use: Helix, sign, amnesia, curse, drug, evolution, portal, tunnel, optical, illusion, magic, travel, magnet, electric, duplicate.

The waves at Ocean beach were large that day. The sky was a bright blue and the winds were moderate. Like most days. I was sitting on my surfboard, enjoying my time off from work. Work can be a cursesometimes. The waves are my drug. It was something about being on the vast ocean and riding the waves that calmed my soul. Anything else was nothing in comparison for me. You couldn’t duplicate the feeling for anything else for me. I would travel anywhere for a special wave event, it was a like a magnet with a paperclip. Irresistible. Life was pretty special as it was in my opinion. 

Doing what I love was fraught with danger though. We all know the risks but until something actually happens, it is on the back of your mind if at all. That is what happened to me. An unexpected turn of events. A near death experience. I just remember lying on my back in the warm sand of the beach looking up and seeing a sign, a helix, then a portal opened up before me. Was this an optical illusion from lack of oxygen or magic? 

Suddenly I was falling through a tunnel. I hit the beach and rolled a a few times before coming to a full stop, a bit dazed and confused.  I looked around, expecting people to be wondering what had just happened, which was happened but these were not people. This seemed to be the result of evolution going a totally different way. There were standing lizards, in wet suits. A family of turtles were sitting on beach chairs under umbrellas having a picnic. A rabbit was running down the beach with a kite trying to make it fly. As I was trying to get my bearings, I noticed many of the creatures turn toward me and stared in wonder. Like I was an alien. I could hear some gasps at surprise. And a tiny voice from the turtle family I heard say, “Mommy can I keep it?” 

“What is going on?” I muttered to myself. “Where am I?” 

Then it felt like electric shocks were traveling through my body. It made me shake and fall back to the ground. I jolted upright and I was back where I was, on the beach, in my wet suit with people standing around looking at me with concern.

I was quite happy to be awake and alive. I didn’t remember what happened. I had suffered with amnesia after the incident. It took many years to bring back the memories of my life before the accident. I was afraid of the water now. Whenever I would get near it I started to panic. I brought back hidden memories of trauma. 

At the end of my last session with my therapist, we were finally able to relocate some memories and I could deal with them. Now I was finally able to remember most things, good and bad and extraordinary, I saw something that made me do a double take. Was that a lizard tongue that protruded from her mouth or was it my mind playing tricks on me again?