“Goodnight, mom,” I whispered into the darkness.

“Goodnight, my dear,” I saw the door open, the light from the hall momentarily pouring in, then the door closed, locking me in darkness once again.

Despite all that had happened that day, I was asleep before long.

----------

I opened my eyes, but I wasn’t in my bedroom. Rather, I was somewhere... else. Somewhere very else indeed.

I shut my eyes. I waited for my mind to calm down. Then I opened them again. I took a look at my surroundings.

I was in a place. Where this place was, I had no idea. But the whole place seemed strangely familiar. The floor was a checkerboard of white, red, yellow, blue, and green tiles. There were large white pillars every few feet. And the feeling the place gave me... a shiver ran down my spine. It felt temporary, like I wasn’t supposed to be there too long.

Well. If I was supposed to get going, I supposed I would.

I started wandering aimlessly, trying to find a door, but the space seemed to never end despite the fact that I could see the walls on either side of me and behind me. I walked and walked for maybe ten minutes.

I started to feel fatigued. Suddenly, something felt... off. Something was shifting in the universe. Something told me I’d been there too long.

I blinked. Before me was a door that definitely had not been there before. Hesitantly, I turned the knob. I pushed the door open.

Before me was a hallway. It looked like one you'd find in a hotel, except I couldn’t see an end. The corridor was poorly lit, and the walls lined with doors. None of them had handles.

This place gave me a weird feeling, just like the first had: I’ve been here before, this is temporary, don’t stay for too long. But it also felt kind of... in-between, like it was there and nowhere at the same time. Like a threshold between... realities.

I felt the sudden urge to get to the end of the hallway. Part of me wanted to act on that. But another part of me said to turn around and go back to the other place. And yet another part was telling me to...

Wake up?

I shook my head and started walking.

And I walked.

And walked.

A n d w a l k e d.

Andwalkedandwalkedandwalkedandwalkedand-

I reached the end.

Finally.

There was a door not unlike the one I’d come through. I reached out to turn the knob, to get out, finally. There was a sense of finality to this door, like it was the last.

But right before I put my hand on the knob, I stopped.

Froze.

Listened.

To a little voice in my head.

My curiosity.

What’s behind the other doors? I wondered.

I backtracked a few. One of the doors felt right. I stopped. I faced it.

Like all the other doors, it had no handle. But it was also different from the others. It seemed... familiar. And I knew I’d seen it before.

The door to my old house.

Hesitantly, I raised a hand. I knocked on the door. Exactly the same rhythm as I always used to knock on doors. Tap, tap, tap-tap, tap.

The door swung open.

I stepped inside.

I stumbled.

The room was familiar. It was my room, the one I’d had as a kid, before my family fell apart. I’d had that room until I was five, then my mom moved out, and then my dad moved out, and the house was sold.

I walked through the room, my room, in awe. I felt safe. Everything was as I remembered. It was a small room. Model airplanes hung from the ceiling. The walls were covered in glow-in-the-dark stars. The comforter was Cars 2 themed. The only light came from my favorite car lamp. It lit the small space surprisingly well. The desk across from the bed, the one I’d called my “work desk” was the same.

Everything was exactly the same.

Except...

On the desk sat a colouring book and a box of crayons, fresh and new. I flipped through the colouring book. Cars. My favourite thing when I was five. I sat at the desk and started colouring. After a while I was hungry. I looked around.

On the bed was a plate that held a grilled cheese sandwich with a side of ranch dressing for dipping. Next to it was a juice box. Grape juice. My favourite meal as a kid.

That hadn’t been there before.

I stood up and picked up the plate and juice box. I carried it back to the desk and continued colouring as I ate.

Vaguely I wondered whether I should probably find my way home.

But I was home.

Safe away from the pains of the real world, I could be five years old forever in my five-year-old bedroom.

And I was content with that.

----------

In the real world, the world outside the boy’s mind, everything went on as normal. The boy went to school, came home, ate his food, switched between parents, all as he normally would.

But now, he did so with a dreamy, faraway look on his face. Like he wasn’t really there.

Nobody at school noticed. To them, the boy was being his usual weird self. They avoided him, as they’d always done.

Then a new kid came. He was nervous. He didn’t know anybody.

The new kid saw the boy. Thought he might be nice. Decided to introduce himself.

“H-hey,” the new kid said. “My name’s Bowie. I’m new. What’s your name?”

The boy looked at the new kid with the same, dreamy, faraway look.

“My name is _ _ _ _ _.”

Is my story good?

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