Chapter Text
I had woken up in a dumpster.
My skin felt like it was on fire.
“I…what..?”
The burning sensation that I had felt, upon further inspection, was a rat, chewing on my upper left forearm.
I screeched, slamming my arm on the side of the dumpster, only for me to fall through and out of the giant green and black bin I’d found myself in.
…Through?
My body had phased…through…the garbage.
I looked at my arm.
No bite mark.
Nothing but a long, thin scar, several of them, connected, making my strangely pale skin look like a piece of china that had been soldered back together several times over.
“What…what the hell?” I murmured, scrambling to stand upright.
I took in my surroundings.
Gray concrete columns, a cold breeze that felt like it was blowing directly through me, and a cold gray sky. It looked to be about…mid-afternoon, 4 pm at most.
“...Where the hell am I?”
I got up and started stalking through what I assumed was a parking lot. I was still in shock, so I barely noticed me phasing through the columns, and eventually, a large gray building.
A mall.
Empty, cold, a bit dark. It seemed abandoned. I had a fuzzy feeling of familiarity that I knew this place. It felt…homey. As homey as an abandoned building could be, at least.
My eyes drifted over to a Hot Topic. Conveniently placed, right next to the food court, specifically an Auntie Anne’s.
And then…I remembered.
Something.
A knife, a scream in my own voice, my favorite hair tie ripped out of my hair. I yelped in realization.
“How long have I been here?!”
I had to get home, had to tell my parents I was okay, at least I
assumed
I was okay, we’d address the phasing-through-walls thing later-
I took off running. My footsteps were silent on the cold quartz floor.
My house was a tiny, one-floor bungalow on a quiet suburban street, a ten minute walk from the main hub of my small town.
There was a window seat in the dining room, one that I knew would be occupied by my parents at this time of day.
…I ran up to the door and tried to yank it open, only for it to be locked, and my hand phased through the knob. I stared at my scarred hand and bit back a sob. I tried to knock. No noise was made on the navy blue-painted wood.
I ran back to the window seat, looking out onto our moderately neat lawn. I had walked through walls twenty-five minutes ago, I had no reason to be struggling, getting into my own house.
I was panicking now. I hyperventilated, but my chest wouldn’t rise and fall the way it used to. I slammed on the glass of the window with a passion I didn’t know I had, screaming.
“Hey!! Mom, Dad, I’m here!! I’m right here, can’t you see me?! I-I’m back!! I’m…I’m sorry?? I won’t go exploring again, I know you don’t like it when I…uhm, do that? C’mon, c’mon, come on , see me see me see me, please-!!”
But neither of them heard me.
My mother was sipping on a hard seltzer, and I’d never seen her look so empty and hollow. I couldn’t hear them through the glass, but I saw them mouth my name.
My father’s mouth was a thin line. His eye bags were prominent.
“...Daddy?” I whispered, a horrible, achy, hollow feeling in my chest.
They couldn’t see me.
I didn’t even notice my lack of a reflection.
I ran, out of my yard, down the street, out of my neighborhood, breathing harder than I ever had.
Past the dead mall, the old gas station, the weird bookshop, through a crowd of tourists…
Into the dead space of woods on the edge of town.