The Fridge Is a mouth.

The kitchen isn’t a room; it’s a graveyard. Everything here is dead or pretending.

The fridge stands open, spilling its sick light onto linoleum floors warped by years of stomping, screaming, and silence. It’s a mouth that never speaks, a belly that never feeds, holding nothing but the faint scent of rot.

It’s 21:15. A timestamp branded into the photograph of my life. I’m staring at that goddamn fridge like it holds answers instead of shadows.

Like it might say, You’re okay. You’re safe now. But it doesn’t, because this house doesn’t lie.

The air reeks of ghosts. My parents are upstairs, though I can’t hear them. That’s the trick, see? Silence isn’t peace—it’s the tightrope stretched between explosions.

It’s the pause before the scream.

I press my palms to the fridge door, cold metal biting my skin. There are scratches on it. My scratches. Little tally marks carved during the long nights when I couldn’t sleep because they were shouting too loud for dreams to find me.

I counted their wars, their defeats, their truces that lasted just long enough for me to believe in them again.

The rug beneath my feet feels damp, even though it isn’t. My toes curl, instinctively bracing for something I can’t name. I wonder if this is what prey feels like right before the teeth close in.

And then I hear it.

Not the fridge. Not the silence.

The laughter.

High-pitched and sweet, like a windchime in a hurricane. It’s my own voice, echoing from somewhere I can’t reach anymore. The sound slices through the walls of my memory, pulling me back to the days when I didn’t know what hate sounded like.

You’re too young to feel this much pain, someone once told me.

But that’s the thing—pain doesn’t ask for permission.

The fridge door swings shut, snapping me out of my daze. The room tilts, or maybe it’s me. I stumble back, my breath catching in my throat. My eyes flick to the corner of the room where a mirror hangs crooked, its glass fractured into a spiderweb of cracks.

I don’t see myself in it.

I see her.

The girl I used to be. Barefoot and wide-eyed, clutching a stuffed animal that no longer exists. She’s staring at me with something between pity and rage, her mouth forming words I can’t hear. I want to scream at her. Tell her to run. Tell her that growing up doesn’t mean escaping—it just means learning how to survive with the knife still in your back.

“I’m still a child,” I whisper, my voice trembling.

But the reflection doesn’t move.

The fridge hums louder, like it’s laughing at me. The light inside flickers once, twice, before plunging the room into darkness.

I turn and run, my feet slapping against the cold floor. I don’t know where I’m going because there’s nowhere to go. This house is a labyrinth, and every door leads back here—to this moment, this kitchen, this goddamn fridge.

The clock reads 21:16 now.

I wonder if I’ll ever see 21:17.

REMI.