And then one day, she awakens in the pink sands, her bed nowhere in sight, the sun hanging low in the sky over her. She is alone in the desert with nothing but the black one-piece dress she went to bed in.

The sun beats down, startlingly bright.

SHE IS HALLUCINATING AGAIN FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK

The pink sands stay, unmoved. 

Okay, she should call 911. Where is her phone.

She reaches into her dress pocket and pulls out her phone. 

She feels lucid, but then, she always used to too, even while she was confusedly texting sloths to her family from hospital.

She doesn't have a signal.

She punches in 911 anyway and hits the call button. 

It doesn't go through.

Oh come on, that's not supposed to happen at all. 911 service should work so long as her phone has batteries, which it sure seems to have.

She sits down on the sand and lays her phone in her lap. 

Experimentally, she picks up a handful of the sand and lets it trail through her fingers. 

It appears to be entirely normal sand, albeit a shocking shade of pink.

... A skeptical look appears on her face. 

This is a step beyond even her worst hallucinations. She saw patterns or hallucinated magical sensations, but she was never able to interact with anything she hallucinated. It was all in her head. Delusion. When they locked her in a small room for observation she was still able to figure out she was in a room with four walls and a door and a bed. 

Something very weird is happening.

She's starting to feel kind of hot, wearing black under the hot desert sun.

... this is just like in her dreams, though...

She sits on the sand, crosses her arms, and thinks. 

It's pretty damn hot. 

If this is real, she's in a survival situation. 

If it's not, then she needs to get help. 

The calculus seems to indicate she should start walking.

She gets up, picks a direction, and walks. 

Something in the back of her mind twinges. 

You can move faster than that, it says. Just do this.

OH GREAT MYSTERIOUS KNOWLEDGE THAT'S NEVER GONE POORLY FOR HER

She sits down and tries not to have a panic attack. It mostly works. 

Okay. Okay she is going to poke the thing.

She pokes it. 

She flings out, bounces off something, and lands — elsewhere. 

There is an oasis in the distance.

Did she just teleport?

Oh, okay, she's just lucid dreaming. Cool. That fits all the available evidence more or less. 

In that case she would like to teleport to the side of that oasis.

She appears by the side of the waters, and her reflection gleams up at her from the water's surface.

She's never seen her reflection in a dream before. 

Come to think of it, there's no sensory blindness like she usually has in dreams either. She feels like she's awake. 

... She sits down by the shore of the oasis, scoops up a double handful of water, and drinks.

It is the best thing she has ever tasted. There are notes of strawberry and chocolate to it, delicious and sweet, but as it slips down her throat and pools in her stomach it fills her with deep, abiding pleasure, like she was stimulating herself but emanating from her core in every direction. 

She feels stronger, more vital, more whole. Less ashamed.

And then a sudden wave surges up from the side of the oasis and knocks her on her side. The water flows over her, clinging like gel, pressing in, clinging, grabbing at her body like a lover, groping her, caressing her. She swallows another mouthful by reflex, and even more pleasure blooms inside her —

Get OFF, water elemental slime —

She shoves her hand into the creature and pushes, some long-forgotten bedroom instinct awakening, and something streams out of her into the water, a part of her, a wellspring of herself —

And then she grabs, somehow getting a firm hold on the creature despite the fact that it's made of water, and her fingers move in a curving motion, stroking instinctually —

She is somehow in a sex fight with a water elemental, and even weirder still, she seems to be winning.

The water thrashes, writhes, and then stills, suddenly compliant. 

It seems like she has managed to put the water into subspace. 

This is the weirdest fucking experience she has ever had. And she's still really, really horny thanks to the water. She hasn't gotten off. 

... She is going to refrain from continuing to fuck the water elemental.

Eva takes a deep breath, lets go of the water, and steps away, still painfully aroused. 

"Okay, what the fuck is going on? Are you sentient?"

The water just sort of sloshes a bit.

Okay, she probably should have expected that. 

She has... water of extremely dubious nature. She will not die in the next couple days probably. So long as the water elemental does not mind her drinking it. She has the feeling it the opposite of minds. 

She looks around at the trees by the oasis. 

... Ten to one the fruit's an aphrodisiac too. And maybe a lure for some kind of pitcher plant. 

She wishes she could just go home.

That thought produces a subtle sense of direction in her mind. 

Inwards, it seems to say.