She gazed at the first item on the list. That was something she knew was troubling them both. They were both exhaust by the end of the day and simply had no energy for it. Her husband refused her and she refused him. She hadn’t even seen him naked in four months. Maybe that one is a huge problem.

She sank to the floor, eyes teary.  She watched the ripples on the river, looking at her reflection silently. Is this overcomable? She kept asking herself. 

She wandered further into the park, trying to take her mind off the predicament. There must be something we can do. 

There were always options, she told herself. She could get two jobs so they would no longer argue about money. She could start playing videogames again. She could look into treatments for infertility. She could force herself to make love to her husband. 

Force myself… she wondered to herself. Why am I using such awful language to describe it? We used to have sex there to four times a week.

She blushed just thinking about it. Why doesn't it sound appealing to me anymore?

She thought about it, and thought deeply. She knew and trusted her husband so well at first, she knew she could never have a bad night with him. 

But then it hit her. 

I don't know who my husband is anymore. 

At first, he had been quiet, sweet, shy. He was a hard worker, and a generous man. She didn't know if he was still those things, because they always fought when they could find time to talk. 

She stood up determinedly, intending to go talk with her husband. Upon marching back to her car, a bright light flashed in her eyes. She spun around.

A dandelion, glowing with blue fire pulsed brightly, and then floated behind a nearby house. She watched in awe, wondering what was making it glow. As if hypnotized, she followed the dandelion. 

Behind the house, she saw it floating high on the breeze. Eldora saw it float into a nearby forest. She quickened her pace, feeling that the dandelion somehow had the solution to all her problems. She ran into the forest, leaving behind her suburban dreamland. 

The forest was painted blue from the light of the dandelion. She felt like she was walking into somethjng that was truer than reality.

She saw something yellow glowing in the distance, and was inexplicably drawn toward it. 

The necklace around her neck began floating, drawn by the yellow thing. She heard voices calling her toward the portal, and was unable to keep herself from walking toward it. 

All thoughts and feelings left her as she came to a halt before the portal. For a fraction of a second, she remembered who she was and what she was doing. She had an impulse that she wanted to dash back–to stay with her husband no matter what–but her voice said without her permission, "Golin Jaku Fairlo." and a hand dragged her through the portal. 

***

When she came to, she came face-to-face with an odd creature. The look of it startled her to wakefulness. She crawled away from it in alarm.

The creature was white-faced with black eyes and no sclera to be found. It was completely bald, seven-feet-tall, and had long, sharp-nailed fingers. She gasped in shock. “Wh-what are you? Where am I?”

The monster said something in a guttural language that she couldn’t understand. She shook her head. “I-I don’t…” 

The monster turned to the two monsters of the same type beside it and grumbled something to them. Before she knew it, the monsters were clamping manacles on her wrists. “Wait! Please! I promise I’m harmless! Let me go home!”

The monsters ignored her and hauled her outside of the dank, dingy prison they had been holding her in. Outside, she looked around curiously. There was odd vegetation–purple bushes and yellow succulents–that surrounded the small prison. There were no cars, no skyscrapers, and no houses of concrete. 

What is this? Am I in some sort of kingdom? She wondered. 

A caravan rolled up the dirt road, and stopped before her. She was roughly shoved inside. She blushed profusely. She was shoved into a caravan with six other naked creatures. Some of them were birdlike, others were hunched, turtle-like creatures with giant shells and wrinkly skin, and still others were frog-like creatures–green and ribbiting wildly in their own language as the caravan cruised onward. 

She looked down. This is a dream. I can wake myself up. She pinched herself.

She sweated profusely. She wasn’t waking up. Maybe I just have to let the dream play out, and then I’ll wake up?

The other creatures in the caravan looked at her curiously. They whispered about her. She looked away, cheeks red. 

She looked out the window of the caravan. There was miles and miles of odd vegetation, including a tree whose trunk was made of fur and leaves were made of eyes. She blinked rapidly, but the tree was out of her line of sight soon enough. 

Eventually, the caravan drove into a city. Her eyes widened as the wheels grinded against cobblestone. The buildings in the city had pagoda roofs, straw roofs, and cobblestone roofs. She was driven to the center of town, where creatures were gathered around a wooden platform. She and the other creatures in the caravan were shoved out of the caravan. Her clothes were ripped off by the pale creatures driving the caravan, and she was shoved up on stage. 

Her vision spun, and she nearly fainted.