Undo

This post is in response to the 100 Days of Writing challenge I’m doing with the L.A. Writer’s group, where I will try to write 200 words (minimum) a day to get back into the writing groove.

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I'm here again.

As I stand in the hallway between my old bedroom and my sister's and close my eyes, I can transport myself back in time. I feel the space around me shimmer and fall away as I become unhinged from linear constraints. The feeling of weightlessness passes quickly and no matter how often I do this, when I'm clutched by gravity once more I fall to my knees, unable to stay on my feet.

My palms are sweaty against the rough carpet. This tells me that I landed some time during my early childhood, since they tore out the carpet when the bathroom flooded after my eight birthday party. My sister and I had thought it would be hilarious to shove as many filled water balloons as we could into the toilet, but our parents had disagreed.

I can't open my eyes yet.

The feeling of nausea hits me right between the eyes, and I'm glad I didn't have breakfast, or I would've spewed it all over myself. The smell doesn't help. Musty, like an old closet. The hallway feels stifling as I feel pinpricks across my skin and I break out into a sweat. I remember there's a window at the end of the hallway, but it was always frozen shut, twisted by the cold and heat that alternated yearly. I don't have a single memory of ever feeling a breeze in this space between our rooms.

The dust in the air, compounded by my soft landing, has thrown up a cloud of particles around me. I know from previous visits to these times that my nose doesn't thank me for bringing me back to the place where my allergies sprung from, and I can feel the congestion encroaching quickly.

I remain silent as I crouch in the upstairs of my childhood home, eyes closed as I breathe the house in. At this moment in time, the house is only a couple of decades old, so the empty place is mostly silent, without any of the usual creaks and small sounds that anyone who's lived in a house eventually stops hearing as the years go by.

The silence speaks volumes.

I'm not exactly sure when I came back, but I'm fairly certain no one's home at the moment. The nausea passes, finally. I stand up, trying to feel anyone's presence. Trying to feel if the crime has already been committed.

My watch beeps, once. I've already used up a quarter of the time I can spend here. I open my eyes and I know immediately that there's nothing for me here, not in this time.

There's no sign declaring each of our rooms, mine and my sister's, but I know perfectly well which one would be mine. It always is. No matter what's been changed on altered, my room is always the same one.

Except this time, it isn't. I feel it in my bones, and the pit of my stomach drops.

Opening the door merely confirms what I already know. A mostly empty room greets me; a desk, some boxes and cabinet. The extra room any couple would have no use for when there's no children.

Gritting my teeth, I open my sister's bedroom and am greeted with a similar sight, what should've been a room full of toys and the trappings of an innocent young girl is instead a simple workout room.

The headache strikes me out of the blue, almost making me crash to my knees again. I have to go back further. I have to find the right time, and wait.

Wait to save myself from being murdered. Without me, my parents don't have another child.

I step back into the hallway as I feel a tear escape me.

I close my eyes again and push myself back, away from this time and place, hoping this time I'll catch them.

The ones that destroyed everything I love.

The ones that killed me.