Vibrant reds and golds swam through your vision just beyond your closed eyelids, the low, late afternoon filtering through like a dream, or perhaps a nightmare. You hadn't decided which yet.

The scent of pine needles and dirt surrounds you, pressing coolly against your senses as you sprawled across the old wicker bench that adorned your family home's back porch.

It was summer now, but the long fingers of fall were beginning to stretch their way into the air, cooling the nights and tinging the edges of leaves with brown and yellow.

You dozed lazily, half way between dreaming and waking, floating in your own mind as the sounds of the surrounding woods drifted through one ear and out the other.

This was true bliss, truly nothingness and truly everything all at once, and when you opened your eyes just a crack, just enough to warp the world around you to a fuzzy kaleidoscope of shapes and colors, you saw a familiar haze of grey just at the edges of your slitted vision.

You might have stayed this way for a few minutes, hours, days, you weren't really aware, and wouldn't have much cared if you were. You could have happily stayed that way forever too, but such things were apparently not to be.

"{Y/N}!"

And just like that, the illusion of other worldliness fell away, bringing you back into harsh clarity of your surroundings. A small wrinkle formed between your brows as you attempted to ignore the insistent calls. Closing your eyes again, you slowly slid your legs up, pulling your knees in as if you could become some sort of flesh cocoon. Perhaps if you waited it out long enough, the calling would stop.

With a creak and a slam, your mother came through the screened in back door, hair tugged back in a ponytail at the nape of her neck, brow furrowed with the usual mix of irritation and concern. She only frowned harder when she saw you curled up with your eyes closed.

"{Y/N}, honestly you spend more time sleeping than you do awake!" You thought that was likely an over exaggeration, but didn't argue the point. Instead you languidly sat yourself up, stretching like a cat before peering at her expectantly. Whatever she had come out here wanting however must have been forgotten, because she continued her fussing.

"You're a young woman now, surely you have something better to do! Why don't you go spend time with your friends, or help around the house? Anything but lazing around all day!" After this point you began slowly zoning her out- you'd heard all this before so there wasn't any real point in listening. You knew she only went on these tirades because she was concerned for you, and didn't know how else to express it outside of berating. You imagined this was how she herself was raised, considering your grandfather had been stern and emotionally stunted, god rest his soul.

But she was a busy, get-up-and-go kind of woman, always rushed and bustling. You had never felt this kind of innate urgency to always be doing something with yourself, and besides sleeping was so much better than being awake. Dreams were fantastic, real life held no appeal for you.

And so you drifted through your mind again as your mother carried on.