Free 08 Illusion by Frank Peretti

double exposure, or more like a double location , two places sitting right on top of each other. Three aspens with white-striped trunks and quaking green leaves stood in the community area—she could see them through the wall.
    It was all so lovely and so much what she wanted to see that she was captivated, not frightened. She lay there quietly, motionless for several minutes, just watching the grass wave in the breeze and the robins, blue jays, and finches flit about in search of worms and wild seeds.
    The vision faded. The blue sky surrendered to the white ceiling, the grass faded from the nurses’ station; the white fence and the white-striped aspens dissolved as the walls of her room became solid … almost. Maybe it was Mandy’s eyes not used to the darker room after being “outside,” but everything in the room looked dimmer, and the edges of things—the edge of the doorway, the edge of the counter at the nurses’ station, the edges of Tina, the nurse now standing there—were shimmering, as if Mandy were watching them through little heat waves.
    Things sounded different too, muffled, as if she had her hands over her ears, which she didn’t, with a low, rumbly hum like a big appliance whirring away somewhere deep under the floor. And there was a smell—pungent, like singed hair, like something burning. She crinkled her nose.
    Trying to relax and not look weird in any way, she sat up and swung her feet down to the floor. The floor was cold linoleum, but now it felt soft and warm, as if her feet had come to rest on a thin, fuzzy carpet. Looking down, she marveled at how the floor gave a little under her feet, as if it had turned to rubber.
    She looked fine, not dim, not wavering. The edges of her legs, arms, and feet were sharp and clear, and stood out in stark relief against everything else. So she was there, but everything else was only sort of there.
    Well. Maybe this was good news. Maybe it meant she was real and the room, Tina at the counter, the hospital—and Dr. Lorenzo and Dr. Angela and Bernadette and the tables and chairs and pills and yucky sandwiches and scrubs—might not be.
    She could live with that.
    But she’d better be careful.
    She reached for her slippers—they looked like they were submerged under weak, wavy tea, so she reached just an inch at a time until she actually touched them. They were soft and spongy, but didn’t dissolve her hand or zap her with a lightning bolt. She took hold of one and it blinked on, crisp and clear, as real as she was. The other slipper did the same. She slipped them onto her feet and, looking casual, rose from the bed. The doorframe gave under the pressure of her hand, warping like an image in a fun house mirror. She withdrew her hand, and it wobbled back into shape again. Nurse Tina kept working behind the counter and didn’t look up. Mandy waved at her, smiling.
    Tina didn’t seem to notice.
    Nurse Baines jostled behind the counter, digging out some charts and looking like she hated it. The nurses’ station was shimmering like a mirage, and so was Nurse Baines.
    Well, Nurse Baines was no game player, no sir. If there was one way to find out for sure … She had to hurry, before she woke up and the dream was over.
    She didn’t rush but she did stride briskly up to the counter. “Nurse Baines?”
    Nurse Baines looked at Tina and asked, “What happened to Forsythe?”
    “Who?” Tina asked.
    That was a perfect response to make Nurse Baines angry. “For. Sythe. The chart I asked for?”
    “I asked Carol to make a copy.”
    Mandy jumped in place. She waved a little wave.
    Well, Nurse Baines could have been ignoring her.
    “Nurse Baines!” Mandy called.
    “Well, you see this?” Nurse Baines slapped a red filing folder on the counter. “When you get that copy, it goes in here and the folder goes back on the shelf—under F. We clear?”
    “Yes, ma’am!”
    The electronic lock whirred and the big double doors swung open. Clive, from billing, came in