The house aches with unfamiliarity.
Each step up the worn concrete steps feels like a gunshot, the sounds slack against the backdrop of night.
It doesn't feel right. Yet it’s my fault we even came here.
I slip my phone out of my pocket, eyeing the time flashing up at me. 7:23 pm.
A barrage of notifications flicker across the screen- missed calls from my parents and a string of angry text messages.
“Orion!” A muffled voice shouts. I hear the hollow click as the door slams open. My mom. There’s faded smears of makeup on her face.
“Where the hell have you been?”
“I was at school.” I grate out, voice low. I immediately wince, knowing my words will do nothing to soothe the raw anger carved across my mom’s face.
She cracks the door open a bit more. Warm orange light from inside the house spills onto the cracked concrete steps. I see her eyebrows arch upwards. I see her take a shuddering breath.
“I found my bike in the garage this morning. You didn’t leave it at the creek the other day. It hasn’t even been ridden.” Fear spikes up my spine like ice, turning my veins to stone.
“Mom-”
“Where were you?”
“Please, I promise I can explain. But not now.” The calm that seeped into me during the walk home is gone. I can already feel the panic unfurling in my brain, feel the steady burn of the flames latching onto the hem of my jeans.
The lost memory unlatches itself, driving into my skull like a knife. I hear a distant scream ring through my ears, the noise sounding like it's underwater. I try to move, taking a step forward to try and get into the house. She’s still blocking my path. Beads of sweat slide down the back of my neck like raindrops.
“Orion,” My mom warns, voice dangerously low.
I give a sharp shake of my head, a scream rising in my throat like bile. I can’t be here. Fear writhes under my skin, filling my body with adrenaline. I feel the panic course through my veins, the urge to run screaming through me.
I barrel past her, blindly sprinting up the stairs. My foot catches on the last step and I lurch forward, crashing against the smooth wood at the top of the landing. My shoulder snaps against the floor, pain ricocheting down every fiber of my skin.
I can’t stop the sobs from tearing out of me this time. They rip through my chest like dark streaks of lightning.
I can hear my parents talking downstairs, words clipped and anxious. I pull myself upwards before they can reach me.
I feel the world careen, the ground beneath me bending and undulating like water. The familiar snarl of panic flares at the base of my skull. My clothes are drenched in sweat. I lean a hand against the wall, fingertips pressed flat against the gray.
The room itself seems to writhe, the world distorted and fissued with cracks. I sink back down to the floor, a low sob building in my throat.
“Are you okay?” My mom’s voice floats from downstairs. I hear her footsteps charging towards me. No. “Just tell me where you were.”
“I was at the creek,” I sigh, words dripping out of me in dull bursts like broken stars.
“Orion…..”
my mom says, pressing a hand to her temple. “I don’t want you going there anymore. I don’t want you going there with those people, doing god knows what.” Her voice trails off and she takes a step forward, taking an indifferent sniff. I recoil, but her hand flings out and grabs my shirt. I flinch in her grasp.
YOU ARE READING
This Was A Bad Idea
Horror17 year old Orion has recently moved to a new town due to the harassment and transphobia they faced at their old one. They're a person stained with old memories that they'd like to forget. Thats why they're ecstatic when the local group of queer o...
