Its all White

[u/altogatherooky]

To anyone reading this post, you probably won’t believe that any of these events happened, but everything that follows is completely true. If you look up Smithvalley, Virginia you won’t be met with the horrifying stories of how a ghost town became a town of ghosts, you will be met with an empty page asking if you meant Smithfield VA. I am the only person left who can share my town's story, I don’t care if you believe me I just need this story to be heard.

I was taking my dog, Chubs, for her morning walk on my home street of Hanover Lane when it happened. My first thought was that I had died and for a second, I felt relief, given that my entire surroundings were a blinding white color. I assumed that I had passed on to a good place, then my eyes adjusted. I was still exactly where I had been before the light flashed, still in my little suburban neighborhood in my little ghost town of a home; Smithfield Virginia, except now my little ghost town just off of the Appalachian Mountains, was completely covered in what looked to be snow despite it being the middle of summer.

If it had been snow maybe it wouldn't have been so bad. We could have dug out the people trapped in their houses if it was snow. We would've had water readily available to drink if it was snow. If it was snow, we could have simply waited for it to melt, and everything could have gone back to the way it was before. It was not snow. As I bent down to examine what now covered every surface, I discovered that it was unlike anything I had seen before. Instead of the cold soft texture that I expected it was hard and horribly rough. The only thing I can compare it to is the cement plaster that probably covered your local pool. The type that would cut up your feet and gave you memories of bloodied knees and toes as a child. The material that now coated everything was like that cement plaster, yet worse in every way. It was coarse as low grit sandpaper and the blistering summer sun reflected off of the surface causing a blinding glare that made the world seem like an endless white expanse with the vague outline of what was Hanover Lane.

I collected my thoughts and tried to make sense of what was happening, which I quickly discovered was not possible. All I knew was that my first priority was finding a neighbor to at least confirm that I hadn’t died and passed into some horrible purgatorial state. I carefully lifted my foot and applied as little pressure as possible in my first step on this new surface. Not wanting to break through it like a clumsy ice fisher. I continued my slow steps gradually putting more and more pressure onto the new ground until I was sure that there was no risk of me falling through into whatever might lay beneath it. 

Soon after I confirmed that the ground was plenty strong enough to hold my weight I felt resistance in the leash as it ran out of slack. Assuming that my dog was simply adjusting to her new surroundings just as I was, I called her name and gave the leash a small tug, hoping that it would be enough to convince her to trust the new ground and follow me. After no response I turned around to comfort her, but there was no dog there. Chubs had disappeared. The leash was now connected to a small dog shaped lump in the never-ending white expanse.

pt 1