The Annihilation of Foreverland

was the best week of his life.
    That was summer camp. He remembered! The memory was whole again. It was him.
    A small man with a badge on his belt put his hand on Danny’s shoulder and walked him up wide concrete steps that led to big wooden doors.
    He had done something seriously wrong. He and some friends got caught writing computer code and hacking into websites. They did it as a goof, didn’t think they’d get caught. And if they did, they were only seven or eight years old at the time. What were they going to do, put them in prison? They were kids. But the men and women waiting for Danny inside the wooden doors wore FBI t-shirts.
    The needle was bringing back his memories. He felt more like himself.
    There were sounds. It was distant, as if coming through a long pipe stuffed with towels. At first, it didn’t sound like much, but then it took form. It sounded more like… laughter. The kind that comes from a playground.
    He tried to swim towards it, but he was just floating, just listening. But it got louder. Words were popping up, now and then. They seemed to be running past him.
    “Danny Boy!” It was right in front of him, just on the other side of the darkness. On the other side… of… his eyelids?
    “I knew it,” the voice said. “He ain’t worth crap and in the middle of the field. Someone get him out of the way!”
    There were footsteps. More voices. Some very far away, others going past him. Someone was nearby, out of breath from running.
    “This is Danny Boy.”
    Zin! He’s right there, just out of reach.
    “That’s him?” There was a girl with him. A girl. Colors swirled in the dark when Danny had the thought. “I thought you said he was some big deal,” she said. “He’s barely old enough to be here.”
    “Yeah, well you never saw him in the game room. The kid’s some kind of prodigy with the computer sticks in his hands. I mean, there are kids on the island that have been here longer than me that aren’t half as good as Danny Boy.”
    “Video games?” She sighed. “Seriously, who cares, Zin?”
    “You want to help me move him, Sandy?”
    The darkness shifted. Danny had a sense of the ground below him, the open sky above. Zin hooked his arms under Danny’s armpits and Sandy took his feet. He felt the jostling of their footsteps. The breeze whistled past him and the grass was soft on his cheek when they put him down.
    “Zin!” Sid called. “Don’t get lost, I want you at the sundial when it hits noon, you got it?”
    “Aye—aye, Capitan!”
    “You’re not really going to play that game again, are you?” the girl said.
    “Naaaaaw.”
    “Seriously, Zin. We don’t know how many rounds we have together and you’re going to waste time gaming?”
    And they went back and forth. Danny imagined the wry smile on Zin’s face, what he usually looked like when he lied right in your face but still made you laugh. The image looked so clear and vivid, like he was looking right at it. Then he heard someone laugh.
    Zin and Sandy were quiet. There was laughter again, and this time he felt it.
    It was him.
    “Danny Boy! Holy crap, did I tell you this kid was a winner, Sandy?”
    Zin was very close, his voice soft but loud.
    “Open your eyes, kid. Get here, man. Get al l the way inside ?”
    Danny didn’t know how to open his eyes. It was like telling a quadriplegic to move his legs when he didn’t even know where they were. But then he felt pressure from the outside and recognized his face. There were hands on him. Once he knew where his cheeks were, he followed the pattern to his eyes.
    They opened with a crunch, like years of sleep were crusted on his eyelids. There were blurs of color. A few blinks and smudges merged into a face. Zin was inches away, a big smile warping his lips .
    “Danny Boy, you did it, man. You went fully lucid on your first round. How about that?” Zin looked back at Sandy . “Did I tell you? Who goes lucid on the first round? No one does, that’s who. No one except Danny Boy. Freaking all the way inside on his first round.”
    Danny felt a smile on the inside, but he was still completely numb. His eyelids were already too heavy to keep open. Zin lightly slapped him.
    “Not yet, don’t go to sleep yet.”
    “Let him go down, Zinny,” Sandy said. “He’s not going to be able to move and I want to spend some time with you. The clock is ticking.”
    “I know, baby. I know. I just want to keep him lucid as long as possible. That will make the