It was a dream Jun told herself.
A twisting tree of keys rose from the cracked, near black ground into a sea of gray mist. Nothing else stood in this place but her and the tree. All keys looked similar, modern but with varying sheens of neglect and wear.
Jun estimated not hundreds, but thousands, maybe even a million keys. Any more than that, she wouldn't be able to comprehend. Then again, the situation itself made little sense.
A few keys Jun recognized—one from the Coyote Moon Motel with peeling tag and all, one to the bedroom of her current apartment, and even one to a house she could only remember through the tingling sensation of deja vu in the back of her mind.
When she reached forward to grab a key, a black cat perched itself impossibly on the key-limbs. It hadn't been there before, or she'd been ignorant of the green-eyed feline.
"I would choose carefully before taking one," the cat said in a low, wispy voice. Jun stepped back and tilted her head.
"Why's that?" she asked.
"Each key has a destination. And not all wish to be seen again."
"Again?"
The cat's lips pursed in what Jun could only assume was a smile, "Yes, these are places you've been."
"But..." she paused. The keys were too numerous for a lifetime, much less her eighteen years. "How?"
The cat held out a bright key. "This has your answers."
YOU ARE READING
Refined Sugars
Short StoryRefined Sugars is not a part of a balanced reading diet. This is an eclectic grouping of short stories written by me during periods of writing droughts on my main works in progress. Some of these are spin offs of those where I explore a character, a...
