A short story called Hourglass

This was the weirdest thing that had ever happened to Cam. It’s not every day you see - hold up. I’m getting ahead of myself. We need to start from the beginning. Otherwise, you wouldn’t understand the story. It all started on Cam’s 13th birthday. He was really tired, and decided he needed some fresh air, so he went outside and laid on the grass in his backyard, where he slowly fell asleep. Cam woke up feeling strangely refreshed a couple of minutes later. He could just vaguely feel the soft grass underneath his fingertips. He ran a hand through his sandy blond hair. Even that feeling felt vague and strange, like he wasn’t exactly there in the moment. He stood up, and suddenly had the desire to go for the woods in his backyard, though desire is an understatement. It was more of an urgency, an absolute need to get into the woods. So he went into the woods, walking straight without a thought in the world. After about ten minutes of walking, he came across a ginormous hourglass. It was on a large golden frame, with purple and blue sand spilling from the top half into the bottom half. Woah, Cam thought. He pulled out his phone to take a picture to show his friends later, but his phone immediately flew out of his hands and phased through the glass of the hourglass, landing in the bottom half. “No!” Cam cried, pounding on the glass. But all he could do was watch helplessly as his phone was buried in the ominous purple and blue sand, which seemed to give off a soft sort of glow, as though it were lit from inside. Cam sat bolt upright, in his backyard where he had fallen asleep. His first reaction was confusion, then relief. It had just been a dream. He checked his pocket, but his phone wasn’t there. “What?” he muttered to himself, spinning in a full circle. He was back to being confused. Where was his phone? The next day, Cam went back into his backyard and fell asleep again, hoping that falling back asleep in the same place would bring him back to the dream. And indeed it did, though this time it felt extremely real. This time, he could very much feel the grass under his fingertips, very much feel his hands in his hair, and very much feel the pull of the woods. He stood up again, following the tug from the woods, the hourglass. This time, it didn’t take very long for Cam to find his hourglass. Before he knew it, it was right in front of him. The sand was suspended in the top this time, and his phone in the bottom. Cam placed his hand on the smooth, hard glass of the bottom half of the hourglass. Suddenly, his hand sunk through the glass. Cam started to panic. What was happening to him? He tried to pull his arm out of the glass, but it was stuck fast. The rest of his body started to sink into the glass, no matter how hard he tried to escape. He fought and pulled and yanked, but it was all in vain. Soon he was fully trapped in the hourglass. “HELP!” Cam screamed, not really expecting someone to hear him. He pounded on the glass, but no one was there to help. Cam grabbed his phone and put it in his left pocket, and that was when the sand started to fall. It trickled through the small gap, but it quickly came up to his ankles. Panicking, he threw himself against the glass wall. The sand was up to his knees now. He threw himself against the glass again, harder this time. A crack appeared, webbing its way up the hourglass. With the last of his strength, he threw himself at the glass one last time. It shattered into a thousand glittering shards, the sand spilling out everywhere. Cam fell out and landed on his butt, scooted away from the hourglass, then sat there until his body recovered from the shock of what had just happened. When he came to, he scooped up a handful of sand and put it in his right pocket for no honest reason. He ran out of the woods, trying to get back to the real world as soon as possible. Laying down on the grass in his backyard, he quickly fell asleep despite the excitement of the past few minutes. When Cam woke up, he was a bit discombobulated. He ran his hands through his hair, and felt something grainy. He pulled his hands away from his hair. Grains of sand stuck to his fingers. purple and blue sand. Cam checked both pockets. In his left was his phone; he was grateful for that. In his right was a handful of the same purple and blue sand that had been in his hair. He stood up and ran for the woods in the direction he had run in his dreams. What he found there was the shattered remains of a giant hourglass, along with purple and blue sand that was glowing faintly, as though lit from inside.