It was like waking up. It was his neighborhood, the lot, the fire just embers. Bright, a bright day, the sky a blue white. But it didn't hurt his eyes. In fact, nothing hurt.

Johnny marveled at that. Though only 16 years old he had lived in a lot of pain. Physical pain from the beatings which started around the time he was 12. He'd had broken bones that never healed right, concussions, black and blues. Once his father had punched his upper arms so hard that it caused the bones to bleed, and Johnny had stared in awe at the bruises. They were black. Black. He'd never seen anything like it.

And mentally he was in a lot of pain. Wanting love and affection from his parents but he was beaten or ignored. And the social class caste system he found himself in, classified as a no good greaser, hoodlum, trouble maker, jumped by socs, ignored and given up on by teachers. Looked at suspiciously by cops, by middle class housewives. And this view they had wasn't so far from his own. He felt like he was worthless and heading for a dead end future of poverty and drinking.

But that pain was gone. He could remember it but couldn't feel it.

"Hi, Johnny,"

Johnny spun around. The soft voice, so comforting, so familiar. So different from his mother's silence or her shrill way of yelling at him.

Ponyboy's mom.

"Mrs…uh, Mrs. Curtis," The sky was still that white blue and everything was bright, bright.

Mrs. Curtis. She had been so nice to him, one of the few adults who had been. She was pretty, her hair a golden blond, her eyes blue like Darry's.

Johnny felt happy to see her but also troubled. He hadn't seen her in awhile and there seemed to be some reason why.

And something wasn't right. This was his neighborhood and the lot and everthing seemed in place but things were missing. Where was everybody? No people, no cars, no shouts, no radios or T.V.'s blasting, no kids running around, no punks slouching down, smoking cigarettes and swearing. Where was everybody?

And he didn't feel the same, didn't feel nervous, didn't feel the ache from the last beating, didn't feel the low level of misery he had felt for so long. So long. And the only one here was Mrs. Curtis, and that wasn't right, either.

What the hell was going on?

"Come with me, Johnny," she said in her smooth silky voice, and she watched him attentively, as though wondering if he would go with her or not.

So he followed her, past the eerily quiet houses, the deserted cars. He began to feel that this wasn't his neighborhood despite how it looked. How it appeared. That this may be some sort of illusion, or dream. But if it was a dream he'd had no other like this. He'd never thought so clearly in a dream, never was so aware of himself in a dream.

Mrs. Curtis walked a few feet ahead of him, dressed in a plain blue dress he remembered her wearing before…before something. It was like something was a bit hidden from him, something he had known at one point but then forgot.