I was walking through the empty shell of a building on Alameda, the kind that used to have a sign that said “Continental Fenton” but now just had a cracked window and a door that wouldn’t open. The air smelled like dust and something else—something like a smell I’d caught in the corner of the kitchen once, when Jordan had been making toast and the butter had burned.
The floor was covered in a thin layer of water, not from rain, but from somewhere else. I stood there for a while, watching it pool and shift. Then I realized I was walking again, moving toward a place that wasn’t there, or maybe it was there but not like it used to be. The street name was wrong. I thought it was Magnolia, but it felt like a street that had never been named, or maybe had been named and then erased.
I kept walking.
I passed a spot where there used to be a café. Now it was just a window with a mirror in it, and the mirror was reflecting something I couldn’t quite see. I looked closer and saw the reflection of a face—Jordan’s, but not quite. The eyes were the same, but the mouth was moving, saying something I couldn’t hear. It kept changing, the face, like it was someone else trying to say something, but the voice was still mine.
I turned and walked back toward the building. The floor was still wet, and I noticed a few things had changed. The water had moved into a pattern, like it was writing. I knelt down and saw the letters were made of droplets, like they were trying to spell out something. I tried to read it, but the letters kept shifting, and the words didn’t make sense. I stood up and kept walking.
Then I was in a place I’d never seen before. It was the same building, but it had a door now, and the door was open. Inside, there were no lights, but the room was full of shadows that looked like they were watching me.
I didn’t go in.
I stood outside, and the wind picked up. It smelled like a place that used to be a park, but now it was full of things that shouldn’t be there—like a garden that had grown into something too big, too wild.
And then I was back.
The room was still empty, but the floor was dry now. I didn’t know if I’d been dreaming or if I’d just stood there for a long time, but the silence was different now. It was a silence that had a shape.
The water in the corner had stopped moving.
I walked to the window. Outside, the moon was small, like it was afraid to show itself.
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