Beginnings

Once upon a time, there was a girl.

She was curious and clever and very much believed that there was more to the world than meets the eye. There are millions of such girls, but this one in particular is important because she found something.  A flower showing up in her room at midnight. Her dead mother walking up and attacking her. Strange symbols carved into her car, her walls, her skin. Things appearing in her mirror. Strange illnesses. Doors where they shouldn't be. Birds swarming her en masse. Many more strange things happened to her, and the more they happened, the more the girl lost faith in the world.

The doctors said later that she'd drowned herself in the lake, but occasionally I see her around town, and I know better than to approach her.

This story isn't about that girl. It's about the man she left behind. It's about me, and how I desperately fought to avoid joining her.

This story is all I have left.