The Places Beyond

Chapter 1

I normally don't talk about this. 

But I think it is time for me to come out about what happened to me last fall.

I'm Siena. My parents are second generation from Egypt, and was born here in Canada. So that makes me third generation? We aren't very open about religion or culture. I visit my grandpa every few times in a year, and I think that he's very fun. He's the only thing that I have that connects me to my heritage. 

Anyways, less about him, more about who I am.

I'm 18, I was graduating High school last fall when- it happened. I'm starting my studies in Nursing here pretty soon, and I am totally not ready. Sorry, I keep going off track. 

Fall. Yellow leaves falling from the trees. While few snow flakes brushed the ground, then melted the next day. October 29. That's when it happened. It probably happened because I knew about it. Or maybe I did something that made me go there. I am still thinking about the possibilities of what made me go there in the first place.

Let me track back. 

August 14, 2017.

I was hanging out with my friends, Omari and Ryan. We are the straight forward friend group. We hang out at lunch, before each class and hang out after school. We've been friends since high school started, since I came to a high school none of my old friends gone too. I went there because my parents wanted me too. 

We were at Ryan's house, he lived on  Burdberry st. 

His room was cluttered with shit. Of course. Omari and I didn't care, we were use to it by then.

"Tiktok's feed is getting boring... You guys on the BTS fyp? That shit is lame." Omari said, smacking his lip of boredom.

"Nah, I've been on straight white girl dancing fyp for a little while. Maybe because I've accidentally liked a video awhile ago. I can't seem to get off it." I said.

Ryan was quiet, scrolling. His brown eyes were glazed with white from the screen brightness. Mind you this was around 7pm, so it was dark outside and in the room.

Omari looked over, "Yo. How about you? You seem pretty attached to your phone."

I noticed that he didn't flinch. He was pretty attached to his phone for at least a week now. I wonder what was so interesting. Omari didn't get a responce. So we went back to scrolling on tiktok.

"Have you guys heard about The Luminal Spaces?" Ryan said.

Omari looked up, raising his eyebrow, "The fuck is the Luminal Spaces?"

"Yea sounds like some children's show." I said.

Ryan clearly went and searched up on google.

He flipped his phone at me. For a second, I was blinded by the phone brightness. 

"Jesus Christ, Ryan. No wonder you get fucking headaches. This shit is smiting my eyes." I said.

I saw pictures, so familiar. Like I seen them before, but, they were quite uncomfortable as well. I saw the first photo, an empty mall. It was lit by a skylight, while all the shops around it were closed and dusty. Then was a picture of long hallway. Something from the titanic movie, but much creepy. If the Titanic and The Shining had a baby, this would be the picture I was looking at. And last was a picture of this yellow empty room. Mustard carpet, yellow wallpaper with mold on it and those office ceilings that you could easily punch a hole through. 

"Why is it so familiar?" Omari said.

"That's everyones first words towards seeing Luminal Spaces for the first time." Ryan said.