It was a beautiful summer day outside. The sun was shining down with great intensity. There were barely any clouds in the sky to block its warm rays. It bathed the entire City-Park in a pleasant golden glow. The park was bustling with life, as people, young and old, walked along the dusty dirt paths, talked excitedly amongst themselves, laid on the grass, basking in the sun's warmth, or played on one of the numerous playgrounds dispersed throughout the park. 

 

At one of those many playgrounds, on an old, green wooden bench, sat a young woman dressed in a simple navy blue dress. Her emerald green eyes almost seemed to sparkle in the sunlight, as she looked out towards the climbing frame, watching her son and daughter play.

She smiled.

She was happy, happy to be a mother to two wonderful children.

 

The young mother kept watching them, as they chased each other across the playground, laughing, not a care in the world.

She stayed like that for a while, intently watching. Eventually, she let her eyes wander.

First, to an older couple walking by hand in hand , deeply engrossed in conversation, then to the tree line in the distance.

The trees were a luscious green, branches moving softly in the summer breeze. It was almost hypnotizing. 

 

How long she sat there, she didn’t know, but when she directed her gaze at the sky, which had turned a light orange hue by then, she noticed that the sun had started to set.

 

Surprised at how much time had already passed, the woman stretched her slightly tired limbs and got up to go fetch her children. She knew her husband would expect her and the kids to be home for dinner soon.

 

There were of course protests, as she told the two, that they needed to head home, but soon enough they were on their way.

Eventually, they made their way out of the park, and towards their home in the eastern suburbs.

It wasn’t a particularly long way, though with two small children,  it was about a thirty minute walk.

By the time they arrived at their cozy little suburban family home, a beautiful two story house with a small front garden, the sun had almost completely hidden beyond the horizon, and only a faint purple glow was still visible in the evening sky.

 

Inside, they were greeted warmly by the woman's husband, the children's father, who cheerily declared that dinner was ready.

Soon the entire family was gathered around the dining table to have a nice family meal together.  As they all ate and enjoyed each other's company, the young mother closed her eyes for a moment, basking in the warm, comforting feelings. 

Everything was perfect.  She’d always dreamt of a life like this. 

She felt content, happy, so very happy.

.

After a moment, when she opened her eyes again, the scene before her was suddenly blurry, started to dissolve, like ink in water, quickly washed away.

Darkness rapidly started to spread throughout her field of vision. She should have known. It always ended like this.

. 

Then the young woman was soon all alone, surrounded by nothing but darkness and emptiness.

Wherever she turned, wherever she looked, all she saw was the void staring back at her. She tried to run, but there was nowhere to go, no place to run to.

She could not tell, if she was even moving at all.

She screamed and shouted, for her husband, her kids, even though she knew they wouldn’t hear, wouldn’t come, wouldn't help her, but she didn’t care.

An awful noise started to fill her ears. People were laughing, laughing at her. Shouting, screaming. It was all too much. Her head was spinning, felt like it was going to burst. She couldn’t take it anymore. It needed to stop. It had to!

 

•  

 

Sarah’s eyes shot open, pupils dilated. She was sweating profusely and breathing heavily.

 

She’d had one of those dreams again. Another nightmare. They woke her up almost every single night. She couldn’t count anymore, how often she’d dreamt of scenarios like this, in different variations. It always felt so real, so good, yet so painful.

It was everything she wanted, but knew she could never have.

 

Her dreams would show her all these things she longed for, tease her with them, only to take them away and leave nothing but pain, despair and regrets in their place. Sarah hated dreams, hated sleeping so much! Why couldn’t she just stay awake forever?

 But that wouldn’t help either, would it? 

“No,” she thought. “No it wouldn’t.”. She knew that even being awake, she could not escape her mind and all the awful thoughts that occupied it. 

No one would ever love her, she would forever be ugly, lonely, unhappy, incompl- …”Stop!” 

Sarah slapped herself hard across the left cheek to ground herself, as she realized she was letting her negative thoughts spiral out of control again.

The girl pushed some of her hazelnut brown hair away from her sticky forehead with a bony hand in a shaky motion, as she lay there, trying to calm herself by taking deep, slow breaths.

 

She let her eyes drift over to the digital alarm clock on her nightstand. 

It read: 02:04 a.m.

This told Sarah that she had only slept for about three hours, if that. Another night of barely any sleep. 

The young woman sighed. She knew it would take a while to get back to sleep and by 5 a.m. the alarm clock would ring again.

She looked around the room some more, her gaze getting stuck on some of the children’s drawings on the wall. She could barely make them out through the heavy blanket of darkness that hung draped over her room, but it didn’t matter, she could picture every single one in her head. 

 

Memories from her job in child care, that she had quit nearly a year earlier. 

Sarah hadn’t quite been able to let go of the many drawings the children had given her as gifts. So she had hung as many as she could on her wall.

Even  now, months after she had quit working at the daycare they still adorned her bedroom’s interior.

 

She hadn’t wanted to give up working there, but had, with a heavy heart, in the end decided to do so, as she thought it to be for the best.

 

At the time her mental health had been quickly and steadily declining and she’d no longer felt capable of taking care of the children in an adequate manner.

 

And so she’d resigned from her job at the local nursery.

 

Sarah often mourned the fact that, due to the way she’d been born, she’d never be able to have children of her own. But deep down, she knew that it was for the best. She was a mess, could barely take care of herself, couldn’t talk to people, wouldn’t be a good role model. 

 

She didn’t even have a job anymore, to financially support a small human..

 

That reminded her. In the morning she’d have to go to the Job Center again and for her regular appointment and then go on to write more pointless applications to jobs she knew she didn’t want and that wouldn’t hire her anyway. 

She had tried, but been rejected too many times to count, most often after barely managing to get any words out during her interviews. 

Eventually she’d simply stopped trying. She hated writing senseless job applications, but it needed to be done, so the bills could be paid.

 

Defeated, the young woman lay in bed for a while longer, still unable to fall back asleep. 

 

After a while she felt a strong need to move, to go somewhere. 

She looked at the dim display of her alarm clock again.

02:47 a.m.

 

She knew she would not be able to fall back asleep and so decided to get out of bed and go for a little night time walk, as she so often did. 

Sarah lived in a small town in a house right next to a Forest. She’d often take walks there when she couldn’t sleep.

 

To the right of her bed hung a large mirror, which Sarah rarely used, as she didn’t much like looking at herself. As she passed it, she caught sight of her reflection in it, and even in the dark she could see the contours of her body.

It disgusted her.

Every single inch of it.

Ever since Puberty, she had developed an ever growing hatred of her body, to the point that even features that she’d once loved about herself, like her eyes, which people frequently complimented her on, had become unbearable to look at.

 

Whenever she caught sight of herself, it took everything inside of her to not smash the mirror in rage.

 

Even after three years of hormone therapy, she still looked, in her eyes, so wrong, so disgusting. She was so jealous of other women like her, who were so pretty, so beautiful. 

She knew deep down that she shouldn’t think that way, that it was deeply unhealthy, outright harmful to herself and others even, but she simply couldn’t help it. And she knew she wasn’t alone in her opinion.

People on many occasions had told her how ugly she was, that she was a freak, and shouldn't exist. 

 

At times Sarah was inclined to agree. Maybe it would be better if she were to cease existing, when merely looking at her own reflection made her want to scream and gouge her eyes out. When merely being was unbearable.

 

She quickly turned away with tears in her eyes, as to not let herself be consumed by those thoughts, and picked up a dress, she wasn’t sure which one, but it didn’t matter so late at night in such a remote area, from her desk chair, where she’d put clothes she had already worn, but intended to wear again before washing them, and clumsily slipped it over her head. Sarah didn’t bother putting on any socks or shoes, as she hated the feeling of them on her feet, and only ever wore them, when she had to.

Fortunately, that night it was warm enough to go without, although she sometimes did go outside without shoes even in winter.

She promptly set out towards her front door, grabbing her keys and cellphone on the way out. 

 

As Sarah carefully closed the door to her apartment, she debated turning on the light in the hallway, but decided against it and quietly made her way to the front door. 

 

Once outside, Sarah looked around herself. The road she lived on was only illuminated by a few dim, old street lights, which bathed it in a soft amber glow that the young woman found to be quite pleasant and pretty. 

 

The rough, still slightly warm pavement felt nice against Sarah’s toes and a cool breeze tickled her face, as she stood there, studying the path towards the woods.

It, as opposed to the road, was entirely pitch black, with no street lamps.

It was somewhat creepy, but Sarah was used to it, having been there at night on many occasions. 

 

Sarah walked briskly towards the opening in the trees, hoping no one had been coincidentally looking out of their window at that moment, seeing as she likely looked quite weird, ridiculous even, walking barefoot into the forest, in the middle of the night.

 

Soon she had disappeared down the dark forest path. 

She could barely see anything ahead of her.

Only the faint, dark contours of the trees around her, as she kept walking, the ground making soft crunching sounds beneath her bare feet.

Sarah felt a bit uneasy, though she didn’t know why.

It was unusual for her

She knew the place like the back of her own hand. It was no problem at all. Just a short walk, like so many times before.

 

It felt good to be out there. It had become a sort of routine for Sarah to come to the forest after her nightmares. It gave her comfort.

 

Further and further down the path she went. 

It was unusually quiet, Sarah noted.

She didn’t think much of it though.

 

Then, a soft noise, the rustling of leaves, branches cracking, a few meters away.

 

“Just a small animal,” Sarah muttered, continuing down her all too familiar route, around a corner, which looped the path back towards the road.

 

Soon enough, the street lights came back into view, about a hundred meters in the distance.

 

Then there was the same noise again from before. That time, slightly closer, paired with what sounded almost like panting or soft growling.

That time, Sarah didn’t feel safe anymore, and with the road already in sight, she picked up her pace, almost tripping over a large tree root, which jutted out in the middle of the path. 

She got closer and closer to the lights. 

The girl turned her head around to look back for a moment, and there, some distance away, she saw a shadowy figure moving in between the trees. 

She almost thought it looked human. Small. A child maybe? But who else would be out there so late? Especially a child, all alone? 

 

The figure didn’t seem to have noticed that she was there. Sarah considered calling out to the figure, but something inside of her told her to just keep moving, so she did. 

Probably just imagining things, she thought. She had barely slept after all. But better safe than sorry

 

Soon enough she stood in front of the building she lived in again, still feeling uneasy.

 

Quickly, she went inside, making sure the front door was adequately shut. Then she sank to the floor, her mind unable to process anything.

•                                                                                      

The following hour and a half was spent sitting on the floor of the apartment, back against the front door, staring at the opposing wall, until the sound of her 5 a.m. alarm broke Sarah out of her trance-like state.

 

The young woman slowly pushed herself up off the floor and dragged her aching, sleep deprived body towards the bathroom to take a shower. Sarah always dreaded showers, but knew it was unavoidable that day, as she hadn’t showered in almost a week and most likely smelled fairly unpleasant.

 

Soon she stood in front of the shower, mentally preparing herself.

 

“1…2…3”, Sarah counted in her head, taking a deep breath, before swiftly taking off her dress and underwear and jumping in the shower to get one of her least favorite activities over with.

 

After her shower she put on a loose olive colored short sleeve blouse and a baggy pair of jeans, along with a brown belt and the only pair of shoes she owned. 

She quickly shaved her face, without bothering to look in the mirror, blow-dried her hair and pulled it into a messy ponytail.

 

Next the girl decided she should eat something and sluggishly made her way to the kitchen to look for something to satiate her hunger. Though after arriving there, she realized that she had neither bread, cereal or any fruit she could eat.

 

She had been meaning to go grocery shopping for the past week, she suddenly recalled. 

 

There was only a half full container of oats standing on the counter. Sarah couldn’t remember when or what she had used them for. Nonetheless she decided they would do for sustenance, grabbed a handful out of the plastic container and stuffed them in her mouth. They tasted vile. The oats had clearly been stale. Still, she swallowed them.

 

After quickly washing down the horrible taste with tap water, Sarah caught a glance of the big clock hanging above the fridge. 

 

05:46 a.m.

 

Her bus would depart at 06:02 and it would be a 10-minute walk to the bus stop, so she needed to get going soon. 

 

Sarah quickly rushed towards the door, grabbing her  bag, which she always strategically placed right next to the door, so as to not forget it, before realizing that she had left her phone in the kitchen. Scrambling back into the kitchen, she grabbed the device from the stovetop, then finally made her way out of the apartment. 

 

The woman checked her phone for the time, skipping down the mustard yellow, linoleum covered stairs towards the front door.

 

05:54 a.m.

 

“Damn it!”

 

 She needed to run to catch her bus. Sarah quietly cursed the terrible public transport service in her town, with only one bus leaving every two hours towards the city.

 

Hastily exiting the building, Sarah stumbled her way onto the uneven sidewalk, before sprinting in the direction of the sole bus stop in town.

 

As she sped down the street, she couldn't help but notice some reddish brown stains on the asphalt, that looked a lot like dried blood. Being naturally curious, the girl felt the urge to stop and take a closer look, but remembering that she had a bus to catch, she simply continued on.

 

“Probably an injured animal,” Sarah pondered,as she rounded the corner, into the street, where the bus stop was located. ”There are a lot of free roaming cats around here and the forest is right there after all.”

 

She finally reached the sign with the big green H on a yellow background. 6:01 was the time displayed on the little LED-screen, showing the bus schedule, next to the sign. She’d made it.

 

A minute later, exactly on time, the bus arrived.

To Sarah’s relief and delight, completely empty, apart from the bus driver. 

It came to a halt right in front of her, the doors swinging open. She grabbed her ticket from her purse, showed it to the bus driver upon boarding the bus and found a seat at the back of the vehicle.

 

They soon began moving again. The motor gave off a constant, loud rumbling sound, and the entire bus shook wildly, as it barreled down the bumpy road, with its many potholes in need of fixing, towards the city. 

The smell of paint and plastic lingered in the air. Bus rides were, in Sarah’s opinion, rather uncomfortable affairs. She much preferred trains. But without a train station in town and no car she had no other option, but to endure them. 

 

She quickly rummaged through her bag, to find her phone and headphones and put on a playlist of her favorite songs, to drown out the loud noises that were already starting to make her feel stressed.

 

She leaned her head against the window, feeling the vibrations of the glass against her skull.

This, along with the, albeit rather unimpressive, scenery rushing past outside the dirty, dust covered window, helped Sarah relax a bit again.

 

As they made their way into the city, stop by stop, the bus slowly began to fill with people heading to work, though it never reached uncomfortable levels of full, thanks to students being on summer break, which Sarah was grateful for.

 

Before she knew it, they had reached her stop.

 

When she got off , she passed by a mother, a small toddler clinging to the woman's arm. Jealousy clawed at Sarah’s insides, as it so often did, seeing mothers with their children. She felt awful, having those thoughts, but it didn’t stop them from penetrating her mind.

 

She watched the two get on the bus. The girl was so absorbed in observing them, that she almost collided with an older man in a brown suit.

 

“Hey! Watch where you’re going!” grumbled the man angrily, just about dodging her.

 

“Ss-Sor-r-y!” Sarah squeaked in apology, cringing both at the sound of her voice and out of embarrassment, then quickly ran off down the busy street, towards the dreaded job center, hoping to avoid any more awkward situations, though she knew that hope was foolish.

•  

 

“Ow!” A searing pain on her leg awoke the little girl from her sleep. Quickly she drew the injured leg closer to her body to get it out of the sun.

Stupid leaves! The girl thought. That’s gonna be all  red and blister-y again!

She wasn’t in the mood for this at all! She was hungry and felt sick, after once again throwing most of her meal back up the previous night. And she was sad for the poor kitty too! And also, this sleeping spot was super uncomfortable! 

She just wanted to sleep and forget about it all.

 

The girl adjusted her sleeping position a little and was back asleep soon enough.

•  

 

“Well, That could have gone worse,” Sarah muttered to herself, as she stepped off the now much fuller bus, into the  midday heat.

It was 12:23 p.m.. She had spent the past six hours surrounded by people, talking to people and was extremely mentally exhausted, felt like she was about to break down crying, really, but her appointment at the Job Center had been successful and she would not run any risk of payments being cut, so she was happy too, and the next time she’d need to go anywhere apart from the grocery store was over two weeks away, when she’d need to go to the clinic for blood work and a new prescription. 

 

The young woman was also proud of herself for actually remembering to buy groceries, which she had been planning to do for the past two weeks, but had forgotten every time. This had left her with almost nothing edible in her fridge or pantry

 

The sun shone down mercilessly upon her and left her sweaty, miserable and itching all over.

Sarah had always been sensitive to heat and sunlight and liked to spend hot summer days locked inside her room, playing video games or reading.

 

She could smell the hot asphalt, while she continued down the street towards her apartment building.

 

Something caught Sarah’s eye, just a block away from home. There was something on the side of the road. Something furry.

 

Led by her morbid curiosity, she decided to take some time to have a look, even though the sun felt like pins and needles on her skin..

 

As Sarah got closer, she recognized it as one of her neighbor’s cats, a very much dead version of said cat.

It lay there motionless and its fur was caked with dried blood and dirt. 

She remembered the blood stains she had seen that morning. She deduced that they were likely from the cat in front of her.

 

Upon closer inspection she discovered bite marks around the animal’s neck area. 

She wondered what could have killed the cat. 

A dog maybe? But she didn’t think a dog would leave clean bite marks like that. 

 

Sarah felt a bit sad at the sight. She quite liked cats. She’d even had one growing up. Fond memories filled her head, of sitting on the sofa, petting Theodore, feeding him snacks or playing with him with his favorite toy. He had died of kidney failure, when she was thirteen.

The girl wore a sad smile, recounting those times.

 

After a short while, she let out a long, deep sigh,  got back up and chose to head home, leaving the animal for its owner to find and mourn.

 

Inside her apartment, sweaty and exhausted, Sarah immediately dropped all her grocery bags, making her way to her bedroom and laying down on her bed, everything that had happened since waking up that night replaying in her head over and over again in a seemingly endless loop.

 

She couldn’t tell how long she'd been staring holes into the ceiling, when she finally found her way back to the real world.

 

After forcing herself to get up, Sarah dragged herself back into the entrance hallway to retrieve her discarded grocery bags. 

Fortunately she had long ago stopped buying frozen goods, as she knew that she was liable to forgetting to put them away before they thawed. 

Instead she usually bought lots of canned foods or unrefrigerated premade meals.

 

She diligently sorted all of the food items into the pantry and the fridge in order of expiration dates, so she wouldn’t forget to eat the foods that were due to expire first. She also made sure to line everything up by color and size, for an aesthetically pleasing view.

 

After putting away all her groceries, Sarah changed into some more comfortable clothes and got back into bed, taking her phone with her, to scroll through some social media.

 

Turning on the screen, she noticed something that surprised her: a WhatsApp notification. No one ever texted her these days, considering she had no friends or coworkers to speak of and she hadn’t had any contact with her family in years. Sometimes Sarah really wondered why she even still had the app on her phone.

 

Who could possibly be contacting her all of a sudden?

 

The young woman curiously opened the app, to find a message, or rather three, from a number she didn’t recognize. But upon looking at the number’s profile picture, she realized that it was none other than her best friend from secondary school, Jannik, who she hadn’t spoken to for over six years, ever since he’d moved away for University.

 

It was odd that he would suddenly text her, out of nowhere, after all this time. 

 

Intrigued, by what her former friend could possibly want, she opened the message and began to read:

 

Hi Sarah, (cool name btw) (i hope this is even still your number. If not, whoever is reading this, I'm sorry for bothering you!) I know that it’s probably a bit weird for me to be texting you out of nowhere, but I’ve just been reminiscing a bit about the past lately, since moving back into the area and wanted to check in, how you were doing, since we were pretty good friends back then and I haven’t really heard from you at all since going to uni.

So, what I wanted to ask was, if you wanted to meet up sometime and catch up a bit? I’m really curious, what you’ve been up to.

I totally understand, if you don’t want to though! I mean it’s kinda sudden and we haven’t had anything to do with each other for so long.

“Wow”, Sarah thought. She hadn’t expected to hear from him again at all, and now he wanted to meet her. She wondered, if he’d been drunk, when he’d written the messages. Her father used to do that sometimes, when she was younger. He’d send her emotional messages apologizing or asking her how she was doing, when he’d had a few too many drinks. 

Then another thought struck her. How had Jannik known to call her Sarah? She hadn’t come out to anyone until two years after. 

 

She kept her eyes fixed on the screen, rereading the texts several times, as her brain tried its best to figure out if and how to respond. She really wanted to meet him, after all they’d been best friends all throughout secondary school and she had missed him and realistically she knew, getting some human contact, especially familiar human contact, would likely do her some good, but in the back of her consciousness there was that familiar, incessantly nagging voice, telling her a plethora of ways things could go wrong.

 

“You’d just make a fool of yourself. You panic when someone merely says hello to you on the street.”

 

“He probably just wants to make fun of you.”

 

“He’d be right in doing so, you’re weird and disgusting and you know it! You should just stay away from the normal people.”

 

“He probably didn’t even mean it.”

 

The two sides fought a fierce battle inside her mind for several minutes, neither giving in. 

Eventually Sarah’s desire to see her old friend again won out and she quickly typed a response, before the doubts and fears could overwhelm her again and make her change her mind.

 

Hi, 

It’s not weird at all! I’d love to meet and catch up a bit!

I’ve kind of missed talking to you.

 

Immediately after pressing send, Sarah turned off her phone screen and hid the device under her pillow, not being able to bear seeing Janniks potential reply. She’d check it later, when she worked up the courage.

 

She felt her cheeks getting hot and buried her face in her hands, letting out an embarrassed groan. Why had she worded the message like that? Why’d she use those exclamation marks? He’d think she was weird.

 

Thinking about it made the girl cringe and so she did her best to distract herself.

 

She jumped out of bed and grabbed her gray Nintendo Switch Lite from her, admittedly very cluttered (She’d need to clean her apartment some time, she reminded herself) desk to play some Pokemon. 

 

On the way back to the bed Sarah figured she could listen to some music as well. 

She walked across the fluffy carpeted floor, over to the small, cheap speaker system on her night stand, picked out a CD from the disorganized disc-rack and placed it in the drive, pressing play.

 

She flopped back onto the bed, feeling the soft mattress cushion her fall.

 

Sarah played some ranked matches, doing fairly well for her standards, while the dulcet tones of her favorite band caressed her ears. 

 

She finally felt somewhat at ease.

 

As her favorite song came on, she listened intently to the melancholic lyrics, she already knew by heart. 

 

“...You still think we live in a world so beautiful. I think I don’t believe in this stuff any more…”

 

Sarah thought about her childhood, a time when she too had been able to see that beautiful world, full of hopes and dreams. Those times were long gone. 

She’d loved nothing more in her former job, than to see the wonder and joy in the children’s eyes. She’d always wanted nothing more than to protect them from the world, so they’d never lose that wonderfully positive outlook.

 

“...don’t cry, I’ll try to say the right words at the right times, sing you lullabies…”

 

“...please don’t wake up…”

 

As the song neared its end it turned into a soft lullaby, only accompanied by an acoustic guitar.

Sarah closed her eyes, feeling the gentle melody penetrate deeply into her being, soothing worn out soul.

 

Even after the song ended, she simply laid there for a while, eyes closed, basking in the warm feelings.

 

A few minutes passed, before Sarah’s eyes slowly fluttered open again. 

Hesitantly turning her head towards the window, partially obscured by flower patterned curtains that Sarah loved to count the flowers on, when she was bored, she noticed, to her great surprise, that it was already starting to get dark outside.

Had it really been that long, since she’d gotten home.

 

The woman looked over to her alarm clock.

 

9:48 p.m.

Surprised by just how much time had passed, Sarah got up to stretch her limbs.

 

She figured that it would now be cool enough outside and opened the bedroom window to let some cool, fresh air in.

The old, slightly rusty handle resisted her efforts at first, but eventually turned far enough to let Sarah open the window all the way.

 

Looking out at the perpetually darkening sky, she noticed dark clouds moving towards her area. This likely meant that a thunderstorm was coming.  This meant that it would likely start raining, so after a moment of hesitation, Sarah closed the window again, not wanting herbed to get wet from the rain.

The girl didn’t like thunderstorms very much, but she’d be fine. They were fairly common during the summer time.

 

Just then, her empty stomach emitted an audible gurgling noise.

It made sense, after all she hadn’t eaten anything since early in the morning, and even then, one could barely call a handful of stale oats a proper meal, so it had really been more than 24 hours .

 

And so, glad she’d finally gone grocery shopping that day, she ambled over to the kitchen and had a look into the small pantry.

After some deliberation, Sarah decided to grab a can of lentil soup, her favorite.

 

While searching the kitchen for a pot to heat her dinner up in, she could make out the low rumbling of distant thunder, confirming that there was indeed going to be a thunderstorm that night.

 

“It’s fine, nothing bad has ever happened to you during a thunderstorm before and today won’t be any different” she assured herself.

 

After rummaging through several painfully disorganized cabinets, Sarah finally found what she was looking for: a small, white ceramic pot that she’d gotten from her mother, when she moved out. 

 

She set it onto the stove and reached for the soup can. Her fingers tried to pull on the tab to open it, but found nothing there. Perplexed, Sarah looked down, to find that she’d accidentally bought a can that required a can opener, something she did not own. 

 

Grudgingly, the girl sifted through her utensil drawer for 

The pointiest knife she possessed and got to work, slowly, painstakingly opening her dinner with it, her hands quickly starting to ache.

 

Eventually, she succeeded in her endeavor and dumped the solidified contents into the pot on the stove. 

 

After waiting for what felt like hours, but was really only a few minutes, for the goo to heat up and look like actual soup again, Sarah filled herself a bowl and went back into her bedroom.

 

Sitting down on her bed again, she peered out at the street below through the curtains. Rain was pounding hard against the window. It sounded like thousands of pebbles bouncing off it.

 

Mesmerized, she kept watching and listening to the droplets rhythmically hitting the glass. Her dinner lay forgotten on the bed next to her.

 

Suddenly, a loud crash of thunder, like an explosion, startled the young woman out of her fascination, making her cover her ears and her body start shaking.

 

It took Sarah a while to calm herself down again. 

After that she started eating her ,by then lukewarm, soup and resumed looking out of the window.

 

As she ate and surveyed what laid outside her apartment, something down on the scarcely lit street caught her attention.

 

What looked like a young child, clad in a T-Shirt and shorts was sitting on the wet sidewalk, right in front of her home, hunched over something. 

Sarah couldn’t make out what it was.

 

“What’s that kid doing out there at this time alone, and in the middle of a thunderstorm too?”

 

“Something’s probably wrong. I should check on them”

 

Worried about the child, Sarah quickly put down her bowl, grabbed her keys and rushed out the door.

 

Within seconds of stepping out into the rain, her clothes and hair were completely wet.

 

As Sarah walked out of the apartment building’s front yard, onto the street, she saw something odd.

 

The child was sitting there, just like Sarah had seen from her room, next to a street lamp, still holding onto something. Something big.

That something seemed to be moving, struggling to get away, but the child’s grip was strong, unnaturally strong for their size.

 

As she got closer, Sarah could see that what it was holding onto was a dog.

 

The child didn’t notice Sarah approaching, as they had their face buried in the dog’s fur.

 

 “Hey, are you okay?” she called out to the small human

 

Startled by her voice, they stopped holding onto the by now longer struggling animal, which simply dropped to the floor with a wet thud, and looked up, meeting Sarah’s eyes.

 

Sarah screamed.

 

The child’s mouth was dripping with the dog’s blood, tiny fangs clearly visible. Their skin was impossibly pale and had an unhealthy gray tone to it. Their pupils were dilated so far that their eyes looked almost entirely black.

 

Sarah felt her heart hammering in her chest. 

“I’m either dreaming, or I’ve finally gone completely insane!” she thought to herself. 

 

Every part of her brain was telling Sarah to run, but her body wouldn’t obey. She simply stood there, staring in horror and morbid fascination at the human…? about  three meters away from her.

 

The creature slowly stood up from the wet pavement, never breaking eye contact.

It was breathing heavily, making low growling noises.

 

Still unable to move from where she was standing, Sarah simply shut her eyes tightly, bracing herself for whatever might happen.