You hear the voice and some part of you knows that it's coming from a girl who is standing within arm's reach. That part of you seems as far away as her and her voice. It's October and there's a dusting of snow on the ground and the trees are bare.

You're in the ashtray; the courtyard created between the common area and two of the wings of the massive dormitory you live in. The Freshman Ghetto–based on the estimates you've all calculated, there are roughly 650 17-19 year olds living in this H-Shaped building. The spot where you are now is the same one where have forged the majority of the new friendships you have made over the past six weeks or so.

You and Mandi have sat out here drunk at high noon on nearly every Tuesday. You have enthusiastically greeted everyone returning from class until the sun has gone down or you have been invited to one room or another to get high or have another beer. You are the girl who knows everyone's name and people marvel at this ability. You are not the weird Nolan here. You are Dahlia or Dahl or Dahlly or Dahllywood. You are "134" (your room number) or the Thing 2 to Mandi's Thing 1 or that chick who knows everyone. It felt good until right now. Now, you don't want to be out here, because everyone wants to talk to you.

Your eyes are focused on one of the bare trees. There was a freezing rain before the snow started and the twigs are coated in ice. You can hear them twitching in the wind, like brushes on a snare drum. The orange glow of the artificial lighting along the wide asphalt walking paths catches on the branches. Focusing on that combats the anxiety that's pooling in your gut. They won't let you, though.

Her name is Erin. You're not certain if she's really so close her nose is about to touch yours or its just the too-much-psilocybin coursing through your veins. There had been three of you, four if you counted the guy tagging along with Becca but not participating. Though none of you admitted it was the first time you had dabbled in hallucinogens, your combined miscalculations make that much clear.

You'd purchased a quarter ounce of dry tan things streaked with veins the shade of the night sky. The three of you split the first eighth three ways and waited, sipping on beers. When you still felt sober thirty minutes later, you split the second. Unfamiliar with the slow ramp up, unaware that the strange lightness in your limbs wasn't the beer at all. That was an hour ago, or maybe six, possibly longer or shorter. You're not entirely clear on how time operates anymore, or if it's even important. Or if any of this is important. You ponder whether the breakdown in your spatial reasoning is somehow related to this breakdown in time. You wonder when you wandered away from your cohorts, but it's a fleeting thought. You'll find one another when and if you're meant to, and you're pretty sure that one of them is currently possessed by the devil.

"Really? What's it like? Are you seeing shit?"

Erin's voice breaks through, but the thought of responding is too overwhelming. There are too many things inside you that have to cooperate to give words an intelligble form and they're that much more difficult to rally and control when you have no interest in the subject matter. The girl who's announced your condition laughs. Her name is Jessa, but that seems irrelevant right now. Names in general. Calling things something specific doesn't seem to matter in an existence this vast. "I think she's tripping balls. We came out here for a smoke but she forgot hers upstairs, you got one?"

"She doesn't smoke butts." Your own voice is so much quieter, so much further away than either of theirs. It's because you've sent it to them. There's more laughter.

"She's right." Erin is smiling. You've never seen her with anything but that giant grin. "We're coming back from a walk. Just so ya know, we bumped into Mac and Sully and they're headed in this direction."

Mac and Sully are the Vermont State Troopers assigned to your dorm. No campus rent-a-cops here. They are friendly and kind. They pull your door shut when they see the beers on your desk and walk in the opposite direction when you are smoking a blunt in the ashtray. They chat with you when you're drunk and on at least one occasion have walked you a full half-mile back to your dorm room while you were zigging and zagging back from one fraternity or another. You like Mac and Sully, but the mention of their names now sends you into a panic. They will know and this will end poorly. Suddenly, four pairs of eyes are on your and every face is concerned. Did you say something? You didn't hear it.

You turn and walk inside. The dorm was built some time in the late 70s or early 80s and it bears all the marks of brutalism. Flourescent lights that shimmer and bounce off lineoleum and painted cinder blocks. The hallway expands and contracts. You are Alice following instructions on Drink Me tags, growing and shrinking, the fire doors that lead to the stairwell first within reach and then so far that you feel like you'll never get to them, let alone through them. You stop in the small half kitchen to vomit in the sink and all you can think of is that you are so full of sin your body had to purge it. There is a flash of tan and green you know is one of the State Troopers and your heart thumps. You set off again, trying to run. Uncertain as to whether you're doing it. All the way to Jessa's room. A dash towards the only place that registers as a refuge. You will regret it soon.

Her room is like the party light section at Spencer's. Colored lights, lamps that pulse and spin, black light posters and empty jack daniels bottles filled with water and broken highlighters. She turns on every last one of them, grinning as she explains how cool they'll look right now. Unaware that right now the backs of your hands are covered in a grid pattern of bare trees the color of broken blood vessels. She adds pulsing electronica to the mix and you can feel wet tears on your cheeks. "I need to hide. They saw me. They're going to find me."

She shrugs towards her bed and you crawl in, wrapping yourself in layers of blankets. Curled into the fetal position with eyes closed you race out of yourself, out of the building, off the Earth and into deep fields of stars. Lifetimes pass before you poke your head out. "Am I still here?" An earnest question because somewhere in all of it you became uncertain of whether you were still an entity separate and apart from what you traveled through, and then uncertain of whether you had ever been an entity separate and apart from it.

"I can see you, but maybe I'm just in your head."