Category: Winter 2017

All I knew was that it was a job and that I was looking for a job.  

When I saw the ad in the newspaper, all it said was: “Tutor needed for the son of Mr. and Mrs Ordake.” They were paying a lot of money. Well, I was a teacher, so I applied for the job and somehow got it!

So the next day, I caught the bus uptown. I arrived in the fanciest neighborhood I had ever seen; even the squirrels had bushier tails and walked like they owned the world. I even thought I saw one with a necklace. I followed the directions, from the letter they sent, and walked the few blocks to get there. Number 23 was just as big and grand as the other houses on the block, trim and elegant. I nervously walked up to the door, picked up the stone knocker, and tentatively tapped it against the tall, oak door. No one answered. I knocked again, this time louder, then a little louder. Finally, I heard footsteps. Smoothly, the door opened, and a man in a dark suit stood in the doorway.

“Are you the new tutor?” he asked.

“Yes, I am.”

“This way.” He gestured me inside.

I walked in. I tried not to stare at the crystal chandelier and the plush red carpet. I knew they were rich, but this was unbelievable. The man led me up five flights of stairs and into a small room with a bed and a desk.

“This is where you will sleep. You can put your bag in here.”

I did so and followed him, down three more floors, into a humongous room strewn with toys and video games, and shelves filled with more toys and games, and on one wall, a gigantic T.V. with millions of remotes and DVDs. And there, lying on the bed, was a skinny little boy with mousy brown hair and dull green eyes.

“Give me cake now!” he ordered.

“And this,” said the man, “is your pupil, Allen.”

Later, I learned that his mother and father were always too busy with their work to pay any attention to him. Mrs. Ordake was an extremely successful businesswoman, and Mr. Ordake was a famous actor. I’m not saying they were bad people; it’s just, if they had paid more attention to their son, he might have not been, well, such a brat. Allen was very spoiled; his parents gave him ridiculously high amounts of money and hired servants that would do whatever he wanted. But, since his parents neglected him so much, I was sure he was a poor, misunderstood child.

“So, how far have you gotten in math?” I asked Allen the next day.

“None of your beeswax,” he muttered.

“Yes it is. I am your teacher.”

“So.”

“So, you need to learn, and I need to teach you.”

“So.”

“Please, stop saying ‘so’!”

“You’re saying it too.”

“No, I’m not.”

And that is how it went, over and over again. It was very, very exasperating. I missed my grandmother. I took out her last gift to me, her (now my) book. When my entire family perished in a bizarre accident, my grandmother passed the book on to me. I was alone in the world now, with no money–that’s why I had to take this blasted job. The moment before she died, in the hospital, she told me to be careful and heed any warnings the book said. The book’s cover was made out of solid gold. There were two pages torn out in the very beginning. I could have sold the gold and gotten out of there. Instead, I had opened the book. Inside the front cover, there was a short message:

Be careful what you write, for it will become your reality.

That’s strange, I thought, but I didn’t really worry about it. It was probably just a quote. I placed the book on my bed and hurried downstairs to supper. I was down there longer than usual because Allen would not eat anything, except for candy, and when I asked him to please, eat some real food, he stormed upstairs. After I finished my meal, I went up after him. He was in his room writing! I couldn’t believe it! After all these weeks, he was finally putting pen to paper and forming words; it was a miracle! Allen looked thoroughly absorbed in his work, so I left the room, not wanting to disturb him.

The next morning looked to be a promising one. The sun was bright, and there were just enough clouds in the sky. Allen did not whine once during breakfast. After breakfast, for once he seemed eager to start his lessons. In fact, he asked if it was okay if he worked on his writing. It was amazing. He was abnormally focused.

“Can I see what you are writing?” I asked.

“No,” Allen said.

“Why not?”

“Because.”

“Because what?”

“Because, I don’t have to.”

“It seems to me that you don’t want to show me it. So, why don’t you want to?”

“Well, why should I?”

“So I can help you.”

“I don’t need help.”

I sighed; this kid was very stubborn. I glanced at the book he was writing in; the cover was solid gold.

“Allen,” I said, “where did you get that book?”

“I found it.”

“Where?”

“Why should I tell you?”

“Because that is my book, and you need to give it back right now!”

I stood up and extended my hand. Instead of giving it to me, he took off, running down the corridor. He was faster than me, so he beat me to the door and ran outside.

“It’s too late!” he yelled. “When I am done, you will never order me around again!”

This did not sound good. I wanted to run after him, but he was already too far away. I searched for the rest of the afternoon. Then I told Allen’s parents, (they hadn’t even noticed) who then called the police. I think they felt guilty. But, who could be sure? They never said anything to me, so I stayed at their mansion without their knowledge. After a week went by, without news of Allen, I started to look for him again. I needed to stop him, and I needed the book back. I didn’t know what it did, but I knew it had fallen into the wrong hands. I searched for about a week. I read the newspaper every day, trying to find news of him. Eight days after Allen ran off, it was reported that leaders from all over the world started to go missing. I never thought Allen would be behind it.

One night, when the air was particularly crisp, I came back to my room to find the door open. Through the door, I could see the window also wide open, with the curtains blowing in an unmistakably creepy way. I rushed inside. I have heard that the simplest mistakes are the worst ones, and I definitely saw that. The person who had opened the window was still in the room. I had fallen for one of the oldest tricks in the book. Allen was behind the door. I turned around to face him. He was holding the golden book, my golden book.

“Allen,” I said with all the calmness I could muster, “what are you doing here?”    

“You’re the only one who can stop me. For this, you will die. My parents never noticed me; I spent my whole childhood trying to get their attention. But this, ruling the world, will get their attention.”

As he went on and on, about what he would do once he ruled the world, I started to think. There was no way to stop him, unless the ripped out pages. . . I wondered . . . suddenly I understood how it all happened. I had seen Allen writing in the book. What if what he wrote somehow came true? Or, maybe the book had taken over his mind. Back to the ripped pages, if I could somehow tear the pages out, maybe… maybe everything would go back to normal. But, how would I get the book out of Allen’s hands? I decided to go with instinct. While he was distracted, (yes he was still talking) I lunged at the book. I grabbed and, as quickly as I could, opened the book and ripped out the pages. The world was spinning round and round; it was over.

The next week (after I had guilted Allen’s parents into paying more attention to him):

“So, Allen where have you gotten so far in math?”

“Not so far.”

“Okay, let me help you with that then.”

THE END

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Ti–

That was his watch’s final breath.

Later…

Charlie froze. Something was off. Everything around him was slowing down. The other people on the sidewalk — they abruptly stopped. It was windy out just a second ago, yet, now it was dry. The wind — it just vanished. He was weirded out, although he assumed it was some kind of a prank. He looked at one of the people who was walking next to him. His face was expressionless. Charlie put his hand to the man’s mouth. He wasn’t breathing. Charlie walked to the person behind him. The person had the same expressionless face and wasn’t breathing either. Yet, both of them were somehow mid-walk.

“What is going on?” Charlie said out loud.

“Hello? Anyone there?!” Charlie screamed.

Charlie heard crying from up the next block. It sounded like a child’s cry. Charlie rushed to the street, seeing the cars all frozen in place. He ran between the cars as he saw a child running to him from up the avenue. He had a small, round face with a sad frown. He had dark brown skin and had a twinkle in his eyes. The child was holding a small action figure in his hand. He looked to be about eight years old. As the minor got closer, Charlie noticed his expensive watch. It was almost identical to Charlie’s watch. It had the same gold rim and leather strap. Charlie looked at his own watch. He found it wasn’t moving. The child saw Charlie looking at his watch and looked at his own.

Suddenly the world was full of life again, except for two humans. Two people–one man and one child– were now frozen in place, stuck on a busy street.

An audible click floated from the front doorknob; Julius grunted as he heaved a large bicycle, with fading yellow paint, through an inconveniently sized open doorway. After tossing the hunk of transportation to the side — making a crashing noise against the nearby wall; then it landed on top of his shoes — he carelessly shuffled through a pile of envelopes he had found in the lobby’s mailbox. He slapped the bills on the kitchen counter, moved aside the three-month late birthday card from a family member, and came across the last one.

It was an envelope of the lightest, faded brown. One could fit two of them on their forearm; the paper was wrinkled and whatever folded contents in there might not have been money, but nonetheless, it was thicker than any average handwritten letter. Of course, it had all the necessities of any letter: his name, Julius Coleman, his apartment number and address, 24 Quove St, Apt. 3-A, and everything else, except a return address. At least, a legible one. There was definitely something written on the top left corner of the envelope; it was written quite clearly and in the neatest handwriting, and Julius was sure he could read it, if he had recognized the language it was in to translate it. It looked much like Latin, with elements of other languages such as Hindi, Swedish, and even Japanese. Whatever this was, there was no turning back. Not a very good way to start reading an unknown letter, was it?

Julius stared at the envelope. His eyes were growing heavy, he had faced a tedious day at the office from God o’clock to six p.m. Honestly, he wanted to do nothing other than eat something from the fridge and sleep.

So, while logic screamed to stop, Julius ripped open the envelope. A folded piece of parchment was now in his hands, the same color as the envelope. Curly handwriting, a single sentence, lay on this first fold and face. Thankfully, this was in English.

Please take your time to have a good look at your surroundings, and remember them.

This had no point at all, it couldn’t have, but Julius had the urge to obey against all logical odds. He blinked, yawned, and moved his glance around the room he was in and the rooms that surrounded. Julius’s apartment was a palette of dull beige and canary yellow light, mixes of white, black, and an excess of gray. The rooms were simple, there weren’t many to begin with, and descriptions of any inch could not go far. In front of him was a black, dirty counter. Near that was the small refrigerator, containing not much but enough.

A table covered in magazines. A cabinet full of hair dye. A mirror near the jackets. Julius himself. Short, bright red hair, short and skinny body; that body wearing a plain gray T-shirt and khaki shorts with all kinds of pockets, completely matching the palette of his home.

It was nothing special. Why was this needed? Why was this important? Why did Julius need to look at some of the most boring things on the face of this Earth; why his home, his sources of enjoyment, himself?

He knew why when he opened the folded letter further.

Once you are done with remembering your surroundings and the world you once knew, please stay calm and know that you are safe, no matter the circumstance.

Something seemed to be stuffed inside his lungs; he was no longer able to breathe, and no longer able to see as all went black seconds afterward.

She waits for a taxi. In that specific moment, or rather on that night itself, the world is drained of color. Or, maybe it’s filled with too much color. She can’t tell. No one can.

It’s not that big of a deal for some people. You see where I’m coming from, right?

In that moment, only little details matter. Her phone is dead. She ought to know why, but her friends have those answers. Her sneakers feel soggy, and water is seeping in through her socks, despite the fact that there is no rain. She could’ve stepped in something wet, but she really can’t remember. It’s as if she has just been born. Or reborn.

Across the street, a group of people are loading a coffin into the back of a hearse. She doesn’t know the man, or woman, but all of a sudden, she’s sad, and the morning sun comes out, nearly blinding her. Her hands are in the pockets of her hoodie, one clutching a folded up piece of paper and the other balled into a fist.

She has wanted to give Anita her letter, but Anita hasn’t been in town for two weeks. The thing about Anita is that she fills up the space of about twenty people. When she isn’t there, it’s as if the town is deserted, as if Constance is the only one alive and the only one roaming the streets.

When she had tried to explain the concept, of how wild it is to feel like the only person alive, to her friend, Harold, he had told her that that was “complete bullshit.” The only problem is that Harold says that about everything, so it kind of lost its meaning after a while, and it becomes harder and harder to tell if he really means it, or if he’s just drunk.

She’s so lost in thought that she forgets she has been gripping the letter with a force that she didn’t even know she possessed. She lets go. The apartment door behind her has been left ajar ever since she left, and she has been standing on the sidewalk ever since, mesmerized by the sunrise and the mourners across the street, who are now arguing in low voices about who should ride in the front of the hearse and who should be forced to sit in the back with the dead man.

The tallest man in the group, who looks like he’s somewhere in his 50’s, stares blankly at the ground, clearly in deep thought. The others are either sniffling into crumpled tissues or hugging each other, but this man seems to feel indifferent about whoever is in the coffin. Maybe it’s his worst enemy who is in that coffin, or maybe she’s thinking too much. However, she isn’t the only one who has a bad habit of doing that; everyone she knows is like that.

Whether it be by coincidence, or because she just happens to be living in one of the most run down places on Earth, it is true. The one who seems to overthink things the most is Anita. Constance would always get missed calls and frantic voicemails early in the morning from her, where she would ramble about how she didn’t understand the assignment, that had been given to her in her English class, and how her dad was mad at her. The voicemails usually only lasted around 30 seconds, and they always cut off towards the end, which Constance assumed was because Anita was still figuring out how to get her new phone to work properly. When Constance would call her back, she’d always answer in the same frantic voice, although she always sounded a bit calmer than she did before. Anita has a nice voice; everyone liked that about her. That is one of the things that Constance misses the most about her after she left, or rather disappeared.

No one can explain it, really.

But, we’re not here to talk about Anita.

The mourners across the street still haven’t moved from their spot, their feet still planted firmly on the concrete, surrounding the hearse. The trunk is open. Now it’s getting ridiculous. Are they just going to have a funeral out in the rain? It could be some sort of tradition, but no one wants to deal with a corpse left out in the rain, not even spiritual people.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Oh wow, I expected better from Constance. She really shouldn’t be making assumptions about strangers.” However, Constance knows what she’s talking about. Constance’s mother was a spiritual woman. She would preach ancient legends and light incense in the living room every other month and pull her daughter close, whispering phrases that no one could really comprehend. She didn’t think twice about it.

You don’t know Constance like I do.

The woman closest to the trunk slams it shut quickly, making a few of the other mourners flinch. She is wearing a long, black coat. There’s no fur on the coat, no fancy jewelry draped on her, just the sleek coat. A tote bag hangs by her wrist. Constance wonders if she bought the coat and the rest of her outfit specifically for this occasion, or if she had it before. Fashion is an abstract concept. The woman is rich. How do I know this? I don’t. But she looks like she is, and that’s all you need to know.

The rain is gone; the streets are still scattered with puddles here and there. There was no rain in the first place, but we, here in Mountain Oak, don’t like to assume. Our weather has been so unusual, lately, that anything is possible.

Constance sighs, stepping forward and looking both ways to cross the street. There are two cars parked on the street, none passing by at that moment, neither of them moving. Right foot, left foot. Before she can speak, or even think, she’s on the other side of the street. No cars whiz past behind her, and the absence of warmth is unsettling. She isn’t exactly face to face with the mourners, but is still pretty close. One by one, they begin to turn their heads, their gaze drifting from the coffin to Constance.

“Why are you here?” the rich woman asks, squinting her eyes with disapproval.

Constance does something, kind of like a shrug, in response to the rich woman. There’s a pause, not an awkward one, but one filled with deep thought. As if the rich woman is trying to figure out what to say next.

“Lydia, I can feel you glaring from here. Be nice. She probably just needs directions, ain’t that right?” a voice from inside the car booms as a man pokes his head out of the window, flashing a smile at Constance.

He has a thick, booming voice. A chill travels throughout her body. Not because of the way he talks, but because she’s never met someone so straightforward before.

“Not necessarily.”

There’s a thoughtful pause, and suddenly, he tilts his head to the side a bit, as if he’s about to ask a question. She steps closer, hesitantly putting her hand out. The driver probably thinks she’s going to shake his hand. That would be insane; they’re just two strangers on a sidewalk. He squints a bit, as if he’s trying to read her expression like you would read a book for English class. He raises his eyebrows for a second, and then nods.

“Do you need a ride?”

She looks back at the mourners, wondering why he’s so casual about giving a stranger a ride and abandoning the mourners that clearly need to get somewhere.

“The mourners do,” she whispers, and he smiles a bit.

“They’re family. I can send one of my other guys to help them. They’ll understand,” he chuckles, and Constance wonders if he can see the rich woman, who is crossing her arms and glaring in his direction.

They don’t seem that shocked; a few of them are being a bit too nonchalant about it. A few of them are staring at the sky, spaced out and suddenly far away from the small town. The rich woman turns her head. The engine revs up, and all of a sudden, Constance’s mind goes blank. She can’t remember what she was going to do before, or why she even walked up to the car. All she knows is that she’s getting into the back seat of the car, behind the man. Why does she do it? She has places to go. She tucks a piece of her hair behind her ear as she looks up at the driver, or the back of his head at least.

“Your family must be really understanding if they’re okay with you just abandoning them to drop a random stranger off.”

She cocks her head towards the back, the people behind fading as the car drives on. No response, but there’s probably a good reason why he doesn’t answer. Something lingers within her, like she’s forgetting something, but that might just be her suspicions rising. As they’re driving down neverending avenues, it’s as if time doesn’t exist. Everyone feels like that at some point, and if you say you haven’t, you’re probably lying. Local shops fly past her, and in the back of her mind, memories are there. If she concentrates really hard, maybe she’ll be able to access them again. Pizza places, apartments, and bookstores all whiz past, a sea of color in a colorless town.

“So, lil’ lady, where are you headed? Most people tell me that I’m a pretty flexible guy, and these blocks are a lot longer than I remembered, so feel free to speak up and tell me when,” the driver booms, turning his head to flash a toothy smile at Constance, and then continuing to watch the road.

The world is becoming fuzzier by the second, and all of a sudden, she’s slumping down further into the back seat, trying not to fall asleep as she’s overwhelmed by fatigue.

“Tell you when what?” she mumbles, her words becoming more and more jumbled together by the second.

“You know, when to stop, when to go, when we get to where you’re going,” he responds, his tone of voice suggesting that he thinks this is obvious.

The streets are becoming less and less complex, the driver’s voice is fading bit by bit. The story goes on.

“Where are you going, anyway? Hey, are you still there?” his voice booms from the front of the car, disguising the hesitation he possesses.

Constance blinks, and the voices and places fade in and out. The streets don’t seem so crowded anymore. She takes a deep breath in, and she falls into a deep sleep, muttering something that sounds like, “I’m going to find my friend.” Or maybe she said something else, like, “I’ve finally lost my head.” We don’t know.

Maybe we never will.

Loud coughing filled the train car. Kat sighed, leaning her head against the advertisement for Samson’s Sandwiches. “New double-bacon combo available for only $3.99!” She looked up at the resting bitch face of the woman standing above her, who was scrolling through her phone. Kat unzipped her backpack and took out a bag of chips. She opened them loudly, shrinking under glares from phone-woman and a guy who forgot to plug his headphones into his phone.

Really, how could you miss that? And Beats weren’t particularly quiet either. Kat swallowed a Pringle and checked the red letters above her head. Sixteen more stops until Atlantic Av.

That was the sucky thing about going to a school for Gifted and Talented Young Scholars. You know, other than the mounds of homework and that one persistent nerd who always asked if he could have harder tests. (It wasn’t nurturing the brain or whatever other bullshit he had in his head.) GTS, the high school that Katherine Webb, “genius” sophomore, attended was approximately twenty-five subway stops from the obscure area of Queens, where she lived.

The good part about that? Extra homework time, you know, for all the crap that she was too lazy to finish the night before. The bad part? She had to wake up at 5:30 a.m. so she could leave at 6:15. I mean, let’s get real here. She didn’t really leave at 6:15. More like 6:30. That’s why her attendance record was going down the drain. But still.

Also, the whole subway thing in general was a bit tiring after you’d done it five days a week for a year. I mean sure, to tourists, riding on the Subway (to Times Square wearing an “I <3 NYC” shirt) was cool and exotic, but to Kat, it was annoying as hell.

And you shouldn’t get her started on the people. God. From the homeless people who yelled at you when you didn’t give money, to the woman who screamed at her kids on the train, to the man who took up four seats, it was too much to handle some days. Just the other day, a boy her own age had yelled to her, “Hey, sweetheart, drop the frown. What’s wrong?” Kat had thought that kind of behavior was reserved for creepy, old men, but now, future pedophiles were starting early. Kat had grimace-smiled and walked away, too afraid of the guy a full foot shorter than her to do anything.

The phone lady had dropped her phone into Kat’s lap. Kat handed it to her with a grimace—it was wet with her sweat—and the lady snatched it up from her with a glare. Maybe it wasn’t just a resting bitch face.

Kat shifted her little purse to sit on her lap and shut her eyes. With probably an hour or so left of her subway ride, she might as well get a few minutes of rest.

As soon as she shut her eyes, however, she was awoken by a startling jolt of the train. Her eyes flew open, hands protectively flying in front of her bag of chips. But, once she saw what was in front of her, she released her chips, and the bag fell to the floor;  her mouth hung open.

Kat was staring at a blue wall, decorated with awkward family portraits and posters of random bands and TV shows. A Salvador Dali-style clock hung above a bulletin board with a calendar on it. A black beanbag sagged lazily against the wall; a light-oak wardrobe hung slightly open.

Kat’s stomach lurched as she stood up and turned around. The second wall held a long window with draping curtains against it, a closet door, and a cage which used to hold a parrot, but it was empty now. A dangerously full clothes hamper hung from the ceiling.

Kat slowly rotated around the room. In the wall—right next to a bookcase and side table—was a bed.

The same bed that she slept in every night.

Kat took a step backward and wondered how in holy hell had she ended up in her bedroom.

She looked down at herself. She was fully clothed, and she was sure she had put on her monkey PJs last night. She didn’t have much of a history of sleepwalking, and anyway, who got up in the middle of the night, let their chickadee out of its cage, put their clothes on, and woke up?

And seriously, who dreamed about subways? I mean, it was one thing to dream about killer robots, (her recurring nightmare when she was six) but the subway? Only the most mundane person in the world would have that dream. And she wasn’t mundane. At least, that’s what she liked to think.

(She briefly ran over the other options in her hand. Time travel, teleportation. Both not probable.)

Then, of course, there was the option that this was a dream. Again, pretty mundane. And this seemed pretty real to her. She gave herself a pinch, just to be sure, but all that happened was a throbbing in her forearm and a bruise in the same place. She blinked a few times, but nothing changed. Only the empty birdcage was in front of her, gently lit by the early morning light.

Or was it early morning? The light streaming through the curtains was unnatural, uncanny, too bright. Kind of like the lightbulbs that gave her migranes at school. The morning light was soft, gentle, and incredibly annoying when she was trying to get an extra two minutes of sleep.

She looked over at the clock on her bedside table. It was off. She kneeled down to put the plug into the wall, but the plug was still there. She fiddled with it for a moment. Nothing happened. Dad was always buying faulty plugs.

Kat crossed the room to the window and pulled aside the curtains.

The light outside wasn’t coming from the sun. It was bright, but not so much that it hurt her eyes. Instead of the warm yellowish color, it was milky white. She didn’t know what the light was, but it definitely wasn’t the boring brick wall of Mr. Morrison’s apartment building that she looked out to each morning. This definitely wasn’t the view from her window.

A door quietly closed behind her.

“Have you figured it out yet?” a voice from behind her said smugly.

Kat spun around and sputtered.

“What—where—who the hell are you?”

A girl stood in front of her, short and black-haired, leaning against the wall as if she owned the place, wearing a self-satisfied smirk along with her jeans and a T-shirt. She casually surveyed her nails, picking the nail polish off one. She folded her arms.

“That doesn’t matter,” the girl sighed. “Anyway, have you figured it out? You were being extremely slow. I can’t just wait around for you, you know.”

“Figured what out?”

Surprisingly, Kat was doing a good job at stopping her hands from shaking. The girl rolled her eyes.

“The door,” she said.  “You’re supposed to go through the door. It’s been, what, ten minutes, and you haven’t taken a step toward it. What kind of idiot opens the curtains before the door? I gotta say, I’m disappointed.”

“Disappointed?” Kat asked, then shook her head. “What are you doing in my room?”

“Well, at least you have your priorities straight,” the girl said sarcastically, in the same voice Kat used when she argued with people, which was pretty rare—when you looked past her startling hair, her height, and her death glares, she was pretty awkward.

Except, apparently, when strangers broke into her room. Then she was in tip-top shape.

“What am I doing in your room? I’ll tell you what I’m doing in your room. I’m here to make you go through the door. You were being slow. I don’t have forever. Happy?”
“N-no,” Kat said, fiercely trying to keep her voice steady.

She pressed her hands together behind her back. Her entire body was shivering a little bit, but it wasn’t cold in the room, which was a rarity—her parents both liked the house at below-sixty temperatures. It was the only thing the two actually had in common.

“Tell me what’s going on. What’s behind that door?”
The girl smiled mysteriously.

“Well, I suppose you’ll have to figure that out, won’t you?”

She turned on her heel and opened the door, showing Kat a glimpse of the same brightness outside her window.

Squinting her eyes, Kat yelled, “Wait!”

The mysterious black-haired girl turned around.

“I told you, I don’t have forever-”

“This isn’t my room, is it?” Kat asked.

The girl rolled her eyes again.

“Genius,” she said, and then she was gone, disappearing into the white light that swallowed up her body.

The door clicked shut behind her.

Kat had said that she wasn’t in her room to the mysterious intruder, and she was certain she wasn’t.  Aside from what was outside her window not being what was outside her window, her chickadee, Oscar was gone, and her clock wasn’t working. Besides, the whole room was quiet—too quiet—not full of the usual yells from her mom for her to get up, clean her room, do the dishes, or the insistent meows of her cat Lulu to get into her room. Obviously Kat never let Lulu in because she would eat Oscar, but it was mostly just because Lulu was annoying.

Whatever this place was, it wasn’t her room, and it definitely wasn’t her house.

Kat closed her eyes for a second, 99% convinced that this was just a dream, and she would wake up any second on the subway, holding her bag of chips. But, all that greeted her was the same room, lit by the same eerie, white light crawling through the curtains. Kat stared at the door, then back at the window. Kat wasn’t stupid. There was only one way out of there, and it wasn’t the window.

Kat grabbed the door handle. She had lost count of all the times she had yelled at characters in horror movies.

Don’t answer the phone! Don’t go into the basement! Don’t yell “who’s there?” Don’t split up! Don’t trust the mysterious black-haired girl who broke into your not-room and is telling you to go through a door!

But, Kat’s heart was pounding in her chest and something made her walk toward the door. It had gray marks on it from when her parents used to measure her height. When she was three feet tall, four feet, even five feet. Until they stopped caring.

Kat put her hand on the doorknob that was still warm from the girl’s hand. The door clicked as it opened, and Kat shut her eyes against the light that was so bright that she could see it behind her eyelids, but it was barely warm.

With her eyes almost shut, she reached out a hand into the light. Not to go through the door, just to test the waters. It was, indeed, warm—kind of like a welcoming hotel pool, but thicker, more foggy than just air. Kat could feel wisps of fog curling around her hand, and then farther up her arm. She watched a thin tendril crawl up her upper arm with fascination, not even thinking to panic, until it reached her neck. She jerked away, startled, but the fog was stronger than it looked. Kat grabbed the doorframe as the fog tendrils that had crept up her arm reached across her torso, and other wisps reached out from the doorframe to latch onto her feet and slither up her legs.

Kat pulled her free arm away from the fog to grab onto her bedpost, but the rest of her body was being dragged forward. It had enveloped her chest, arms, and legs, and was inching up her neck. If she had wanted to go through the door before, she definitely didn’t now. In her chest, along with constricting panic, she felt- no, she knew, that what was pulling her away from her not-room was evil, something dark that made her heart skip a beat; Kat finally understood when characters in horror stories said they were paralyzed from fear.  

Her bed slid a few inches with the weight of her body being pulled away from it. Her hands, sweaty with panic, scrabbled at the post, trying desperately to hold on and drag her body out of the fog, but she had, after all, avoided gym class for six years. Her feeble arm muscles gave way and her fingernails scrabbled at the bed, leaving a long scratch, before fog engulfed her arm.

Her legs and torso had far passed the edge of the doorframe, her body wriggled aimlessly, devoured by the mist. It was uncomfortably squeezing her legs, but that was the least of Kat’s worries as she struggled to take a breath, her throat constricting with fear of the fog slowly covering her face.

Kat’s hand, now grasping at the doorframe, was nothing but the tips of fingers emerging out of a white cloud. Her vision was getting hazy, the outline of her bedroom getting fainter and fainter.

She felt as if there should have been some dramatic, suspenseful background music to play behind her as she felt her fingers get sweaty and her hold loosen from the doorframe. Striking chords echoed from the empty CD player. A chorus of violins grew louder and louder. She thought that, at least, the white mist should have made a sound, preferably a loud hissing or rumbling. But, Kat’s not-room was filled with only her ragged breath.

She knew that she could only hold on for so long—at best, another minute. There was no chance of pulling herself out of the white cloud now, and even if she did, what would she do, bust through the ceiling? (Her not-room was unfortunately devoid of chainsaws and jackhammers.) The door was the only way out, even if the barely warm mist filled her with an undefinable chill.

So, Kat took one last look at her not-room and let go.

Instantly, a gust of white wind pulled her backwards and away from the door that she could barely see. It was more than free falling—it seemed a strong force was pulling her fiercely in one direction, faster and faster and faster and, whoa, she was getting carsick. Or mist-sick. Whatever.

Kat vaguely felt herself falling faster and faster. Her stomach was in her throat—not because she was nervous, just because she felt incredibly sick. (I mean, she was nervous too. Let’s get real.) She felt her chest constricting, not only from panic, but also from an invisible force that was making her head pound and throat squeeze.

And suddenly, it went from discomfort and dizziness, to each bone in her body being torn apart, smashed; her chest was being ripped open by a flock of mist-white birds with vapor claws. More pain than she had felt her entire life, each scrape and fall and twisted ankle, combined into something much worse.

And then it was over, and Kat was blisteringly aware of grass pressing through her shirt and sun shining behind her closed eyelids.