Palette

The world was mute. I was walking roads I recognized; but everything felt foreign to my body. Visually everything was in the right place and where it should be, but something seemed off. I was strolling down my old neighborhood. Passing my friend’s house, then my house, an old tree me and my childhood friends would hang out at after school, and a pond close by where we ice skated many cold winter nights. Seeing these mementos submerged me in my nostalgia, until all I saw were memories that were long repressed surrounding me at all sides. It brought tears to my eyes seeing friends I hadn’t seen in decades, feeling as if I never left. I was filled with a feeling of love and warmth, and taken back to a time period where everything was simple. But that warm feeling soon went cold. I opened my eyes to see the color palette of the world had drained. The outline of everything was still there, I was just surrounded by a void of black and white. It was strangely beautiful. I kept walking down my neighborhood road until it intersected with the community park. I loved this park as a kid, it brought a smile to my face remembering all the hide and seek games I played here as a child. Remembering these thoughts and memories were great, but I don’t know why I’m here. It feels as if the world hiccupped and I was placed in an area of limbo. The world was still, and quiet. Almost as if a vacuum were keeping the noises from escaping. But as I was cresting a hill, a little ways away from the playground, I heard the faint sound of a chain creaking in the distance. It almost hurt my ears to hear a sound again. I tried to move but I couldn’t. I was frozen in place. As if I weren’t the one who controlled my body anymore. I was so focused on the fear I felt on not being able to hear, that I didn’t even notice what was in front of me. The creaking of the chain continued, and I was barely able to shift my eyes down enough to see a kid sitting on a swing set. Their presence brought an overwhelming amount of fear in my body. I just knew they shouldn’t be here. That they didn’t belong. They were swinging back and forth, but fazing in and out of static. Cascading pink’s and red swirled around them as they glitched back and forth seeming like a virus to this world. I wanted to go. I wanted to run, but I couldn’t. I went to scream but nothing came out, I was paralyzed. I was filled with a feeling of dread, as if this were the end. I closed my eyes to look away from the bright array of colors clouding my vision, but when I opened them I had control of my body again. I looked around and I was exactly where I was left off before, but instead this time, the world was basked in color. I saw children running around in the playground and families sitting together feeding the ducks. The atmosphere was filled with laughter and car horns in the distance. I could feel and hear again. But then it hit me. I turned to look at the swing set where I saw the kid before, but there was no one there. There was no one there, but the swing was still swinging back and forth.

The light struck a glare, as if colliding with a shiny object in the distance. Without being able to process what it could have been that I saw, my legs began to move. I wasn’t in control. But it didn’t matter. The chaos of the world around me slowly faded into background noise, until it was nothing more than just a mere mumble of white noise in the distance. I felt alone. I was surrounded by families and friends I recognized, but it was as if I wasn’t even there. My trailing thoughts were interrupted when my eye caught sight of what had been playing with the reflections of light. It was a heart shaped locket, resting eerily where that kid would’ve been sitting before. With hesitation I reached for the shining locket. As I clutched it in my hands the swing suddenly came to a harsh stop. Freezing its momentum; resting in a still position, as if it hadn’t even been swinging in the first place. I looked down to see the heart shaped pendent sitting in the palm of my hand, and for an instance, I felt a feeling of familiarity. I unlatched the lever on the side to reveal the contents hiding away inside. When it opened I could vaguely make out the image of a little girl smiling, but the upper part of her face had been aggressively scribbled out in black marker, to the point to where you could barely make out any facial features at all. I felt like I had seen her before. Her smile she had on that picture was contagious, and soon I found myself smiling too. I was smiling until I looked a little further into the picture. It had changed from when I originally opened it. Her smiling face was now plastered with blood and cuts, and tears covered her eyes. The scribbles had left the photo and I recognized her. I knew her. When I saw her face it sent chills down my spine, and my heart went still. I knew her. That phrase echoed like a scream down an empty hall in my brain and it didn’t stop. I pushed my hands against my ears to suffocate the sound, but it didn’t work. I was on my knees screaming out and crying as loud as I could. The noise grew louder until I felt a ringing in my ear and everything went dark. I couldn’t see. My eyes felt heavy. But after a while I could feel the weight of my eyelids beginning to lift. My eyes adjusted and I saw mulch below me. I felt the cold feeling of chains between my fingers and heard the faint sound of them creak every time I swung back. I felt a strange feeling to my left, as if I was being watched. I turned and I saw a grown woman staring at me from atop a hill.