“What have I done?” I think aloud in absolute shock. My voice is raspy, my body a leaf in autumn, shaking as it ventures to keep grasp on a withered tree. My eyes dart around the mess of the hotel room I am left in, although I can barely see through the wavy curtain of tears forming in my eyes and the dimness of the cracked light swinging from the ceiling. I hear metal grate against glass as it settles. Why don’t I know what I’m doing until it’s done? I walk blindly into the abyss of life with no control.

The worst part is, I don’t even know what I’m mad at. I feel like a small child having a tantrum over nothing at all. That word, child, hangs in my mind like a scarecrow to its condemning post, and suddenly I am hit with a sharp pang of sadness. I remember a story my mother used to read to me before I fell asleep every night. The story was one of her favorites that she had brought with her when she moved her life to France. My mother was English, and had met my father on a trip across France in her early twenties. They had fallen in love and even after she went back to England, they wrote to each other every month. On my mother’s birthday my father had scraped together enough money to come and visit her. On his trip to see her, he proposed. She resolved to come back to France and live with my father in the small house they had bought in Dinan.

The book she read was an English story about a young girl who falls down a rabbit hole. She meets deranged and wonderful new friends, my favorite, a large blue caterpillar. He just sits and smokes his pipe, lets life work itself out. He often gives sarcastic and confusing advice. Even then, he becomes the wisest of them all, or maybe he always was. When the girl finally comes back out of the hole, no one believes her magical stories; they sentence her as insane.

The reason I loved this story was that the girl and I were always so alike. There is only one difference between her and I; I really am mad as a hatter, I see things that aren’t there at all. I never came back out of the rabbit hole.

I am scared, I can feel it all slipping away, my mind a soapy child sliding from mother’s hands. The feathery fragments of the room fall into the fissures of the hotel and I am empty. Now all I can do is wait for reality to be a long forgotten memory and for my life to once more become the cirque.

Gradually a faint light illuminates pale azure curtains on every side of me and a quiet plucking of a harpsichord reaches my ears. “Why didn’t you come visit me sooner?” a melodic, eloquent voice teases,“I’ve missed my little boy,” Marian floats out from behind one of the draped curtains, her soft feet barely skimming the black and white checkerboard floor.

“I’m sorry. I wanted to see you, really, I did,” I say, my eyes on the tiled ground, “I just… didn’t want to come back here.”

“Ma chérie, you are much too good for this life. How did I become lucky enough to be your mother?” Marian says, tilting my chin up to look at her, a bubbly laugh escaping her full, coral lips. She brings me into a warm hug, her body curled around me. Her lustrous cotton candy pink hair falls onto my face, tickling my ears. I feel safe again.

I never liked my real parents… well that’s not quite true. I loved them - thought I loved them. But Marian is different, she loves me for who I am, and would never do anything to hurt me or my sister. Marian can be immature and narcissistic, but then again, how can my hallucinatory mind conjure a perfect being?  

“Freed?” My sister calls from thin air, “Is that you?” She cannot see me, her body non-existent, her mind and voice the only presence she possesses.

“Yes, Phoebe. I am home finally,” I whisper, pulling away from Marian’s comforting embrace, my cheeks damp.

“I’ve missed you, Freed!” Phoebe almost shouts with glee, “I’m glad you’re home again.” Home. Oh, how I’ve longed to hear that word.

“Me too,” I say, my sister’s soft voice echoing in my eardrums.

“My, you’ve grown,” Marian marvels as she holds my bony shoulders at arm’s length. A smile spreads across her pink cheeks as she picks me up and sails through the room. The space is dotted with plush couches, mirrors, and the occasional velvet upholstered chair, surrounded with curtains the color of the sky on a cloudless day, a replacement for walls. Marian’s abode always smells of cocktails and fresh rain, and somewhere, faraway sounding and faint, yet always persisting, a harpsichord is playing itself.

Marian finally sets me down on a warm carpet next to a soft bed. “I can tell you’re exhausted,” Marian says gently, her voice only a whisper, “Here, you can sleep now.” I pad over to my resting place and slide into the bed, pulling the comfort of the soft blankets over myself as Marian takes a seat near my feet.

“Let me tuck you in like my parents used to do for me,” she says soothingly, lovingly caressing my cheek. She smoothes out the blankets and hugs me one last time for the night.

“I hope you sleep well. See you tomorrow, ma chérie.” she calls over her shoulder as she glides away.

“Goodnight,” I can barely manage to let that one word escape my mouth as my eyelids grow heavy. The last sound I hear is the plucking of the harpsichord playing a lullaby. I wish it could have always stayed like that, but sooner or later, everything always changes.

My biological mother was always so sweet and adoring of my sister and me when we were small children, my memories full of bright smiles and warm hugs, but as we grew older I started noticing differences. At first I just thought maybe she was getting sick, had a headache or a fever, but when it persisted I started to wonder. It was just little things, maybe I accidently broken one of her mirrors, or my sister had refused to eat her dinner, but mother would just crack. She soon started yelling and scolding us all the time. Something else had changed too, Phoebe seemed a little sadder now. She used to laugh and play games with me, but now she always said she was too busy or too tired.

    One day I found Phoebe playing in her room, at first it seemed like nothing out of the ordinary, but as I looked closer through the opening in her door, I noticed bruises dotting her arms. When I brought it up, she hastily explained that she had tripped and fallen while she had been running around outside with her friends, and pulled her sweater closer over her skinny arms. But I knew that she was never outside, and she had no friends whom she would have be playing with.

At first I dismissed it, maybe I was just paranoid, but that hadn’t been all. More and more I started noticing her mood getting worse, getting sadder, and her seeming to get hurt more often than usual. In contrast, my mother got angrier and seemingly more displeased with my sister and me.

    I just could not let it go anymore when one day I found Phoebe huddled in a corner, crying. I didn’t ask her, for I knew all I would get out of her was a lie coated with fear. My mother was abusing Phoebe, I was sure of it. My mother had gone crazy after my father’s death and took it out out on her. I needed to do something. I was too afraid to stand up to my mother, fearing what she would do to me, but I couldn’t just let Phoebe get hurt like this.

    I wandered shakily over to the kitchen. Checking to make sure my mother was out, I slid the top drawer of our faded oak cabinets open. I rummaged around, trying to make the scraping of metal against metal as inaudible as possible, until I found what I was looking for. I pulled out the old, heavy kitchen knife. I held it up to the light, still not completely aware of what I was doing. Was this the right way? No, it was the only way.

I tried to steady my swaying body on the wall as I trudged over to my sister’s door, suddenly feeling dizzy, my head spinning.  I held the knife behind my back. The door creaked as it opened and I tread into her small room speckled with pastel blankets and porcelain dolls. “Hi, Freed! Oh - What’s wrong?” Phoebe asked, she could see the peril in my face.

“Forgive me, Phoebe,” I choked as salty tears gathered in my eyes.   

“Well of course, but what have you done? What did you-Free-!” My little sister cried in horror as I plunged the shiny metal knife I had been holding into her chest. “W-why Freed?” Phoebe choked, her voice thick with blood. It was only when her pink floral shirt began to soak with scarlet blood, that I fully realized the weight of what I had done. I hugged her one last time before I let go as her lifeless body slumped to the ground.

    Speechless and horrified, I raised both of my quivering, bloodied hands to cover my wide-open mouth, the knife falling to the ground. “I-I’m sorry, Phoebe… I’m sorry!” I screamed, my voice hoarse with guilt. Streams of tears were already running down my cheeks. Then I ran. I knew that the consequences for my actions would be the same fate as my sister would have been given by my mother. My mother would never love me again. I needed to get as far away as I could from my home. I sprinted through the front door, not thinking enough to grab my belongings. I didn’t have time to think. I darted down the corner of our little street in Dinan, the quiet avenue that I had known all my life. I didn’t even know where I was going.

There is a heavy knock on the outside of my hotel room. The faded metal door steadily creaks open and white light floods the small dark space. It takes my eyes time to adjust. “Monsieur, can you go with her while we clean this?”A short, stout lady with tangled, carob brown hair asks, motioning to another lady next to her. The other lady is tall and lanky, her face full of sharp features. They wear long white coats. Strange attire for a maid.

I nervously look around at the mess I have made. “Uh… Sure. I, uh, I can’t find my key,” I stammer, “I want to go out, but I think I need another room key.”

“Excuse me, monsieur? We don’t give keys to the patients,” she says, looking confused. Patients? What is she talking about?

“Pardon?” I have no idea what she means, I can’t remember anything like that when I have stayed in a hotel before.

“I’m sorry, we don’t let you go out unless the doctor gives permission.” What? I don’t understand. What doctor is she referring to? I am at a hotel.

“Excuse me, I. . .what do you mean?” I persist.

She turns to the other maid. “Laci, which one is he?” she calls as she points a pudgy finger in my direction.

The lanky lady stares at me and then back to the clipboard in her hand. “Oh, he's Freed Meurtrier. The schizophrenic kid who killed his sister, you know the one.”

I feel as though I am watching the world through a greasy glass window pane, all I can see is wavy figures in muted color, but nothing concrete. “Hey, Freed!” The first woman calls to me, clearly starting to get annoyed with me, “You need to get out so we can clean the mess you have made.”

My mind is whirling, I am starting to feel dizzy and nauseous. I cannot take it all in, my vision starts to become spotty. “This is why I hate working at an asylum, I should've taken the job at that old restaurant when I had the chance,” one says.

“I’m just counting down the days until retirement,” another says. I am not sure who said what, both voices have started to sound the same. That is the last thing I can hear before I am completely unconscious.

Until now I have always thought I liked the book my mother used to read to me because I was so much like Alice, but the truth is, I always wished to be the blue caterpillar. I always thought I knew more than everyone else, but I was so completely erroneous. I have been living in a world of lies, forever. I will forever be stuck dans le trou de lapin. 

The cemetery was rather quiet at the moment. All you could hear were the dying leaves on dying trees and the occasional car rumble past. I was staring at the slab of stone with her name engraved on it. I kicked at the firm dirt I was standing on and took a drag of my cigarette. I held it inside me until my lungs burned more than they usually did. I just stood there, staring. As I kicked the dirt, butts of my cigarettes from the other days became uncovered. I moved my eyes off the grave to look around this hell hole. When I visited, I didn’t cry anymore, I just felt the pain and tried not to think about it that much.

I looked behind me at my aunts old car. It was parked where it always was, right under the big maple tree. She sat inside, her bulging stomach and thighs sort of spilling out over the seat. The passenger door was open. I dropped my cigarette into the pile of the others and walked over to the car, my hands were tucked into the back pockets of my tight jeans.  

I sat down onto the stained polyester seat with cigarette burn holes covering it like a pattern it came with. I slammed the door shut loudly to wake her. Her eyes opened abruptly. Her raspy voice was deep and would be startling to someone who wasn’t familiar with it.

“Anais” She coughed loudly “hand me a cigarette.”

I flipped open the box of Marlboros, pulled out a cigarette and lit it for her.

She started the engine and grabbed the tobacco out of my hand.

Her breathing was loud and deep.

The old car shuttered as it made its way down the pothole filled road. I shifted my body weight from side to side in my seat as the car went in and out of ruts.

I reached into my back pocket and grasped my phone. My dirty white headphones were coiled around the device waiting for me to unravel them and listen to something.

I don’t exactly remember when the last time I went to school was, but I knew I didn’t want to go back, not without her. I also didn’t exactly remember when the last time I had seen my parents was, but I knew they didn’t want me back. Maybe I didn’t want them back either. I didn’t want any of that back. The town, the house, the school, the cats, the death.

The death; October 15th. She was my sister, she was my best friend.

I remember waking up with her to in the mornings. Waking up, but not actually minding being awake like I do now. She had the top bunk. She would climb down the creaky wooden ladder, flip on the lights and sneak down stairs to start a pot of water. She’d wake up the twins and our parents.

I guess I really did miss the twins. Lilly and Arthur. They were still in nursery when my parents moved away and took the two with them. I had been driven down the road, taken a left on Jefferson street and planted at my aunt’s house. I didn’t remember if they were in year 2 or 3 now. I just tried not to think about it, not to feel.

We were almost back to my aunts crappy little house. We didn’t fit in where we lived. We never talked to our neighbors anyways though, it didn’t really matter. As we pulled into the driveway the old cat that lingered around, skittered out from under a bush. My aunt swore

“Fucking old son of a bitch cat why can’t the old thing die already?”

It wasn’t like my aunt took care of the cat or did anything for it. Why did she care that it still hung around? I looked out of the window as the old car shuttered to a stop, slightly bumping into the bushes. Margaret moaned and pulled herself out of the car. I waited until she unlocked the front door and went inside, then I got out. As I let the car door slam, I saw my pale face reflecting from the window. My eyebrows were thick but angled nicely and my eyes were like blue almonds. My hair was always strung up into a ponytail, but it was long enough that putting it in a ponytail didn’t do much to keep it out of my way. My natural hair was chestnut brown, but the ends were still a little bleached out from the sun. I was exceptionally short. My height was actually something I really liked about myself. I was quite skinny as well. For one, I never have been someone who ate a whole lot, but last year I was in and out of the hospital for anorexia.

My aunt didn’t seem to care about me most of the time. She never asked how I was doing, but I knew she was trying her with all she had. Maybe all she had wasn’t a ton, but it was something. She was the one who kept admitting me to the hospital. She would sit at the table and watch me eat. Sometimes things would show up for me like a new jacket from the Salvation Army or a pack of pencils at the beginning of the school year. She hadn’t wanted kids in the first place. There were no “thank you’s” or “you’re welcomes” or “I’m sorries” in our relationship, but we got along alright. We were all each other had, and we both knew that. There was a mutual hatred of life, and a mutual, unspoken of, appreciation of the little that we did have.

I made my way inside now. I heard the TV playing loudly in the living room. I tossed my phone onto the table and went to my room. Clothes were scattered around the floor. My mom would have yelled at me to pick them up, but I wouldn’t have listened.

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I walked along the small pieces of gravel. The souls of my feet burned as the rocks indented my skin. I felt the wind start to blow harder, my hair began to fly, I pinned it down with my cold, shaking hand. I smelled cigarette smoke and no hope. I felt the warm cigarette in my hand and I took a drag of it slowly, letting the smoke rest in my cheeks for a moment before letting it out. My view was now fogged by the gray smoke in front of me. I could hear the wind, picking up speed then slowing back down once again. I could hear my breaths; in out, in out, in out. I squeezed my toes together as my feet started to walk on concrete now. I was almost home, almost back to where Margaret was probably asleep on the couch. I let my too long sleeves drop over my hands, the cigarette sticking out of my fingers, grasping it tightly. The sleeves were worn and stained. They felt soft on my dry hands, though. I felt a shiver roll down my spine quickly; I kept walking.

Nights were my thinking hours. Nights were when the demons came out from the shadows and choked me with my own mind. I reached into my back pocket and grasped the slip of paper I had been keeping in there. The paper was flexible and had been crumpled and uncrumpled many times. I unfolded it, my heart beat a bit faster. My handwriting was scrawled across the paper. Messy, and uneven, the letters tilting just slightly to the right. This is what I did. I wrote letters that I would never send to someone, the pile of them just built up in my room, concealed under my bed.

I felt my eyes become watery. I couldn’t remember the last time I had cried, I wasn’t prepared for this. I wiped my eyes with my sleeves, letting the cigarette drop to the ground. My whole body shook, I sat down on the sidewalk with my legs crossed like they make you do it in nursery school. The taste of tears in my mouth seemed to drown out the taste of smoke. My hair was half covering my face. I felt numb and lifeless, I couldn’t seem to stand up and leave. I hear sirens in behind me and I looked down at my cracked phone. 2:38 AM.

Sometimes I go out at night, not to meet anybody or steal anything, just to walk and smoke. It was calming to me. At night there is a different side to this world. No one is awake unless they want or need to be, and anyone who is up doesn’t bother you to ask you questions or talk to you, because they know that you’re only up if you want or need to be. Like everything else in this world, there is an unspoken language. A language for people roaming at night. But you never saw anyone else at night, even if you knew they were there. You felt incongruous with the rest of the world.

Like I said, nights were my thinking hours, and I had finally made up my mind.

I am sorry.

I tied the rope like it was delicate lace. My thin fingers twisting it around itself. I never wore dresses, but today I was. With black tights and my mom’s old ring. I looked at myself in the mirror ahead of me. I really was beautiful. I could see it now. I could see it, but it didn’t matter. I smiled at myself as I took my place, standing on the chair. I placed the thick rope around my neck, still keeping eye contact with myself. I closed my eyes letting my head finally fill with emotions. I felt a tear slip down my cheek. I let it dangle at the bottom of my chin, tension welling up. I looked down at my feet, closing my eyes. “Thank you Auntie” I whispered to myself.

I was chillin’ in my home like I usually do on Friday nights. I was listening to my favorite music and playing my favorite video game. The rest of my family was already asleep, so they wouldn't care if I stayed up late. I was alone in my room, kept awake by adrenaline and energy drinks. I turned the music up. Then everything went black.

01

I sat up in my bed, my alarm beeping loudly on my nightstand. It was 6:30 in the morning, and it was a Monday. I had just been dreaming. I had to face the sad reality of going back to school. I got up and shut off the alarm when my cat came up to me and meowed impatiently. I went out to the kitchen to make myself breakfast when I saw a note my mom had left me.

“Had to leave early. Please feed cats,” it said. I groaned and got out a can of the same old slop my cats ate every day. I woke up my kitten with the sound of the can opening, and before I knew it, I had a little feline halfway up my leg. “Down,” I said, but it only climbed higher. It jumped up onto the counter and snatched the open can. The kitten passed it down to the older cat, and the two started eating right out of the can. I decided that that was good enough, and made my way to the bus stop.

At the stop, the bus went through a huge puddle and soaked my backpack and pants. My high-tech case kept my phone safe, but the rest of me was sopping wet. It was too late to go home and change because the bus had already arrived; I would just have to deal with it. As I got on the bus, I thought that my backpack seemed a bit light. Climbing the steep, slippery stairs was easier than ever. I looked inside to see if everything was inside, in the right place, and everything was there – except my binder, which contained everything I needed for school.

“Stop the bus!” I shouted. “I need to get off!” I yelled even louder, but the ever-oblivious driver didn’t pay attention. I sighed. This was going to be a rough day.

At school, my homeroom teacher marked me late, even though it was really the bus driver’s fault. The bus got stuck in an easily avoidable pothole. He was a cranky old man, so maybe he just wanted everyone to be late. “Okay, class,” said my teacher, Mrs. Mackletoe in her shrill, nasal voice. “You all know about the no-electronics rule here at school, right?”

“Yes,” the class murmured.

“And do you know what I found after school yesterday?” The class didn’t say anything, dreading the consequence of what would come next. “I found a portable video game system,” she said, holding up a Pintendo SD of some sort, “right next to Kermit’s desk!” I jumped in my seat. Yep, that’s my name, and I’m stuck with it. “And,” she said, “there was a game cartridge inserted into the device with a game that is not age appropriate!” She turned to me. “Is there something you have to say for yourself?” she asked me.

“I don’t know what happened here!” I said. “I don’t know how it got there!”

My teacher said, “Well, how else could it have gotten there?”

“Maybe it fell out of someone’s backpack!”

“Kermit, I expect better of you! Why can’t you just own up to your mistakes?”

“I swear, I didn’t do it!” I shouted. “My parents only let me play Super Dario and Sports World, and that’s it!”

The teacher handed me the pink slip. “Detention,” she said slowly, “NOW.”

I sighed, stood up, and walked toward the door.

“Take this back home with you,” she said, holding out the game system. “If I hear from ANYONE that you were using this in school, it gets confiscated, and you get an in-school suspension.”

I shouldn’t have to describe detention or the rest of the school day in general. There was a small food fight in the cafeteria, but that happens almost every day. The bus ride home, though, was something different.

02

“Whatcha got there?” Cornelius, the school annoyance, had gotten to me just as I had sat down and taken the SD out of my backpack. I usually sat in the very back row, and Cornelius always followed me. “None of your business,” I said, and moved closer to the front. Cornelius watched me walk down the aisle, glaring at me as he slowly sat back down. I turned on the SD. Whoever had been playing this game was in the middle of a battle. I tried to move around, but nothing happened. They were viewing a screenshot of Duty’s Call IV. “Ugh,” I groaned. I hate overrated games. I pressed the home button and scrolled around in the menu a bit until I found the real game. “Kitten Simulator?” I thought aloud. “Mrs. Mackletoe is such a sucker!”

“I’M TELLING!” shouted Cornelius, right into my ear. I jumped in my seat and turned around. He had silently followed me and was sprinting to the back of the bus - but I caught him just in time. I held him by the collar of his shirt. “You can’t stop me now!” he said.

“Sure I can,” I said, unzipping his backpack. “But only if you don’t want to keep your ‘secret’ gum stash.” I held the brown paper bag above his head, just out of reach of his short arms. He was practically addicted to gum, and none of the school’s teachers allowed it.

Cornelius gasped. “Give it back!” he shouted. “Now!”

“Do you promise not to tell?” I asked.

“Yes. Now GIVE IT BACK!” Cornelius shouted at me. His face was turning red, and he was starting to cry.

“OK,” I said. “But if you tell ANYONE about what I said, I will tell EVERYONE about your stash of gum.” He nodded his head. He ripped open the bag, and in a few seconds, his mouth was bulging with gum. I saw my stop coming, and I sighed. I would have to lock myself in my room at night if I didn’t want to get caught with an SD. My parents thought most video games were “bad for my brain.”

“JONES PARK!” the bus driver shouted. I, along with a few other students, made my way down the aisle and past the same cranky old man. I stepped down the steep, slippery stairs and began my daily walk home.

03

Getting off, I noticed the same old stuff at the park: people walking on paved pathways, toddlers playing on a small playground, high schoolers in a rough soccer match. I was just turning onto my block when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. I turned around, and I immediately saw two words: “SPECIAL OFFER.” As I came up closer, I read the sign: “REWARD OFFERED for RARE VIDEO GAMES: Trade GAMES for MONEY at 1614 Redwood Drive. Reward depends on condition and rarity of game.” I immediately jotted down the information on a pocket-size notepad, then ran home as fast as I could.

When I got home, I dashed to my basement and turned on the computer. I immediately searched the information I had gathered online and came to a very basic website with information on the prices for different games. I immediately noticed high prices at the top: Super Dario for SEN (1976) - $1485 mint condition. As the games got more recent and more common, prices started to drop: Duty’s Call I for SP Original (1988) listed for $208 when unused. I kept looking through the list, scrolling endlessly, but my heart sank when I reached the bottom: Kitten Simulator for Pintendo SD (2004) - $2 mint condition. I groaned and slumped in my seat. What was the point in selling a game for two dollars? It seemed like a scam to me.

“What are you doing?” My mom had silently sneaked down the stairs and had caught me on the computer. I wasn’t allowed to use it without her permission and for no more than 30 minutes a day.

“Just looking at prices for video games,” I responded calmly. “I was interested in making a little money.”

“And WHERE might you be getting these games from?” she pressed.

I went silent for a few seconds. “I’m not getting them from anywhere…” I said without confidence. I couldn’t think of a good explanation.

My mom looked slightly annoyed as she walked back upstairs. “Don’t stay on there for too much longer,” she shouted down the stairwell.

I immediately closed the browser window and shut down the computer. I had some homework to do anyway so I couldn’t forget about that. I went up to my room and started on a math worksheet.

04

It was 10:13 PM, and I had kept the SD hidden for the whole day. I turned it on and saw an indicator flashing on the side of the device: low battery. I disregarded this warning and launched Kitten Simulator. After a long load screen, some text appeared. “This game does not save automatically,” it said. After a few seconds, it moved on to the menu screen, and I selected “new game.” At first, nothing happened. Then, I started to tingle. The room seemed to grow at a slow but steady pace. I looked down at myself and noticed that I was growing a thick layer of fur and I was shrinking inside my clothes. Then, I realized everything: I was the kitten. This game didn’t lie: it really did simulate being a young cat. I crawled out of my shirt and looked at the SD. The screen was showing my point of view! I decided to do a bit of exploring in my new body when I heard something that made me jump.

“Meow.” My cat had sneaked up behind me and had been sizing me up. He walked around and looked at me from all angles before sticking his nose out to sniff me. Then my kitten arrived. He jumped toward me and skidded to a stop before looking at me as if to say, “who are you?”

I tried to explain my situation, but all that came out was “Meow me-meow meow meow.” The cats seemed interested. The older one meowed at me and trotted out of the room. I followed behind him, with the other one running to keep up. They took me to their climbing structure, which looked a lot bigger from my current perspective. They both bounded up a rope-wound pole and jumped onto a high platform. I tried to do the same but fell and landed on my tail. I had forgotten about my claws. I climbed the pole again, this time digging into the rope with my sharp nails. I made my way up to the high platform at a slow pace, taking extra time to coordinate my jumps. Once I reached the two other cats, they each laid down and closed their eyes. I did the same, and before I knew it, I was fast asleep.

05

“KERMIT!” My mom shouted right in my ear. “You’ve overslept! And what’s that in your hand?”

I was in a daze. “What happened here?” I asked tiredly.

“You know perfectly well,” she said. “You have no excuse for what you’ve done!”

I looked over at the clock. It was 7:48 and I had missed the bus. I groaned loudly. I had stayed up playing the game and had fallen asleep in the middle of a game. The SD had run out of battery, and the game had gone unsaved.

“You know you’re not allowed to have a handheld game system,” my mom said. “You’ll have to return it to its owner or donate it to charity.”

“Well,” I said, “I don’t know whose this is, so I’ll drop this off at the Trash’n’Treasure on the way to school. I pass right by there every day.”

My mom walked out of my room. “Get yourself dressed and come get some breakfast,” she said.

I had to break my promise. I already knew where I was going - 1614 Redwood Drive. I walked up to their door and knocked. A fat, middle-aged man answered. “What do you want?” he asked carelessly.

“I heard you sold games?” I asked anxiously.

“Yep, that’s me,” he said. “Follow me inside.”

He lead me into a cluttered room with all sorts of gaming merch and consoles. On one wall, he had a giant shelf of every game you could imagine. “What are you gonna sell?” he asked me.

I held up the SD without much confidence. “How much will you take for this?” I asked.

The man squinted at the device, then took it from me. After a few minutes of inspection, he popped out the Kitten Simulator cartridge and did a small chuckle. “Sorry, but you won’t get much money out of this.”

I started to walk away when I heard him call me back in.

“Hold on,” he said. “Is this an original first-generation Pintendo SD?”

“I don’t know anything about it,” I told him.

“Can you please tell me where you found it?”

“On the classroom floor.”

“Wow,” he said. “Does forty-eight bucks sound good? This is from the first generation of SD devices ever produced! And it’s in mint condition!”

“Okay, sounds good,” I said.

“Also, that’s two extra dollars for Kitten Simulator. That brings you up to fifty. What a deal!” he chirped as he dug around in a desk drawer. “Here’s your money,” he said as he handed me a wad of bills. “Now please move along. I’ve got many more customers to serve.”

I walked out of the house with a smile on my face. School was starting very soon, so I tucked everything into my pocket and dashed away, soon to begin my average school day with a strict teacher, a food fight, and pointless homework assignments.

I woke up. It felt like I had been sleeping on a frozen rock without a blanket. Yet, oddly, I felt a thin, warm softness around me, as if I was wrapped in a cloud. I went back to sleep.

The second time I woke up, it was snowing. I knew this because I could smell it in the air. I opened my eyes and saw I was in a cave. Snow was falling outside. Still half asleep, I blearily wondered why I wasn’t in my bedroom and why I felt so small. I came fully awake, and realized that (1) I had mysteriously been moved to a cave on what appeared to be a mountain and (2) I was a gray cat, and the feeling of warmth I had was from my own fur.

As so often happens when the world is turned upside down, instead of running around and screaming, or fainting, I went into shock. I calmly stepped out of the cave, and saw that indeed I was on a mountain. It was snowing, and the sun was hesitantly peeking through a gap in the clouds, making the snowflakes look as if they were on fire. It was so beautiful, for a moment I entirely forgot about my dilemma and could only stand gaping at the sight before me. However, the glowing snowflakes sparked a memory buried deep inside my subconscious…

The night before, I had said goodnight to my parents and my little sister, and crept into my bed. The sheets were warm and soft,  and I fell asleep in no time. And as I slept, I dreamed.

I was walking down a long, gold walled hallway, in my human form. Little rosy lights floated through the air. When one brushed my arm, it felt cold. I kept going. There was a silver door behind me, and one ahead of me. I urgently felt I needed to open that door, that what lay behind it was of utmost importance. I finally reached the door, and pulled it open. It made no sound, not a single creak. I went through the doorway and into a room. The room had the same gold walls as the hallway, and on a throne in the middle sat a lady. I did not remember what she looked like. All I remembered was the smell of vanilla.

“Welcome, Roxana, said the lady. I wondered how she knew my name. “Kneel down before me”, she commanded. It did not even cross my mind to disobey her. I knelt. The lady spoke one mysterious word, and all the glowing lights that had floated so aimlessly through the hall gathered around me. They were touching my face, my arms, my hair. Their coldness pierced through me, and even though I was screaming in agony, I felt more blissfully alive than ever before… And through the pain, I heard a voice saying, “You have achieved you true form.”

Then the dream ended.

 Of course, if I was in my right mind, I would have dismissed the idea as a sign that I was going crazy. But there was no other explanation. It must have been the mysterious dream lady who turned me into a silver tabby. My only question was how? And… Why?

Now, I had nothing against cats. In fact I was quite fond of them. But actually being a cat was something else altogether. Not to mention being stranded on a rock in the middle of who knows where. And my family…  Lena, my adorable little sister, and my poor, hardworking mother and father - the thought that I would never see them again was terrifying. Suddenly reality came washing over me in a cold, grim, wave. I was a cat. On a remote mountain.

I fainted.

      ✳✳✳

I opened my eyes. I was floating in a vast, starry chasm. I would think it was outer space, but I could still breathe, and the stars looked odd somehow. They seemed smudged, and each slightly varied in color. Then it hit me. I was dreaming. I could hardly contain my excitement. If I was able to control my dream, I might be able to find that mysterious lady and convince her to return me to my human form! Now the only trouble was where to look.

After much thought, I concluded that since this was a dream, if I was meant to find the lady I would. That settled, I experimentally flicked my paws, and flew twenty feet forwards due to the lack of friction. I quickly became used to this odd form of travel, and made for a pink tinted star. I soon came close enough to see that it was not a star at all, but a floating gold palace. It was beautiful, with soaring gold spires and silvery gemstones intricately inlaid within the walls. I went up to the grand silver door and, to my surprise, it swung open on its own. I walked inside.

It was the same hallway from my previous dream. Glowing pink lights floated through the golden walls. When I reached the silver door, I scratched at it. It swung open. I quietly padded into a magnificent room.

The room seemed to be lit by an invisible light source. Unlike the room in my previous dream, the walls were gold like the hallway, but it was a rough, sparkling gold, not like the smooth metallic gold of the hall. In the middle of the room was a throne, formed of the same material as the walls. On the throne was the lady.

She was a cat. A cat with shimmering golden fur and piercing green eyes. I smelled vanilla, and I knew I had found her.

“Why have you returned?” she asked in a voice like liquid silver.

“You’re a cat?!” I rudely answered.

She laughed. “Yes Roxana, I am a cat.

A rosy pink light floated between her pointed ears. I shuddered, remembering the pain they had caused me.

“Why?” I asked. Why did you change me? Why are you a cat?  Why me? I had so many questions. But all I said was, “Why?”

She laughed again. “Cats are animals of the dream world. Do you notice how they are always napping? They cannot be parted from either world for too long. Except for me. I live here, and always will.

I twitched my tail.

“As to why I chose you? Every year, I take a human girl from the waking world to turn her into a cat. I train her in the ways of dreams, and she assists me in the maintenance of this world. Would you like to see the others?”

Without waiting for my answer, she turned and led me out of the throne room. We went out into the same hallway, but this time there were dozens of corridors and doors branching off of it. I reminded myself that this was a dream and it was liable to change. The cat-lady led me off down a long, twisting corridor. I carefully kept a few steps behind her. I had not noticed before, but she was larger than me, larger than any cat I had seen before.

“The cat is then sent to a remote location so that she has no distractions in the waking world. She stays in this world as much as possible, waking only to eat and drink. Often they do not miss their previous lives, as I am careful to choose those who are unhappy.

Was I unhappy? My family had never been rich, but we were happy together-or so I thought. Thinking about my family sent a pang of despair through me. They must have thought I was kidnapped, or had run away.

We finally reached a small doorway. When I stepped inside, I was met with a room full of cats. The room was huge, with walls so high I could barely see the ceiling, and there were cats everywhere. Some seemed to be working, polishing the walls and opening mysterious packages, while others simply chased each other about, or scattered sparkling dust through the air. The feline part of me wanted badly to join them, but I held back and stood in the doorway.

“I want to go back.” The words were out of my mouth before I could think about them.

The cat lady glanced back at me. “That’s what all of them say, at first.” she said. “But you will grow fond of this place, as they all do. Cats were meant for the dream world, and you will be quite comfortable here”.

Before my eyes, a cat flickered and disappeared, probably because she woke up.

“I want to stay with my family! I don’t want to be constantly dreaming!”. That part was not entirely true. In the dream world, I had a sense of belonging that I had not felt anywhere else.

The lady turned and looked straight into my eyes. “Is that the real reason you want to return, Roxana?” she asked.

I nodded vigorously.

She looked at me for a long moment, and I got the feeling that she was searching my mind, stripping me down layer after layer to find the truth.

“How strange,” she said. “I was so certain you came from an unhappy background. However, once one starts down this path, it is near impossible to turn back.

It felt like I was sinking into a bottomless pool, sinking down away from my family, my friends, everything I ever knew.

“But I can make a compromise.”

Those six words brought my hope back to me. “I’ll do anything.” I promised

“You will spend each day with your family, living your life as you did before. But when night comes, your dreams will bring you straight back here, where you will become a cat again and do as I wish.

I was overjoyed. I would still be able to live with my family! And I could not deny that a part of me had loved the dream world, with all its beauty and mystery.

“Thank you so much-”I paused, uncertain of her name

“You can call me the Empress.”

And then once more the glowing lights encircled me. I cried out, expecting pain, but this time I only felt a gentle tingling. Then nothing.

   ✳✳✳

The morning sun broke through my curtains. I groaned, pulling my blanket over my head in a futile attempt to block out the light. I could hear my little sister banging around in the bathroom, and my mother cooking breakfast downstairs.

Then I remembered my dream and sat bolt upright. It had been a dream, hadn’t it?

Only time would tell.

Brightness. Head aching, menacing, blinding white light is how it all began. I remember it like it was yesterday. My heart beating so quickly I could hear it in my own ears, my head whirring. I clenched my hands, trying my best to blink away the fogginess of my awakening. Where the hell am I? I thought. I bring my hand up to my head, slowly sitting up. Something frigid touches my face. I furrow my eyebrows, bringing my hand down from my head and blinking once more to get a proper view of what looks like a ring on my index finger, the thick metal band wrapped around my finger with a small red light shining off of it.

“Welcome, Kalyke.”

Containment ring. After years of being placed in this wretched dome, I soon learned that it was a containment ring for my “special” abilities. All 26 of the children who were brought here have them on their index finger.

“Next,” Deimos growled, his gravelly voice sending a shiver down my spine as my closest friend, Metis, grudgingly walked into the closed off room with Deimos close on his tail.

We’ll be out of here soon, I think to myself, running my thumb across the smooth ring on my finger. I couldn’t help but let my mind wonder to what they will make me do this time. Yesterday, Deimos and his workers (we like to call them minions,) stuck electroencephalogram receptors on my head, watching the graph intently as they ordered me to crush a metallic soda can with my mind.

Yes, with my mind. The special ability I was born with is called omnikinesis, which gives me the ability to manipulate anything and everything.

As I wait for my turn, I go over the plan that I organized in my head.

Rebellion.

As I will enter the room, my containment ring will be temporarily shed from it’s abilities, giving me access to all of my powers. Then, I will be able to take Deimos down with ease. After I finish off Deimos, I will take the remote that controls everyone’s containment rings from his pocket and shut it off. That will be everyone’s cue to strike Deimos’ “minions.”

The door opens, Metis leaving with a hard expression, sending a small nod in my direction. I exhale, balling my hands into fists.

I walk slowly into the room, passing Deimos as he holds the door open for me. My containment ring shines green, signalling it being shut off.

The room is unwelcoming, with dark concrete walls and a small metal table in the center, along with one chair. On the table is a cube-like figure with a black blanket over it. I cringe at the thought of what’s underneath it. I sigh and take a seat, setting my hands on the cool table. I look up, studying Deimos’ features as he stands in the corner, his eyes sunk into his face with drooping skin and his back in a permanent hunch.

“Take the blanket off.” He orders, tapping his foot impatiently. I take the blanket off, not wanting to give away any resentment or signs of rebellion. I inhale sharply, looking at the small mouse in the cage.

“Your task for today is to kill the mouse.”

I’d rather kill you. I think, smirking at the thought. I pretend to focus on the mouse, but instead, channeling my energy towards Deimos. I close my eyes, directing my mind into his body, one by one shutting down his organs. I look up, watching Deimos as he stiffens and places his hand on the wall. I feel a trail of blood seep from my nose, a reoccurring event that happens after I use my powers. I stand up and walk over towards Deimos, watching him as he cripples to the floor.

“Y-you’re… Making a m-mistake Kalyke.” He breaths out.

“You made the biggest mistake when you captured us.” I snarl back. In the back of my mind, I continue to shut off his blood flow to his brain. I hear the door open, most likely one of the minions who were watching the cameras. I look back, throwing whoever it was towards the wall.

“There’s no… g-going… back.” Deimos finishes. I place my mind in his body once more, shutting his heart off completely.

His body runs cold.

I reach into his pocket and grab the remote, pressing the button to shut off the containment rings. Outside of the room, there is commotion and cheers as the rest of the children use their powers to their fullest potential, taking down the minions.

I stagger out of the room, dropping the remote to the floor as I place my hand on the wall for support.

“Kalyke! Kalyke, hey. Can you hear me?” I hear a familiar voice ask, concern flooding their voice.

Pasiphae.

I nod weakly. I exerted too much of my powers at once.

“It’s all being taken care of, Kal. You did well.”

Another voice. Aizea.

I force myself to open my eyes, my head aching as I look around me. Minions all over the floor, the variety of ways they were killed visible. One is wrapped in plants, clearly done by Pasiphae. Another completely frozen over, by the works of Aizea.

Metis walks over with the rest of the kids behind him, a faint smile on his face.

“We did it.” He whispers.

I smile genuinely for the first time.

“We did it!” Pasiphae yells, throwing their fist into the air. They all cheer, but Metis is completely still with his eyes wide open. I furrow my eyebrows, striding over towards Metis.

“Metis? You okay?” I ask, shaking him slightly.

“It’s… It’s not over, Kal.” He whispers, his eyes still wide open.

Metis’ power isn’t harmful. He has the power to sense what happens in the future. Not necessarily predict or see the future, but sense all the different possibilities and events.

Everyone goes quiet, forming a circle around us.

All of a sudden, there is loud, screeching feedback coming from the PA. Everyone immediately reacts, throwing their hands over their ears, one kid instinctively forming a protective shield around us with their powers.

And then, there’s a voice.

“Congratulations,” a female, robotic voice says. “You have passed task one. Rebellion.”

The dome above us unfolds, the roof splitting into two. I hear my peers let out confused noises as we are exposed to a large warehouse.

“Now, onto task two.”

Carter. Carter McCrum, that’s the name. Born 1994. Your average joe, for now.

I was still up, as usual. 2 am, and finishing up my econ essay which I put off until the very last minute. Sipping coffee from my Cornell mug, and typing frantically. My eyes frying from the brightness of my laptop. I was alone in my dorm like most nights, with just the white noise of my small electric fan blowing in my face. My roommate, Mason, always out partying until the morning, but somehow manages to get his work done. For some reason I’m ashamed to admit that I have trouble with my work. I always get it done, but it’s no rollercoaster ride.

I finish. It’s now 7:00 am. I had zero hours of sleep, but like I said that was just another normal night. My first class, political science, started at 9:15, so I had time. I grabbed my towel and somewhat clean clothes sitting on my mattress, and walked down the hall towards the showers.

I took a long shower and almost fell asleep, twice. I got out, and shuffled back to my dorm, I checked my watch. 7:32, it read. I reached my room. 13A. As I went for the knob, the door opened. “Hey Carter, what’s up?” Mason said.

“Oh hey Mason, not much, I just finished up an essay,” I retorted. I didn’t bother asking him about the party or wherever he was last night. He always just does the same thing. He looks away, and says it wasn’t too bad.

“Oh, cool, yeah I’m going to go get a bite to eat across the street, need anything?”

“Nah I’m alright. Thanks though.”

“Yeah okay see you later.”

He left the dorm, and I went back in. Sat in my bunk and laid my head on my pillow, before I knew it, my eyes gently closed, and I was out.

I  awoke an hour later at 8:35. Expecting to be more rested. I felt groggy instead and even more tired. I had a battle between my body and my self esteem. My body won and I closed my eyes for a few moments. Once again at 8:48 I was up, except this time I got of my bunk, slipped my laptop in my backpack, grabbed my wallet and phone, put on my shitty Nikes and headed out. Luckily, my wing of the dorm was right near Goldwin Smith Hall, where my lecture would be held, so I had time.

I strolled through the campus garden, and when I reached the end, I immediately turned left into my favorite part of campus. The cheap little chain restaurants, where I was fit to be. Einstein Bros Bagels it is today, I say to myself. As I walk in, Tony, their manager greets me with a bright smile, which is a bit odd for a bagel place. “Hey Carter, what is it today? Poppyseed toasted with cream cheese?” He asks, or knew.

“Yeah that sounds great,” I reply, trying to say it with enthusiasm.

“What’s wrong Carter?” he says to me.

“Nothing really, but you know it’s just that I’m so close to ending undergrad, and I don’t know if I can do it.”

“Oh don’t worry about that, you’ve already gone through more than three years.”

“Yeah I guess, thanks Tony,” I say.

He hands me the bagel and I start devouring it, because I don’t believe I ate dinner last night. Suddenly my phone rings. For some reason my heart started beating fast. Too fast.

I pick up. “Hel-,” the voice cuts me off.

“4th floor, Goldwin Smith Hall, 3 minutes”

“Who is th-,” I start but the other line hangs up.

I don’t know what the hell just happened, who that was, or why I was apart of it. For some idiotic reason my gut tells me I should go, and at times like this you don’t have time to decide. Tony walks back in, quickly I say goodbye and thank him for the food. I briskly open the door and take a deep breath when I step outside. I look to my left, I see the back entrance to the Goldwin Smith Hall.  

I get walking in the stairwell in front of me. I don’t know what to expect as I get there. I finally dare to look up. Floor #4 the silver plaque reads on the heavy door. Before I go in, I say to myself, Whatever happens Carter, be calm, everything will be alright.

My hand touches the handle, as I start to generate force, opening the door, I feel a sharp monster pain in the back of my head. I fall forward, my forehead hits the wooden floor, and I roll over onto my back. I try to open my eyes, I try my best to open one eye, two large heavyset men dressed in dark clothing grab ahold of my legs and drag me into the room. All of a sudden, a third smaller but heavy man shows a metallic revolver shaped gun, he loads it with a pink dart and aims at me, the dart looks like a tranquilizer, or maybe I say that for just some hope. Some hope that I won’t die. I feel it, it hits me hard, and injects my left shoulder, feeling woozy and nauseous, my eyes close. I’m out. Cold.

“What do we do with him?” A voice says.

“Relax Keith, boss said he’s comin’ soon,” says another, lower voice, but not deep enough to be the one on the phone. I pretend to still be out, thinking it’s the best thing to do. Smartest thing. I now realize I’m strapped in a chair unable to move.“A’ight Glenn I’ll relax, but you gotta watch him for now, I’ll guard the door.”

“Okay, go.”

Eyes still closed, but I can still sense and hear that the third short man, wasn’t here.  There was a knock on the door, and then a click. For  reason, my eyes open. Keith opens the door for the short man who strides in. I can now see he’s wearing a black blazer and black pants. Black shirt. He’s also wearing sunglasses hiding his eyes from me. “Hello Carter, I apologize for being late, I had to take care of some business.” He lets out a scary chuckle and so do Keith and Glenn.

“How do you know me?” I ask, not expecting an answer. He smiles now and says, “Carter, I know everybody.” I don’t answer or understand. He reaches into his back pocket, I cringe anticipating a gun. He reveals a package, an orange package, the kind you got your report card from in elementary. Without saying a word he nods to Keith and Glenn. They understand their boss and unstrap me. I slowly try to stand up, knees weak and stiff. I do eventually stand up, and stand tall, trying not to look intimidated. The boss walks up to me close, his head reaches the bottom of my shoulders. He takes the package and pushes it onto my chest and snarls. My hands reach the package, and I hold it. The boss spits on the floor besides, and snaps his fingers towards Glenn. I believe the second in command. Glenn walks to the door and opens it for his boss, Keith follows, and I’m suddenly alone in the room.

I sit down in the chair I was previously strapped into. Before opening the package, I look up around the room. The 4th floor, doesn’t seem too bad to me, just full of sunflower seeds and old cigarettes. Then I understand, it’s not the room itself, it’s what goes on, and who’s there. I look at the package in my hand, it’s slippery now, from the sweat on my hands. I’m anxious to open it, and to never open it at the same time. Deep down, I do know I’ve been picked for a reason. I have to open it. I take my keys out of my back pocket, and slit the package cover open. As I try to look inside, I’m blinded by the darkness. Instead, I reach my hand in. My hand feels cold silver or maybe steel. I feel more of the object, until I realize the object is curved. I go cold. I realize what I’m feeling. A pistol.

Here I am sitting at my desk, thinking. I reach into my jacket. I take out the orange package, and set it carefully on my desk. Just noticing, that I have to be aware when Mason is coming back from his classes.  

I decide it’s time. Once again, the same hand reaches in the package. I feel it, and a brief shiver takes over my body. I grip the pistol, and take it out of it’s safe package. I set it on my desk. I notice that the envelope still seems fairly heavy. I shake it upside down to see if any remnants fall out. I was correct, a notecard with rushed writing fell out. Clipped to it was a clip for holding together a big bag of chips that has already been opened. But instead, it was holding together a bundle of cash. My eyes widened as I counted the bills. There was $25,000 dollars bills. I Actually thought there should be more, considering there was a gun in the same package. I pick up the note card. I read it in my head.

Hello Carter, I understand you’re not aware of what’s happening. Don’t worry it’s simple, very simple. You must go behind the public library on 9th street at 12:45 am tomorrow, there will be one man sitting on the bench, I’m sure of it. One bullet is loaded in the pistol, if you haven't checked already. You will only need one, just one. You may be thinking to just take the 25K now, and disregard the job, but let me tell you, if you do, I will find you, easily, and you will be forgotten. Forever.

If you do as I say, you will be rewarded with a second package containing 175k. Do what your gut says Carter, and don’t make the wrong decision.

I gulped, I was a hit man. I had done nothing wrong in my life before. One more semester, was that was left, and I would get a job, like an adult. My life would be boring, but normal and simple. It would’ve been perfect. But look where I am, how did I get in this position?

Now, I had to make a decision, but sadly, I already knew what I was going to do. I was going to kill that man. I would kill him. I had no other choice. The unanimous boss said I would be ‘forgotten’ if I didn’t. I couldn’t even imagine that. Even though I’m practically forgotten already, I know I have a family that loves me. The other side of looking at it is that if I really do this. Everyday of my life from there on out, I would have to live with myself knowing I’m a murderer. My decision was made, I will kill him.

I put everything  back in the package except for the money for which I put under my matress. I then sat down, and thought about my decision. The only thing left was tomorrow.

I was awaken by the daylight. Mason was gone. I don’t bother going to classes today, like yesterday. Too much on my mind, with what I had to do today. Kill someone. Those words made me shudder.

The rest of the day zoomed by me. I didn’t talk to anyone. Didn’t do anything, except stroll around campus getting more and more apprehensive and uneasy every minute. I kept snacking, to get everything off my mind. At 12:30 am, I went back up to the dorm to retrieve the pistol. I had plenty of time. 9th street was about only a 10-12 minute walk. I opened the door to my dorm and saw Mason sitting at his desk doing work. He turned around. “Hey Carter where have you been?”

“Oh, I uh I was just out, and I think I might go back actually. I’ve got something to do.”

“Okay, I’m also going to head out,” he said. He put down his pen, and grabbed his jacket. He shut the door behind him. That was too close. Way too close. I opened my bottom desk drawer, and pulled out the gun, out of its safe place. I was slowly running out of time. I put the gun in my jacket and ran out the door. I looked at my watch, now realizing I wasn’t in too much of a rush. I gracefully slowed down.

It was a cold and grim walk to 9th street. I arrived behind the library at 12:43. I had two minutes, and I know everything will be on time. Not early, not late. I hid behind a bush. The one navy blue bench was to the side of me. Empty. It was not occupied yet, but I wasn’t worried. I also knew that I would be able to see them but it would be impossible for the man to see me, due to the street lamp up above.  

At 12:45 on the dot, a young man showed up, and naturally sat down. The gun in my had was getting slippery now, from the sweat of my palms. I finally got a good look at the silhouette. I felt like I recognized him. Then, I shifted over and got a great look at him. There, on the lonesome bench sat my roommate, Mason. What is he doing here? He’s just sitting on the bench doing nothing but staring into the cold darkness of the night. I then remember the gun in my hand, and the reason I’m here. But this changes everything. Everything. The money crept into the back of my mind. I stood up. The demon inside of me was now controlling my body. I didn’t like it, but I was no longer in control. My hand was now lifted higher. My index finger gripped the trigger, and before I had time to think, pressure was put on the pistol. All I heard was the sound of the gunshot. Followed by the horrific noise of Mason screaming in agony and horrid pain. Tears ran down my face as I walked into the darkness of the night, left with the frightening question of, was it worth it?

What the hell have I just done? I thought. What next? I just killed my roommate. My planned out life has been ruined. Terribly ruined, forever.

Carter. Carter McCrum. 22 years years old. And now, a murderer. A cold murderer.

If Only

2/10/2017

Colin

“Over ‘ere!” I shouted as I waved my arms for the frisbee.  That’s exactly what I got.  I blinked and when I opened my eyes, the frisbee was hurtling towards me.   I reached out to snatch it with one hand, but I completely missed. The frisbee flew right into my face, with a hard thwok.  I staggered backward and fell into the cool water of Long Lake.

“You okay?” Seamus said trying to keep the laughter out of his voice.  I struggled to get up, then fell back in the crystal, clear water. I wasn’t sure if it was the pain or the cool breeze giving me goosebumps.

“Yeah, I’m fine.  Who threw that?”  

“Me”, Seamus answered.  He helped me up.  Seamus is a nice kid with dark brown hair.  He is also tall and strong (it was easy to notice this when he pulled me out of the water, effortlessly).  

“Over here”, Mason called like nothing happened.  I wound up my arm to gather strength and chucked the little disk as hard as I could.  Mason is a short kid who has blonde hair and always has a smile on his face.  Not in a creepy way or anythin’.  He can get along with anybody.

Mason snagged the frisbee out of the air and threw it to Hunter.  Hunter is more of a quiet person who is about my height and has brown hair that hangs down to his neck.  

So, I guess you should know a bit about me:  My name is Colin.  I am almost as fast as Seamus and no matter who you are, that should make you proud.  I have freckles and if you like to play lacrosse, you’re my friend.  In fact, all of us play on the same lacrosse team.

Mason

We played frisbee for a while, but then I got to the point where I couldn’t take it any longer.  I had to do something else.  All of a sudden, I blurted out, “Let’s do something else!”  

“Like what?”  Hunter asked.  

Then an idea popped into my head.  “I’ll ask my mom and see if we can go swim out to the islands.”  

My parents had bought this lake house before I was born.  It is large and modern.  And as a bonus, it‘s on Long Lake.  Long Lake is a huge lake in Northern Michigan.  We head up here every other weekend.  There are islands and sandbars and sometimes seaplanes will land.  If we are careful enough, we are often allowed to swim out to one of the islands and explore.

I sprinted up to the house and asked Mom if we could.  “Yes, but be careful,” she replied.  

“Oh, we will.”

Once I got back down, I told the others and we headed out.  

Seamus

When Mason came back down and told us we could go, with his always-enthusiastic voice, I was overjoyed.  If there is one thing I like a lot, it is adventure.  We headed out immediately.  I grabbed a paddle board so that the boats could see us. Then we set off.

The islands looked far away, but the “swim” wasn’t that bad.  Once we got there we tied the board to the dock.  It seemed to be the only sign of man on the island.

The island was basically a forest surrounded by a beach as far as I could tell.  I was the first to step foot on it….

 We walked even further and further into the forest.  We kept walking for another five minutes and no one spoke.

“Hey look!” Hunter said as he pointed to a messy firepit.  There was only a pile of ash with no wall, so I guess it wasn’t much of a pit.  The whole time we had been walking, I was thinking, not listening to the occasional conversation around me.  So when Hunter broke the silence I decided to share my idea.

“Hey guys, let’s have a race.”  

“What do you mean?”  Colin replied.  

“A race from the center of the island back to the house.”

“That sounds dangerous,” Mason stated blankly.  

“That’s what makes it fun,”  Hunter commented.  

Mason

They argued back and forth until I chimed in, “What’s the point when we know Seamus is going to beat us?”  

“I’ll go easy on you guys. Besides I’m a runner with a terrible sense of direction, so I won’t have the advantage. Let’s just do it!”, Seamus answered in a stern, frustrated voice.  

“Ok”, we all agreed wearily.  

We headed to what looked like the center of the island, spun around twenty times with our eyes closed.  We lined up and I bent down with my hands in the cool, moist soil, trying to look like the professional runners do.

In other books, the characters explained how they felt like butterflies were fluttering about in their stomach, well, I always wondered what that feeling was like.  I thought it would be cool but instead, I was experiencing something like nervousness and fear.  I wasn’t really sure why I was scared, but that’s what my gut was tellin’ me.

“Ready”, my muscles tensed.  “Set”, a bead of sweat dripped down my face.  There was no sound except for my pounding heart. “GO!”, Seamus’ voice rang out into the misty air of the forest.    

I sprinted for what felt like two minutes, before fear and panic set in.  I have a survival book at my house, and it says you’ll have a better chance of staying alive in the wild if you stay calm and keep a sharp mind, along with a bunch of other tactics (Not that I should need them). I shivered at the thought.  A swift breeze swept through the trees.

Colin

I sprinted as hard as I could, thrashin’ through the brush that seemed to be getting thicker by the stride.  My legs were scratched and my elbow hurt from tripping and falling over a tree root.  I tried to retrace my steps looking for some sort of familiar sight, but unfortunately, all of it looked too familiar, so I had no idea where I was.  

I….was….lost.  I called out, but to my dismay, there was no answer.  Panic welled up in my chest so I ran.  I ran, ran, ran until my legs gave out.  I crashed down onto the ground.  I laid thoughtlessly in the dirt.  I got up and sat down on a rock in despair.  What if I never got off the island?  Sweat rolled down my face as a sudden pang of hunger struck me.  Worse yet, what if I starved?  I kept telling myself that that would never happen.  Right now, I would’ve preferred to play that boring game of frisbee over this.

If only . . .

Seamus

I was the first to make it back to the house, but I couldn’t see anyone.  Great, now I am Usain Bolt with built-in GPS.  I should’ve felt pleased with myself for winning, but I didn’t.  I felt a gaping hole of worry.  I was so caught up in swimming back that I didn’t even bother to look around.

Ten minutes later, I was thinking “Why didn’t I consider the cons of playing this game?”  Now I had to go up to Mason’s mom and tell her what I’d done (awkward!)

Just as all hope was lost, a tiny figure appeared out of the forest.  It ended up being Mason.  Then Hunter showed up, but no sign of Colin.

We waited and waited but he never came.  Finally, we decided to go tell Mason’s mom.  She didn’t seem mad, just worried, and so we set off on their jet ski to the island.

I frantically jogged up the shore.  “Colin! Colin! Colin! Where are you?!”

A faint voice yelled back “Over here!”  But before I got within 10 feet, Colin came bursting out of the thick brush.  “I’m okay”, He said in an exasperated voice.  “Dude, I’m so glad to see you.”  “Yeah, I thought I’d never get out.”  

What happened, you look really bad?”  

“It’s a long story.”  

“Mason’s mom came over and was overjoyed.  “Finally!” she said ecstatically.   “Let’s just go back to the house and rest for a change.”

Colin

While I was sitting in my sleeping bag that night, I told Seamus the whole story.

Then Mason whispered, “So what do you think of your last day here?”  

“I think it’s the highlight of my vacation,” I replied sarcastically.  I rolled over.  “Yep, definitely the highlight of my vacation….”

I've earned a pocketful of quarters.

“I’m a rich man now,” I tell anyone who will listen. Sometimes I shake my pockets so they can hear the tell-tale clinking of silver pieces. 

“Get yourself a popsicle and a coke,” the landlady tells me. 

“A real haircut,” my brother laughs in my face.

“Go to the zoo,” a man yells from across the street. 

On a hot summer day, I am tracing the curb with a scuffed trainer, fiddling with my pocketful of quarters. They make my pants sag a little, but I suppose all rich men must bear the burden of their wealth.

“Timothy!” A voice whoops from behind me. I turn. It’s my good friend Joey. 

“Yes?”

“Timothy, I’ve heard that you’re a real big deal now! A rich man!” Joey exclaims. He’s already out of breath, but it’s understandable because he is a heavier boy. Perspiration darkens the pits of his shirt, and his moony face is blindingly reflective.

“I guess so,” I say as nonchalantly as I can. I shake my pocket so we both can hear the quarters rattle.

“Well the general store is selling popcorn for a couple cents,” Joey is puffing hot air trying to keep up. 

“What’s it to me?” I taunt. I must admit that I’m being rather snarky, but this new character is intoxicating.

“Hey,” Joey exclaims indignantly, “A real rich man would know how to treat his friends once in a while. You know, have a little fun. You can’t just go around telling everyone you’re rich. You have to show them.”

Joey was always smarter than me, and this time was no exception. 

“Alright, you got me this time.”

We stride up to the store with newfound flourish. Ms. Jones, the cashier, rolls her eyes but manages to tip a nod. Our trip has caused a buzz at the little corner due to Joey’s heavy breathing and the symphonic masterpiece of coins. I slide two bags of popcorn onto the checkout and eye some vanilla wafers hanging behind Ms. Jones. Generally, I wouldn’t have had the nerve to browse by myself. Especially not the wafers. They had just come in from the city. 

“A couple of those too,” I wave my finger, adopting my best blasé attitude. Joey starts and looks admiringly at me. Popcorn is one thing, but wafers? I really am affirming my status.

“Yes, sir.” Ms. Jones isn’t even bothering to control her laughter. I can see every single scraggly tooth in her mouth. 

Joey doesn’t waste any time with the popcorn and has the brilliant, all that’s left is grease and a little bit that fell on the ground. He gropes into one paper bag, comes up with the last dusty piece and pops it in his mouth. 

“Nothing left Tim-oh-thee,” Joey croons in a sing-song voice. 

“We’ll get some movie tickets and then buy another jumbo tub of cheesy popcorn,” I declare, puffing out my chest. Joey looks up at me rapturously.

While credits roll, I am wiping away tears of laughter from my eyes. Joey is wheezing from the effort and claps me on the back. Our hands are sticky of spilt coke and our shirts stained with wafer crumbs and oil spots. And then it is silent. I peer around and see that we are last ones left. Only the faint whistling suggests that the custodian is sweeping up the littered cups. I look back up at the black ceiling. The darkness and soft velour of the seats swallow me whole. 

I wake to a sharp smack on my shoulder. A pair of beady eyes glare down at me, and someone is spitting on my neck. I have a headache and feel a bloated burp forming in my throat.

“You boys sat through another movie without paying,” Beady-eyes hisses. He looks like he is going to throttle me.

“We were asleep!” Joey exclaims, now fully awake. 

“We didn’t even watch the darn thing,” I protest. My temples are throbbing. Beady-Eyes curls his lip and leans in close enough so I can get a good whiff of salty popcorn and fruit punch. He probably mooches off the theater for free goods, I think contemptuously. 

“Listen here,” he snarls like a dog, practically foaming. “I can either call the police, or you can pay right now.” The police? We didn’t break the law, did we? Cold fear seizes me and I nod. Joey contributes a few incomprehensible mewls.

“Alright, how much?” I ask, grimacing. I pat my pocket of quarters. It’s full, but noticeably less so than it was at the start of our adventures. 

The three of us sit hunched in the theater darkness, counting my pretty silver pieces. In one sweep, Beady-Eyes collects a whole handful. 

“That’s it, and get out,” He snaps. I look down, and feel around with my fingers until I find the last standing quarter. Joey is breathing loudly again, hovering over my shoulder. My eyesight is blurred and I feel hot, too hot. 

“Shut up, Joey,” I mutter and hurl the coin into the midnight theater. 

My mother is sitting on our porch step and her fingers are a couple inches from her mouth, like she’s smoking an invisible cigarette. She once told me that she had little habits when she was younger, but I’d never seen those postures in the flesh. Somehow I know she isn’t waiting up for me. 

“Hello,” I say and bend down so I can see her the darkness. Her eyes, lips and face are all drawn in tightly. She looks small and severe in the summery haze. 

“Hello, Timothy,” she sighs. Her lips purse and her eyes are gone, squeezed behind little waves of skin. 

“Wanna split an ice cream cone?” My voice sounds thin. I hop up next to her, waiting for a laugh, a chuckle, maybe even a small exasperated smile. She’d scold, At this hour? You’re insane and grounded! 

“We don’t have ice cream today,” She says quietly. 

“What about a popsicle?” I ask. I swipe at my brow and fiddle with my clothes. The night is pressing in on me, making my shirt stick to my skin. 

“We don’t have popsicles,” She mumbles, resting her head in her hands.

“How about some chips?” I nudge her a little. To my alarm, she almost falls over. 

“There isn’t anything,” she responds, sharper than before. I flinch and my shoulders give in. She murmurs softer this time, “There isn’t anything.”

There is this terrible silence, and air is unbearably stifling. I grapple for something to say, to fill this awful standstill, but my tongue is floundering.

“That’s okay,” I finally manage. My stomach clenches and my head is spinning. Why had I gone with Joey? Why had I spent all my quarters on wafers and popcorn? Why had I gone to the movie theater? Why hadn’t I run home first? I’ve squandered it all. My quarters are gone.  

“I-I’m sorry,” I whisper under my breath. 

“This is anything but your fault sweetheart,” My mother sighs again, its heaviness drowning me. “It’s just a little bump that grown-ups sometimes have to face. And its a grown-up’s job to fix this.”

She looks at me for the first time and blinks. Her eyes are clear obsidian pools.

“You’re just a child.”

On our first train ride home from the American embassy, dad hauled bananas in a plastic bag along with the rest of our dusty, rotting luggage. Even though the only bananas left in the bag were hues of muddy brown or iridescent green, dad was unnerved. He pulled one out triumphantly. The leafy-green banana crunched each time he tried to peel it further.

Crack. Crack. Finally, he managed to pull back the layers until a little peak glimmered back at us. It looked harmless enough. Even though the peel was an unnerving shade of summer grass, the inside was a soothing, pale yellow. Hesitantly, dad took a bite.

Crunch. His face puckered.

I laughed. “Was the banana good?”

His English was far from decent, but his sour facial expression said it all.

***

“We get banana,” mom tugged me towards the bananas isle on the other side of the store.

“NO! NO! NO! I HATE BANANAS!” I shrieked.

She whirled around to grab me harshly by the shoulder.

At this, the small grocery store crowd glanced over with poorly disguised disgust. Cruel whispers flitted about- oh how the tiger mom with poor English was abusing her unfortunate Asian son. They were ignorant whispers about a lack of morals, mean whispers about slant-eyes and spiteful whispers about deportation. They were whispers bursting with stereotypes.

“Shhh.” Mom’s voice softens but cracks as she sets a gentle, trembling hand protectively over my shoulder. “Dad like banana.”

“NO!” I only screamed louder. “I HATE! I HATE! I HATE!”

That was the first time I screamed about bananas. But, it certainly wouldn’t be the last.

***

The last vacation we took before I went off to college, we took a long train ride to New York. Mom, dad, my sister Hannah and I packed our cheap suitcases and squished into the hard, cramped seats. While Hannah and mom were busy sleeping and doing nothing, I slaved away on the newest SAT prep book I could get my hands on.

When I got to the math section, Hannah and mom began to speak loudly in Japanese. I cringed and my pencil scratched the paper. With wide eyes, I glanced around us fearing that the other passengers had noticed.

“SHHH! This is America. Speak English.” I hissed, quoting Bill and the boys.

Hannah eyed me quizzically while mom just looked sad.

“What do you mean big brother,” Hannah replied in Japanese.

I hissed again as my mind flashed back to sophomore year.

Second semester of tenth grade was the first time I’d seen another Asian kid in Kansas. This was kid was Japanese too- I could tell by his name, and the way his eyes were just that much more slanted. He approached me in the lunch line and stuck out his hand.

“Konichiwa,” he greeted kindly, his eyes sparkling with excitement.

But my gaze was gripped with anxiety. My friends- Bill and the boys- were right behind me.

“Hey, this is America, speak English.” Bill snorted closing in behind me. I could feel him breathing down hard onto the nape of my neck.

But, the kid ignored him. “Konichiwa. Genkidesuka,” he said sweetly.

I shook my head slightly to send a warning. Then, I felt Bill’s hot breath next to my ear and I swiveled around to meet his glance- the familiar blue-eyed glare of my best friend. I turned back to look into the foreign, black eyes of a Japanese kid.

That day, I made sure to knock into him with other boys to make sure the message hit home: this is America, speak English.

The searing memory of Bill’s hot breath jolts me back to the present. I grit my teeth at Hannah and mom. “SPEAK. ENGLISH. OR. BE. QUIET.”

They knew I said for the sake of my own selfish pride, but they stayed silent the rest of the ride. As for dad, it wasn’t until I finished my first practice test that he began rustling with his bag of bananas.

This time, dad’s bananas were nice and yellow- some were even organic. He dug one out triumphantly and peeled it with ease. As always, the smell punched me in the face a couple times and I almost flinched. But then, dad began chewing insanely loudly. I could hear him mashing the banana in his mouth with gross smacks. The noises were so grotesque that I could envision the squishy, sticky banana being mushed into a moist, salivated pulp.

“WILL YOU STOP CHEWING SO LOUDLY?!” I exclaimed. “Everyone can hear you!”

At my loud remark, the other passengers stared at us. Dad looked around blankly, but he slowly set the banana down.

Although I don’t remember what he said to me afterwards, nor that I received a perfect score on my SAT, I can’t forget the disgusting noise of chewing bananas.

***

This morning, I tugged a Louis Vuitton through a tiny, airplane aisle. The first-class doorway was jammed so we all had to file in through economy-class. Seeing the adults fidget like children and push behind each other in a single-file line made it feel like third grade at Kansas Elementary all over again. I powered through the filthy economy-class stench. It smelled disgusting-just like bananas. I gagged and retched from aisles Z13 to A. By the time I reached aisle A, I could almost taste the bananas.

After a turbulent flight from the opulent golden-coast, it was Hannah who greeted me at a small, grey, Kansas airport. She was still the same. Chub pooled out of her scratched up jeans and her black hair was greasy from lack of care. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but smile when she threw her arms around my neck.

“I missed you big brother.”

“I missed you too,” I replied promptly. Yet, no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t stop frowning at the distinct Japanese lettering on her t-shirt.

When we finally ran out of small-talk on our way to the hospital, I decided to breach our comfort zone. I asked her about our mom, who passed. Hannah told me she’d moved on. But, her eyes leaked a bit when she took me to see our dying dad.

***

The hospital room smells of cold latex and death. As soon as I walk in, I see the hairless head twitching at me and drool dripping from cracked lips.

            This is dad? No. it can’t be. Not the pathetic shuddering zombie before me.

A foreign feeling quickly overpowers my disgust. It’s the feeling I had when Anna Marie first kissed me, the feeling I had when all four of us played in the river together, the feeling I had the one time I saved Hannah from the wrath of a stormy sea.

            “NO. STOP,” my brain screams. But all my thoughts drown in this unfamiliar feeling that washes over me like a tsunami.

            Guilt-filled pain surges up my dry throat and I claw at my neck in a desperate attempt to breathe again. My eyes sting like fire and only salty tears provide relief. Fat droplets roll down my cheeks. I wretch back sob after sob as I kneel before the carcass with a dying heart.

            Even though the tears eventually dry, the pain only worsens. My own heart beats faster and faster- from pain or fear I can not tell.

            The carcass raises an unknown, skeletal hand towards me- shaking and trembling violently. That’s when I bolt. I can’t take it anymore. Not the guilt, not the pain, not the fear.

            I run out of the room heaving, and knock over medical supplies and people alike. Bile bursts out of my throat and pours over the white linoleum floors. My quivering eyes dart back to the hospital bed. The carcass had disappeared back under the thick white blankets. Only two hollow eyes peek back at me.

            I know I can’t stay in there, so I do the only thing I can think of- the coward that I am. I dish out fifty cents and buy a banana from the cafeteria. It’s already brown and bruising, but in my limited experience, I deem it safe to consume. Banana in hand I march back up to the carcass and lay the sickly fruit on the hospital stand, brushing aside the caltrate tablets and iv- needles.

            The corpse watches me with large, watery eyes but doesn’t reach out to me anymore.

            I don’t look back at it as I leave the room once again. But, I do hear the all-too familiar, gut-wrenching noise of teeth smacking on a mushy banana. Then the smell of the banana knocks into me like a tidal wave, thrusting me swiftly out of the room.

I close the door softly and call for the nurse. This time, I know I won’t ever look back.

I book a last minute flight back to California while Hannah is in the restroom at the hospital. She drives me back to the airport wordlessly. Only the jerking of her old, rusty car breaks the silence.

Mutely, my sister drags my leather suitcases out of the trunk of her car and walks me all the way to the security checks. At the last minute, I clear my throat before launching into a thorough apology.

“I’m sorry I have to leave so early on such short notice. I wish I could stay and help but-.”

She cuts me off with a sharp shake of her head. “Stop. It’s ok. I get it,” she states dryly.

“Wel-.”

This time, Hannah interrupts before I can get a single word in. "No." She meets my gaze. "What I meant is that I get you. I understand who you are.”

“Wha-.”

“You’re a bad person Toru.” The words themselves are harsh, but she doesn’t speak with any malice. Instead, she just sounds sad. “I got it when you told me and mom to stop speaking Japanese on the train, or when you told dad to stop because he was being annoying with his bananas. I get it now that you want to leave after seeing us like this.”

I wince at her words. They slash at my like shards of ice that I can only back away from.

But Hannah's warm fingers hold my clammy hands. Her voice stays strong. “It’s ok Toru. It’s ok if you’re a bad person. I still love you. Dad still loves you. And even though mom is gone, I know she always loved you too.”

She wraps her arms around my shocked, stiff body. I wallow in her scent of Japanese nori and bananas before my borrowed soul shatters. 

The girl trekked up the hill. Icy terrain surrounded her and delicate flakes swirled around her head. Squeezing her arms around her chest, she shivered violently. A horrible cold void began to fill her stomach. No. I will not succumb to the storm. She stared with unwavering determination up ahead. The top of the hill was just within her reach. She began squeezing the locket she wore, a nervous habit. Pushing her doubt aside, she numbly stumbled upward. Grasping at what little energy she had left, she pulled herself over the hill.

Her eyes widened in disbelief as she took in the sight below. She released the breath she was holding. Displayed below her was a castle, its mighty towers unrelenting to the bitter cold. It’s sturdy bricks put together one at a time to create a masterpiece. It was a bold array of colors. Shifting slightly in the wind, the castle flickered. Putting one foot in front of the other she began to slide down the hill towards the castle entrance. The door was made of a thick wood and bolted with iron bars. Pulling the fur lined hood back off her head the girl stood there motionless in front of the enormous doors. The palace looming before her was terrifying but there weren’t too many other options for her it seemed. It was a safe refuge from the harsh cold. Trembling lightly, she brought a small fist up to the huge deadlocked entryway and knocked twice. The sound reverberated for a moment or two. Then the door swung itself open.

Everything was so elegant. The ceiling was a massive arch. It all seemed to be tinted with a light purple hue that made everything seem magical. The girl spun around attempting to take it all in. Peering around she soon realized that there wasn’t anyone else there. It was as if the doors had opened all by themselves. At least it was warm in here. Looking at the room more closely she noticed the walls were lined with pictures. The frames hung scattered unevenly across every wall in a disorderly fashion. Some even dangled precariously across the arch. Gingerly stepping on the black and white tiled floor she sidled up to a wall. Allowing her gaze to fall on a random photo she gently grazed the frame with her fingertip. In the picture a little girl of about four sat flipping through the many books on the floor beaming up at the camera. She looks so happy. She had dimples and a dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Her green eyes were shimmering with mischief. Slowly walking along the edge of the wall she admired with fascination the little snapshots. Turning her head the girl noticed a figure watching from the corner. Startled, she prepared herself for a quick getaway. Coming out from the shadows was an old woman. The woman gave her a kind smile letting her know that there was no need for her to be fearful. The woman had familiar green eyes that sparkled and freckles that danced along the bridge of her nose. Making the connection the girl quickly realized the little girl in most of the pictures was the old woman standing before her.

Tilting her head the girl gestured to the collage surrounding them. It was a beautiful tapestry that connected a lifetime of memories.

“This is incredible. Did you create this?” The girl asked in awe.

“Yes. I never imagined it would become this big. It started out with just a few pictures. Then, it all just kept expanding.” The woman replied smiling warmly.

“I know this might be asking a bit much but… would you mind if I stayed until the storm calms down? This is the only place for miles.” Hesitantly she bit down on her lip. If she kicked her out she have to return to the blizzard.

“Why, not all! Pull up a chair!” The woman responded earnestly. The two sat down at a round mahogany table and began to talk. The girl went on about the perilous journey through the storm and the older woman about the pictures that lined the walls. Everything was told with dramatic voices and animated expressions. The woman told stories about adventures she had survived to tell and the girl talked of the tales she hoped to be able to tell one day. After many stories the woman stood up and offered to get some tea. Alone in the room again, the girl began to feel confusion lingering inside her. She felt as if there was something she should know that she hadn’t grasped. The woman returned with the tea and they continued their conversation. Looking up, the girl saw orange light filtering in through a window and gathered that the storm must’ve ended.

Standing up, she shook the woman’s hand, “It really was a pleasure meeting you.”

“It was wonderful to see you too.” The woman’s voice now had a strange melancholy tone. Stepping out of the castle gates she began walking into the distance towards the woods. Strangely, she felt as if there was something missing. A puzzle piece she just couldn’t quite figure out. Wracking her brain she went over everything that had happened. It all had to be connected somehow. The pictures and the old woman. The girl’s emerald green eyes flashed as the light bulb went off in her head. It clicked all at once. She had the same freckles dancing along her nose as the old woman. She was the girl in the pictures. Abruptly, she whirled around, her head reeling. None of this makes sense! The woman was still smiling and waving. In her right hand she was tightly gripping a locket.

“Wait!” The girl cried over the distance between them.

“You’ll see me again.” The woman’s eyes twinkled and the wind blew harder. Slowly, the girl blinked her eyes. When she opened them again, the castle and the woman were gone.