All in Your Head

The girl entered the dim little room with an expression of contempt on her face. She was young yet, barely older than ten, with plump, rosy cheeks and bright eyes. Rather, they would be bright, if not for the fact that the dim little room was a therapist's office, and she was glaring at the man himself.

She sat down on the soft, beige chair that faced him, and didn't break eye contact as he studied her.

"What's your name, dear?" He cooed, having a way of twisting words so that they fit neatly into a child's brain after nearly twenty years in the business.

But this girl seemed different, instead of relaxing at the sound of his voice, she stiffened, lifted her chin, and narrowed her eyes as if to make herself seem older. She raised a thin, blonde eyebrow and answered, "Anne."

The therapist smiled kindly and nodded, then scribbled her name down at the top of a piece of notebook paper.

"Alright, Anne," He coaxed, "Tell me what you saw."

...

When Anne woke up that morning, dread filled her gut. At first, she thought it was nausea, but it was different somehow. The pale yellow flowers that bloomed on her wallpaper were paler now, and wilted. Her room was gray, and the sun shined dimmer then she remembered. Before long, she noticed that her finger tips were numb, and the familiar feelings, just subtle little things, like the way it felt when she stepped onto her wood floor, or the feeling of the cool metal doorknob, they were absent. Perhaps more dire, so were the people around her.

Her parents room, which she routinely entered every morning, was empty, and not just of her parents, but of furniture and clothing. Their hexagonal window had a seat protruding from the windowsill, and where there used to be a small door to a crawlspace, it was plastered over unevenly. The area was coarse and damp.

The atmosphere was thick and almost drug-like, to where Anne felt like lying down and falling back to sleep, but she couldn't. Something, some voice, a silent voice, urged her forward, toward the windowsill. She let her feet drag on the floor, perhaps to feel the wood against her heels, but as she neared the window seat, she grew more and more numb. She barely felt as her hands rubbed at the still-wet plaster and took it off in damp clumps. Now, the only sensation she had was how cold she was. She was so, so cold.

...

The therapist listened to Anne's story, occasionally stopping her to ask a meaningless question, or writing something down on his clipboard. So far, in messy handwriting, he had only scribbled: DREAM.

...

It didn't take Anne long to uncover the crawlspace under the seat, the door was still caked with plaster, but she had rubbed off just enough, to where she could slide her cold fingers into the seam of the door and yank it open. The door came out of the frame with a loud crack, and she set it down next to her.

The crawlspace, as she remembered, was just a tight, dark space that she filled with fairy lights and fake cream candles. But those were gone now, Anne was left staring into a long tunnel of darkness, with a faint light on the other side.

She reached in with one hand, setting it down on cool concrete, and began crawling through. It grew warm inside the tunnel, but Anne was still as cold as ice, and pinpricks began eating at her fingers and knees as she hurried along the tunnel. Eventually, the light grew more steady, and Anne knew that she was headed to her front yard, where the sky was grey, and her grass was dead, and the roads were empty. When she crawled out onto the grass, she was vaguely aware that she was still alone.

A soft breeze chilled her to the bone, and she gasped. There, at the other side of the street, sat a lone figure, a young child, like her, in the lifeless grass at the end of a long tunnel. His lips were blue and his cheeks were flushed, and he was shivering, but he made no effort to warm himself, instead he just stared at Anne, terrified.

...

The therapist nodded slowly at Anne's elaborate story, and then asked, "Did you recognize this boy?"

Anne shook her head, "I've never seen him, but I know he's like me, I just know it."

The therapist scribbled, like her, onto his pad.

"And what do you think this dream means, Anne?"

Anne shook her head again, this time in disappointment, "I knew you would say that, but it's not a dream, I know it. It's the future."

The therapist cocked an eyebrow, "You think you're going to wake up one day and your window is going to transform into a magic tunnel?"

"No!" Anne sighed, "It's, complicated, I think that's how the universe wanted to show me. How the world ends."

"Okay, Anne. That's our time, sweetie. I'll see you next week and we'll keep talking about this, alright?"

Anne scowled. "No one believes kids anyway. I bet no one believes that boy either. Just wait, you'll see."

...

That night, the therapist unlocked his front door at around eight at night, stepped into his dusty home and flicked on the light. He sighed at the recollection of his odd day, with the little girl called Anne.

It was stupid, really, the idea of a premonition of the future. A ten year old girl, whose supposed to be skipping rope and coloring her sidewalk with vibrant chalk flowers, was instead sitting in his office claiming she could tell the future. Blasphemy, really, utter blasphemy.

Sighing, he sulked over to his white tiled kitchen, warm in the orange glow of the sun. He poured himself a cup of day's old coffee and added his perfect combination of sugar and milk. With mug in hand, he scanned his burgundy bookshelf for a book, eventually settling on a forest green leather bound one, entitled, The Secret of Dawn.

Satisfied, the therapist ventured to his cozy living room, and fell into a supple cloth chair. He sipped slowly on his bitter coffee, huddled in the softness of his couch, invested in the mystery of the night.

Eventually, in serenity, the therapist dozed off next to the warmth of his glowing fireplace, blissfully oblivious to how ice cold the coals would be come morning.