Vanishing Alley

-10-

     When I looked up, I could not believe what I saw. It was like something straight out of a movie or a science-fiction novel! I joined Amy and Philip in astonishment.

"Are you guys seeing what I'm seeing?" Amy asked us in disbelief when she finally managed to gather her words.

"Well, if you're looking at an alley where that little store just was, then yeah, we're looking at the same thing. Clara? What about you? Are you..." Philip started to ask me before I cut him off mid-sentence.

"Yup. I see it."

"Could this really be happening?"

"Either it's real..." I started to answer Amy's question, until Philip jumped in and finished it. He could probably hear it in my voice that I didn't really know what to say.

"...Or we're all having the same hallucination... Or daydream... Or we all have heat exhaustion? I don't know. Maybe we've had too much sun this summer. Whatever it is, it definitely looks real!"

We just stood there because it was all we could manage to do at the time. We didn't know what to do next. That was until we heard someone call out to us.

"Hello?" We heard him, but neither of us answered, so he tried again to get our attention, "Excuse me... Hello?"

"Oh, yes. Hello. Sorry, are we in your way?" I asked him, able to finally peel my eyes away from the unbelievable sight in front of us.

"No, it's not that. It's just that... well... I was walking by and saw the three of you just standing here and staring at this storefront. I thought to stop to ask if everything is ok or if you need any help."

Storefront? That meant that he didn't see the alley! It only appeared to the three of us. Oh, we must have seemed so weird to others walking around.

"Huh? Oh, yes, this storefront. The one right here in front of us." I tried to sound as calm as possible, implying that yes, we were indeed looking at the store. "Yes, well, actually, we were..." I didn't know what I was about to say, to be honest, I was winging it. That was until Amy jumped in to save me.

"We were in awe of how they managed to build such a lovely looking store in such a tiny spot. We're amazed because it looks like they built it in a spot where an alley used to be."

Philip and I nodded and smiled at Amy's answer, while we hoped that would be enough for him.

"Oh, I see." It sounded like he believed us, and then he said, "Well, it looks like that because there did used to be an alley there."

WHAT? What did he just tell us? We couldn't believe it. Of course, we needed more information.

"You mean to tell us that before this store, there was an alley here?" I asked.

"Yes, well, way back in the 19th century, it's said that there was an alley that stood here, but it wasn't just your ordinary alley." At this point we were all looking at this man who happened to stop here, while he told us another unbelievable story — you'll see what I mean.

"What do you mean?" Philip asked him with the same amount of curiosity Amy and I had.

"Well, the legend says that people used to claim they saw weird things happening that were connected to the alley. Citizens who lived in the area claimed people would walk through it and disappear, sometimes for days at a time. When they came back, they never told anyone where they were or what they saw. They also claimed to hear voices talking as they walked by, but when they looked toward it, they didn't see anyone."

"Maybe it was a very long alley, and the people were too far to see them. And the people who disappeared, maybe it was for kind of the same reason, the alley was probably so long and dark that as they walked, the others started to lose sight of them, which is normal." Amy tried to find reason, or a way to make sense of this legend he was telling us about. It was just a coincidence... Right?