I opened my eyes with a start, breathing heavily, my pyjamas drenched in sweat. I must have had a nightmare, I told myself. But as my eyes came into focus, cold fear gripped my belly – I realised I had no idea where I was; my nightmare was real. Where was my lower bunk bed and my pink bedspread? Why wasn’t my sister sleeping soundly above me? Why couldn’t I hear my parents making breakfast downstairs? I scrambled from the king-size bed I’d woken up in, frantically looking around the room for something I recognised, some clues as to how I got there. Had I been kidnapped?

Cautiously, I walked out of the room into a hallway, hoping to move into a state of recognition. I called out, but the voice bouncing off the walls didn’t sound like me. Troubled and disorientated, I opened a door into a bathroom. While the room was unfamiliar, what shocked me to my core was the face staring back at me from the mirror. It was me, but an old version of me, a version fast-forwarded in time. I was 15, yet I had an adult’s face – laughter lines, crow’s feet, dark circles under my eyes, which were now welling up with tears.