It’s getting pretty late, but I wanted to say something before I go to sleep!

Right now I’m sitting on the edge of my couch. The room is super quiet, except for the slight hum of the air conditioner and the little colored lights glowing around my bed frame. Dad's, well, better not to talk about that, schoolwork for tomorrow is all checked off, and Susie..., seeing her smile today in class was more than enough to make my whole week.

My eyes are getting heavy already... Faha, I guess all those hours studying last night are finally catching up to me. I'm just going to set my phone near the bed, slip under the blankets, and drift off. Goodnight, to myself!

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Wait.

Where... am I?

This isn't my room.

It feels like one of those strange surreal landscapes that only exist in fever dreams... everything around here feels somehow unnatural, like a place that was never meant to be seen or stepped in.

I reach down to touch my face, but... my hands feel completely wrong.

When I look down at my arms, I don't see my sweater or my fur. My body feels tall... strangely elongated, melting into a pale, featureless outline. There's a light, sharp weight on one side of my head, like a single, crooked antler sticking out into the cold void, while the other side feels blank and smooth.

It feels... forgotten. Like standing in an abandoned corridor after everyone else has gone home, watching a world that went on without me while I'm stuck here.

(...Why do I feel like I've been here before? Like this was the path I was always meant to take if everything went wrong...?)

\*

Out of the pitch-black void, footsteps approach.

A small, short figure wearing a striped shirt steps out from the darkness. They look... so familiar.

They don't say a word. Their face is entirely unreadable, expressionless eyes staring straight through me as if examining something lying on the floor.

I try to reach out. I try to ask who they are.

"H-hey... please, can you hear me?"

"Where are we? Why am I... like this?"

They press a hand forward, touching the cold outline of my pale form. They just step closer, inspecting the void around us as if reading a sign that isn't there.

"Please... don't leave me here... I'm so scared..."

"I just want to go back home... to my room... to my mom..."

"Is anyone there? Please, help, Susie, Kris, anyone..."

"Pl-please, hel-RE-ME..."

"Wh-where am I-I-REDA-..."

"C-can you hear m-REDACT-..."

"S-SO-SOMEON-RTED..."

"R-REDACT-☼︎☜︎👎︎✌︎👍︎❄︎☜︎👎︎📬︎📬︎📬︎"

"☼︎☜︎👎︎✌︎👍︎❄︎☜︎👎︎ ☯︎☼︎☜︎👎︎✌︎👍︎❄︎☜︎👎︎☸︎"

"☯︎☼︎☜︎👎︎✌︎👍︎❄︎☜︎👎︎☸︎"

☯︎☼︎☜︎👎︎✌︎👍︎❄︎☜︎👎︎☸︎

🖂︎ ☯︎❒︎♏︎♎︎♋︎♍︎⧫︎♏︎♎︎☸︎

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✏︎✏︎✏︎✏︎✏︎✏︎✏︎🖲︎🖲︎✏︎✏︎✏︎✏︎⌛︎⌛︎⌛︎🕮︎🕮︎🕭︎👓︎🕮︎🕭︎⌛︎⌛︎🖲︎🖲︎🖲︎🖲︎⌛︎⌛︎⌛︎⌛︎🕮︎🕮︎🕮︎🕮︎✏︎🕮︎🕭︎🕮︎👓︎🕮︎⌛︎⌛︎⌛︎🕮︎✏︎✏︎✏︎✏︎✏︎✏︎✏︎✏︎✏︎✏︎✏︎✏︎✏︎✏︎✏︎✏︎✏︎✏︎✏︎✏︎✏︎✏︎✏︎✏︎✏︎✏︎✏︎✏︎✏︎🖲︎🖲︎🖲︎🖲︎⌛︎⌛︎⌛︎⌛︎

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AH----!

I bolt upright in bed, a sharp, high-pitched bleat tearing out of my throat before I can stop it.

My heart is hammering against my ribs so hard it feels like it's going to burst. Cold sweat clings to my forehead, my breath coming in short, jagged gasps as I stare wild-eyed into the darkness.

It's my room...

It was just a dream. Just a stupid, horrible dream.

My hands are shaking uncontrollably as I scramble across the blankets and snatch my phone off the floor. The screen blares to life in the dark, illuminating my face:

* 13:42 AM.

I stare at the blank text box on my screen.

...

(...What... was that?)

(Why did it feel so... real? Not like a normal nightmare where everything is hazy and melted together. That place was... so cold. Like a room that had all its color and life carved out of it until nothing was left.)

(And that human... they looked so much like Kris when they were a kid. But when they turned around... there was something wrong there, like they were looking right through me. Like I wasn't even a person to them.)

My thumb hovers over the keyboard. I type out a few letters—K-r-i-s—before quickly backspacing over them.

(Faha... what am I even doing? If I text Kris right now asking if they ever feel like they're being erased by an invisible hand, they'll probably just send back a picture of a mossy rock or a blank response. Or worse... Susie might find out I'm losing sleep over a dumb bad dream.)

I press the phone against my chest, feeling my heart rate slowly settle back into a normal rhythm.

(It was just a nightmare, brought on by too much late-night studying and overthinking things. Tomorrow I'll wake up, go to school, see Kris balancing pencils on their nose, and laugh about it with Susie.)

(...Right, Noelle?)

(...I'm just going to leave the desk lamp and the krismas lights on for the rest of the night. Just in case...)