When I was seven I remember crossing my back yard early in the morning, when a fog so dense I couldn't even see my hand inches away from my face swept in out of nowhere and surrounded me in an ocean of haze.
I remember the grass turning to wet tiles and looking up to see somewhere that looked like my grandparent's kitchen but... off. The faces smiling at me from the family photos weren't my family and the scale seemed far more vast somehow. As if I was seeing this room for the first time rather than walking into somewhere that I considered more home than the house my parents took me back to most days.
Their radio played from the living room, something crackling with low violin notes that they would have listened to while reading the day's papers. The sound of chewing filled the gaps in the song, making my heart pick up til both it and the music came to a crescendo that had me biting back a scream with every pulsing note.
My eyes darted to the back door, ajar in an inviting way that my grandparent's would never allow.
"Keep the draft and the world out where it's meant to be."
A phrase they were fond of saying whenever my parent's tried to linger by the door for a moment too long. A phrase that drew me closer and closer to the door til I took a quick, gasped breath and darted through. The second I moved, the chewing and the music stopped, the jarring silence only spurring me to move faster.
I felt like I ran forever, though I still made it to school at the same time, having seemingly run the whole way from home to the crossing by the main doors. I tried to casually ask a friend if they'd seen me on their walk up, only to end up blurting everything out in one long sentence that ended in deep, stomach-cramping sobs.
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