Mutasm was in his bed, covered by too many blankets. It was mid-winter and very cold outside. Then again his absolute love of sleeping so insulated didn't help any. Even then the sun’s rays pierced through all the layered blankets and woke him up, unusually strong for this time of the year. He tried covering his face with even more layers, folding the blankets a bit help. But none of it worked, he slowly woke up, wishing the sun would just disappear for a few hrs then come back when he was ready for it. As his mind wandered, he began to think of all the things he had planned for the day, but as he started, he remembered something that made him jump for joy. He had nothing planned! He could just sleep in. Hearing shuffling around his room, he mumbled groggily, hoping that his mother wouldn’t convince him to wake up.

“Mom, close the curtains, please. The sun is somehow hitting my eyes. I don't have class today. Let me sleep in,” Today was one of the best days of the year for Mutasm. It was Labor Day! One of the few days he had a break from both his university classes and work. It was also one of the only days he could just sleep and be a couch potato the entire time.

His mom began shuffling off towards his feet, not speaking. An unusual occurrence if there ever was one. Of everyone Mutasm had ever met, none held a candle to how much his mother could ramble on for. She could go on forever.

Why would she be so quiet? He asked himself, hoping it would stimulate his sleepy brain.

Under the cover of his blankets, he opened his eyes in alarm. There was only one situation where his mother would not speak to him. And it was one he was quite familiar with. Oh, he was in big trouble. For what exactly he did not know. But he was in enormous, humongous, mountainous, gigantic trouble nevertheless.

"M...Mom, I am sorry! I don't know what I did, but I won't do it again. Just... Just don't be upset. You're never supposed to be upset. Mom?" He called out in hopes to get her to respond. If she didn’t then she would be waiting for him in the kitchen, preparing the one weapon any mom would use to get a point across. She would guilt trip him into submission. But more importantly, she would be upset at him. He could never stand seeing her frown. His mother was never supposed to frown.

She was the bright sunshine that lit up the entire house. Without her, the world was a dark and dull place. He had lived by himself in a dorm for a semester during his freshman year. It was one of the worst semesters he had ever experienced. Without his mom's wonderful personality, the dorm and everything in it was almost depressing. That semester he had his lowest GPA since he was in middle school (a three point one). After that, he vowed to never upset his mother, or live in a dorm again. Unless of course, he could find someone he could fall in love with, then he would need to find his own house.

Curling into a ball under his blankets, he was willing to try anything, no matter how underhanded it may have been to get her to break the quiet trance she had gotten into. And he would be shameless about it! He knew that calling her Ms. Incredible always had her speaking again. Or at least grunting irritably, instead of the silent treatment she was currently giving him. It was like magic. You say it once, and ‘boom’ she would be trying her best to hold back her shining smile.

"Ms. Incredible, I plead guilty. Just speak to me." He waited for a while, but the only thing he heard was silence and the rustling of branches.

Then it clicked, coming crashing down like a meteorite. They found his Organic Chemistry midterm exams. The worst grade he could have possibly gotten in the field he was majoring in. An imaginary chill suddenly assaulted him. His imagination began running wild at how upset his parents would be that he even felt a cold chill. He wondered if his mom had opened the window, but that would have been ridiculous. It was below thirty-degrees Fahrenheit outside.

He brought his blankets even closer to himself, trying to keep the warmth in. Readying himself for his final trump card. His 'Aya did...' trump card, the last one he had to use against his devilish sister. While she had inherited mothers amazing smile, she was a master of pranks and tricks. That once beautiful smile becomes devious when she wears it.

"Aya beat up Tom -- her classmate -- at school again!" He blurted out, hoping against all hope that it would work.

Crickets, that was all he got in return. No, literally, he heard crickets singing their usual song. That was weird, almost as weird as his mother's awkward silence. There should be no cricket songs in winter; at least not in Michigan. They should be hiding in their crevices to stay away from the cold.

It was then that he felt it in his bones. There was something wrong, so terribly wrong. Mutasm was afraid to look, worried that he might see what he thought was happening. But he had to make sure this was not some elaborate prank his father and sister were pulling on him. Last time they had him thinking it was the day of his finals. He had almost broken down crying. He put all his hopes of getting a passing grade in Organic Chemistry in that final examination.

Throwing off his many blankets from his face, he tried to look at his surroundings but was assaulted with two unfamiliar experiences at once. The first was the incredibly bright sunlight that caused him a glare, unable to see he covered his eyes and rapidly blinked. The second was the cold his room was never supposed to feel like. He gathered the many blankets around his shoulders to stave off the chilly winds all the while doing his best to get used to the light. Once he could finally see again, he stared at the unexpected. He looked, only to find himself on his bed in a meadow surrounded by many old and weathered trees. They looked rotten to the core (dead for decades). The meadow itself was filled gnarled bushes and plants, only a circle of grass surrounding his bed seemed to be alive.

“This is not how my room is supposed to look!” Screaming in denial, his mind became a maelstrom of fears and worries. Millions of stray thoughts flew into his mind of all the possibilities and probabilities. Of how likely he had been kidnapped, or an alien spaceship teleported him to the Amazon Forest. But it all seemed impossible, more so considering he had fancied himself a survivalist.

He had gone out camping multiple times a year with his father ever since he was ten years old. His father taught him how to survive in certain environments by himself as a coming of age thing. He learned how to trap animals of various sizes, of edible plants and those that are poisonous, and by the time he was eighteen, his father taught him how to build a cabin within the woods. But, as he looked around now, every plant and tree he looked at was completely unfamiliar. Slowly his vision started to clear a bit more, making the gnarled bushes and trees to look more alive. But, that did not mean that made anything better at all. Instead, they were warped, twisting around each other in an abomination of nature. Each seemed to be trying throttle what stood near it.

Mutasm came to a final realization as he looked around. Maybe, just maybe, he wasn't in his world any longer, but one completely separate from his own.