I Would Want To See You One Last Time.

Piece 15

                  "I do, I wanted to ask you this before this conversation."

                  "Go ahead."

                 "I'm sure it's a no but do you want to come over at some point during this break? Or I can go to your house or we can hang out in public. I just," She stops and looks away from me again. "Wanted to see you over the school break."

                "I don't know, maybe. We'll see." I say. "Maybe I just should go home for now. I'll see you later, Maria." I grab my bag and stand up, walking away from her. She just watches me, silently. When I was walking away, I chose not to turn around again. 

                  On my walk home, the cold breeze made my face feel frozen along with my fingers. Staring at the floor as I walk, in order not to make awkward eye contact with ongoing walkers who pass by me. I want to be alone right now.

                  The one time I look up from the floor at someone walking by, I make dead eye contact for longer than I intended to. It felt almost as if I couldn't look away. I shivered after a moment and darted my eyes back to the ground once I felt like I had control over them again.

                  The man walking by had the darkest shade of hair I'd ever seen, his hair was slightly messy and barely passed his ears. He had stubble on his face like he hadn't shaved in a while. The longer I stared at him, the more familiar he felt—an uncomfortable familiar.

                   Arriving at my home, I fiddle with the house key to open it, my fingers frozen from the cold. Walking inside, feels colder here than outside. All the lights are off, making the house dark, a grey light in the kitchen window from outside casting long shadows in my direction. The shadows are oddly shaped and every time I don't focus on them, they look like people.

                  Stepping in more, I shut the door behind me and locked it. The floor crunches under my shoes, what the fuck I just swept these floors.

                   Walking closer to the kitchen windows, I start seeing white glowing dots. The kitchen gets lighter and lighter as if a warm light turned on somewhere that I can't find. The grey clouds in the sky have left and it's suddenly nighttime, a bright pale moon is visible through the window. The kitchen has changed, it feels the same yet so different. I'm staring outside, into the moonlight when I get the sudden feeling; that I should not be here.

                   When I turn around to look at the rest of the house, my vision goes blurry until I stop, almost giving me motion sickness. I analyze the rest of the home I'm in: Off-white colored lamps, a larger TV than before, everything is different yet feels the same. My feet like they're sinking into the kitchen floor and my eyes are falling out of their sockets. I move before I sink into the feeling even more, I head for the neighbor's counter. I stumble to grab the counter as my knees no longer support my weight. My vision is starting to look like I'm looking through a glass cup up close. I can hear my heaving breath, like I'm suffocating. Through my cloudy vision, the shadows in the house begin to look like people again. I freeze, not knowing if they're people or not.

                 After a moment of standing still, trying to redeem myself, I hear movement in the room over from the kitchen. I was coming from down a hall that wasn't in my home before today. The shuffling gets louder as I hear drawers open and close, and the faucet turns on for a minute then back off.

                   Blinking away the focus, fear flows through me and my vision clears up again. I notice the paleness in my hands and the steam coming from my mouth from how cold it is in here. Refocusing on the noises, I immediately sprint towards the door as quickly as possible. Adrenaline pumping through my veins. The outside is different, there's light snow on the ground and a dead meadow valley. I look around, noticing there are no other houses besides this one for what seems like miles. My vision is still slightly glassy, so it's not easy to tell what's going on. But I can feel the softness of dirt and the crunch of dead field grass under my shoes, taking clues of what the ground is like from that.