22 December 2011
4am
Posh apartment in Notting Hill

content note: mild body horror

Natalie heard crying. No, wailing. Among the lockers slamming shut, the electronic tone coming over the PA marking the beginning of the next class, and the giddy chatter of students, Nemo heard crying from far away. She looked around; no one else noticed. The next moment, the halls were empty and silent. Natalie stood alone, late for class but unconcerned. She was listening for the wailing. Listening hard. Nothing. Just another distant locker closing.

Then the voice returned, this time muffled from inside a locker. Natalie began to frantically spin the lock. She blinked her eyes over and over - her vision was blurry, she couldn’t see the numbers. The crying continued, but Natalie couldn’t undo the lock. She didn’t know how she knew it, but whoever was inside, her teeth were falling out.

When Natalie couldn’t get the locker open, she stepped away. She could get in another way, through a portal. She turned away and headed out of the school.

It was twilight, the air was cool and breezy, and the grass blue-green and wet. Above her, the Milky Way streaked across the sky. Natalie began running, then pushed off the ground. She floated up and up and up until she was flying gently above the streetlights. It was serene and quiet. The sparse grid of streets of her home town gave way to the winding roads of London. Her feet found the ground again and she resumed a running past.

She passed a man, stopped, and began swearing at him, pushing him, hitting him. He did nothing, only laughed at her fury. She left him and the wailing returned. Now, she was in Omaha’s cobblestreet Old Market. Horses and their carriages stood waiting. Someone played a saxophone on a corner. Natalie went through a door and pushed her way through tight crowded hallways. She could hear the wailing again and elbowed her way towards it.

Sitting in a corner, she saw herself, holding her teeth in her hands, crying and crying. Natalie realized she wasn’t herself anymore, but a little boy with a shaved head. A knife was sticking out from his chest but it didn’t hurt.

“Are you okay?” he asked the girl in the corner.

The girl, Natalie, herself, looked up from the teeth in her hands.

“You abandoned me.”