Falling felt like drowning. The air burned cold, my lungs screamed for breath, and the world stretched into a blur of static and shadows.
I hit the ground hard. The impact rattled through me, but the pain felt distant — like it belonged to someone else.
When I opened my eyes, I wasn’t in my house anymore.
I was in the photo.
The one from my childhood, where I stood on the beach, smiling with my mom. But the sand wasn’t warm, and the ocean wasn’t blue. Everything looked… wrong.
The sky hung heavy and gray, like it had been painted over. The water was still, too still — like glass. My mom stood where she always had, her hand on my shoulder. But her eyes weren’t right. Too wide. Too empty.
She turned to face me slowly, her head tilting in that same, wrong way. The way he always did.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” she said, her voice hollow and distant. It wasn’t her voice at all. It was his.
I stumbled back, heart racing. “Let me out!”
Her face didn’t change. Her smile didn’t falter.
“There’s no out.”
Behind her, the water rippled — and something rose from it. A shape, long and twisted, too many limbs, too many eyes.
The shadows weren’t following me anymore.
They were waiting for me to come home.
The last thing I saw before the darkness swallowed the beach was my own reflection in the water.
The Stranger In My Photos 51 🤔🤔