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I have searched in caves, over trees, in the air. I looked in mountains. I walked. I flew. I crawled. I clawed at the dirt like an animal of the earth. I even looked in the rivers and lakes, my wings growing so heavy with water I nearly drowned.
My home is out of my reach. I cannot fly high enough or dig low enough.
I cannot find that door.
This world is not mine and it is so empty. My kind are not meant to be alone so long. At night I have to wrap my own arms around myself because there is no one else to comfort me.
“Ava?” Thomas called. My attention pulled away from the words. I shoved the journal back in my pocket and pulled myself off the ground. The last sentence made me feel hollow in my chest. My teeth pressed tight together as I imagined him alone, scared, and wanting comfort from someone else. A strange alien world where he had no one.
I stood up and my head ached so bad I couldn’t think or feel of anything else. I groaned and gasped. Everything was white and black like static filling my head.
When the static left, my hand with the splinter was burning and screaming in pain. I sucked in a breath, my eyes wide. Goosebumps popped up on my arms and the back of my neck.
“There you are,” the little girl said from a distance behind me. I didn’t look back. I dug my fingers into the human bones in the wall and used them as leverage to pull myself forward, gritting my teeth as my legs wobbled beneath me. I pushed until I was running, my knees giving away every third step I took, making me suck in a breath of panic until I righted myself and kept going.
“Ava!” Thomas called. His voice came from in front of me and I used it as motivation. Someone else was here—someone that needed help. And if Pollux could fall through some portal to live in an alien world then I could scratch and claw with every ounce of strength I had to get away from that fucking ghost and escape this cave.
The tunnel walls suddenly disappeared, ending abruptly as I entered a new chamber. I stumbled forward, falling to the ground as I tripped over something on the floor. I landed in a heap on the things I tripped over. The flashlight slid out of my hand, the light fluttering out again.
A groan rumbled from my mouth as I shifted amongst the things I’d landed on. They scraped against the rocky ground as I moved, pulling myself up to my hands and knees, fumbling for the flashlight. My hand found the plastic material and I pulled it to my chest. I rolled on my back with my eyes closed as I slowly began winding the flashlight crank.
My head throbbed. My ribs ached. My arm felt like it was burning still. My eyes cracked open slowly. I could barely see anything at all. I could hear dripping water echoing around the room. The ceiling was far above me and the cave reached back deep, large stalagmites dripping upwards as if gravity was backwards.
It was then that I noticed what I was laying in.
Bones. I made an alarmed noise. With my head screaming and my eyes losing focus, I clawed away from the skeleton I had fallen on. My eyes swept the room but it looked so blurry. I focused on one lump, aiming the flashlight at it and staring until it started to come in focus.
It was another skeleton, trying to claw its way towards the exit I had just come from. A hard hat sat on the floor near its head.
“Ava?” Thomas called from deeper in this cave. “There’s something in here,” he said again. I crawled towards the wall and pulled myself up, my face dragging roughly over the rock as I went up. I was too weak and hurt to care.
“I’m coming,” I huffed out. I slid one foot away from the wall then slowly slid the other forward. When I didn’t fall I kept going, looking at my blurry feet. I passed another skeleton and another and another. Their bodies were stretched out long, hands reaching towards the hall I’d come from. They’d all been trying to escape something.
My splinter started to burn so badly that at first, I truly thought I was on fire. That my fingers were being burned off my body and that the flames were racing over my hand and up my arm. A scream dragged up out of my throat, making my head throb even more.
“I’m going to get you,” I heard the girl say with a little giggle, her voice coming from the tunnel I’d just come from. The innocent quality of her words chilled me. Killing me was nothing to her. It was a game.
I shuffled faster. Momentum was the only thing keeping me going. Each time my foot hit the ground it rattled up my body and rang in my head. The skeletons were so plentiful they impeded my progress, inanimate bony hands clawing and grasping at my ankles..
I looked down and realized onewaslatched on, bone fingers wrapped around to hold me in place. I gasped and shook it off. A huge stalagmite was in front of me. I pressed my hands to it and shuffled around, wanting to rest and hide. I slumped behind it and pressed the flashlight against my body to hide the light.
The little girl was coming and I had no idea what to do but hide. My splinter hurt less so I had to assume I gained some good space between us.
“Leave,” whispered in my ear, a male voice I’d never heard before.
“Run.”
“Go.”
The words were light and airy, tickling the hairs from my neck.Ghosts.
My eyes burned with tears as I trembled. I was alone in the dark, surrounded by the thing I feared most.
The sensation of fingers brushed against my arms, light and quick. They grew stronger, trailing over my skin, tugging at my hair as unintelligible whispers surrounded me.
Suddenly I was just a little girl again, hiding under my covers in bed—fingers scratching at the windows, arms sliding from beneath my bed, hands peeking from the closet.Ava. Ava. Ava,they had whispered and begged all night.
