Imagination vs. Reality [Prologue]

Imagination vs. Reality [Prologue]

It started out as a normal day. About as normal as normal could get. It was fieldtrip day, and I was with my friends, laughing and walking through the park. We were having some meaningless conversation about potatoes or something. Whatever it was, it had me laughing my head off. I remember my best friend, Emily, mentioning that I was going to laugh myself into a coma, but I wrote her off as crazy. Martha, the brainiac of our group, ran up to one of the trees and began screaming that she had found a mint tree.
It was then the my best friend asked the fatal question; the harmless nine words that changed my life forever. If she had known the whirlwind of events that it managed to throw me into, I doubt that she ever would have asked it.
“I wonder if it tastes like the ice cream.”
Everyone began to giggle, and several conversations sprung up suddenly. Many were daring each other to lick one or chew one of the leaves and things of the like, always followed by squeals of “NO!”
Then Rachel turned to me and asked the second life-changing question. Part two; mistake numero dos. “Hey Kendra, I dare you to eat one.”
She knew me too well; knew that I would accept any dare, no matter how stupid or how insanely and utterly dangerous. Well, as long as it didn’t involve drug use, sex, suicide, homicide, or anything of that persuasion. Things that were too insanely stupid for even me to do. Only absolute idiots got themselves involved with that, not that my friends would ever, ever dare me to do such a thing. They weren’t like that.
“Fine. I’ll eat the stupid leaf.” I replied with a roll of my eyes and a sigh. Of course, at the time, it seemed harmless. These things always do.
I walked up, plucked a leaf off of the tree, and looked at Martha. She made no move to stop me, and had no reason that I knew of to want me in the hospital or dead, so I popped it into my mouth and started chewing. After a moment, I swallowed it. Very anti-climactic, I realize, especially considering everyone else was still quiet, like they were waiting for me to hack it back up.
The silence was unnerving, and I knew it wouldn’t end until I ended it. “Hmm… good, but it doesn’t taste anything like the ice cream.” Actually, I had never had the ice cream because my mom was deadly allergic to mint, but I’d had mint toothpaste and figured that they tasted about the same.
Everyone burst out laughing and we began back along the trail. I started to feel a little lightheaded, but I could still converse naturally. I noticed that my tongue was feeling funny, and talking became difficult, but I didn’t think much of it.
Slowly, I began to feel distant, like I was watching myself laugh and talk with my friends, and everything blurred together. I couldn’t really tell what was going on, but somehow I was managing to carry on a conversation.
The last thing I heard was Emily, “Um… Kendra, are you okay? You don’t look so good.”
I felt myself smack into something wet and cold, then everything went black.