Screen Time

Chapter 2: And Scene

"Bye, Emma! I'll call you when I get home ok!", Maddison says as she waves to me from her dad's car.

"Yeah sure.", I say nonchalantly as I step inside "my" house. Inside I see a man sitting on the couch watching football on the TV and a woman cooking in the kitchen.

"Uh....I'm home?"

"Hey kiddo", says the man on the couch who I think is "my" father.

"Oh hey sweetie, how was school?", the woman in the kitchen who I'm assuming is "my" mother rushes to me as soon as she hears my voice.

"Oh uh, it was fine I guess?"

"That's good to hear! Go to your room and get changed. I'm making your favorite for dinner"

"Thanks", I say as walk up the stairs. I've never been here before but I know that my room is on the top right and I know that by "favorite" she meant her signature meatloaf recipe. It's disorienting. Like my memories don't match. Like im in a constant state of déjà-vu. I open the door to my room while I'm still contemplating everything so it takes me a while to realize how unsettling this room is. It's a nice room. It's colorful and neat. Kinda like the photos of rooms you see in stock images. But it feels like no one's ever stepped foot in here. Like it's been empty this entire time. Even the clothes that are folded nicely and inside the drawer look like no one's worn them before. The uneasiness I feel is somewhat lessened by the picture collage I find on the floor. It has pictures of who I'm assuming is me and Maddie from when we were babies up until now. I guess she wasn't kidding when she said we're always together. There are pictures of her alone in it but no pictures of me alone despite supposedly being my collage. But at this point, it's hardly the weirdest thing I've seen today. Still being in this house gives me the creeps so I decide to slip outside and go for a walk when no one's looking. I walk and walk and walk but it all looks the same. Like each house was copied and pasted. Everything down from the lawn to the cars. All of it looks the same. So I keep walking and walking on and on until I find something different. A woods. An oddly placed woods right where the houses cut off. The closer I get to it, it feels like every single bone in my body is telling me to turn around and go back home. So that's what I do. I run and run until the feeling of uneasiness finally leaves. Until I get back to my house. I open the door and then remember that I didn't really tell anyone that I left and now I have to think up an excuse for why I randomly decided to go for a walk in the middle of the night. Except when I head back inside nothing's changed. My 'father' is still there on the couch watching TV and my 'mother' is still in the kitchen. Cooking.

"hello...?", no response.

"...I'm back. Sorry for leaving without telling you guys", still no response. I go to the living room and stand directly in front of the TV and yet 'father' still doesn't react. It's like he can't even see me. Although upon further inspection he isn't the only one acting strange. I look at the TV and it's still playing the same football game. Over and over again. I try changing the channel multiple times but it seems as though every single channel on this tv only plays football. And not just any football. It's all the same game playing on a loop.

" What is happening?", I turn and head for the kitchen where I see 'Mother' still cooking meatloaf. But I've been gone for hours at this point. Does meatloaf take that long to cook? I try getting her attention too but nothing works. I turn all the stoves on and change the temperature of the oven, I even try to get in her way sometimes but she just pushes me aside like I'm not even there. Like she can't even see me. Eventually, I give up and go upstairs to my room.

"Maybe I'm just dreaming? Yeah, that's it. This is just one big bad dream and when I wake up everything will be normal.", I turn off the lights and head to bed hoping that when I open my eyes again I'll be able to have some sense of normality. Except I can't fall asleep. I toss and turn for a bit before eventually deciding to open my eyes again but when I do it's bright and sunny outside.

"Morning sweetie get dressed or you'll be late for school", says 'Mom'.

"morning??? But it was just night a couple of seconds ago?"

"seconds? Honey, you've been asleep for the past eight hours."

"But I-"

"Come on now. Maddison and her dad are already waiting outside.", she leaves without letting me finish my thought so I decide to just get dressed and hurry downstairs.

"here I packed your lunch. I put in the leftovers from last night.", on the bright side it seems she finally finished cooking that meatloaf.

"Make sure not to get into any trouble kiddo", says my 'dad' who has moved from the couch to the dining table where he's reading a newspaper and drinking a black coffee. So I'm assuming the Infinite football game wasn't as infinite as I thought.

"bye", I say curtly as I step out of the house, lunch in hand.

"Emma!", I don't even have to look up to know that it's my self-proclaimed bestest friend in the whole wide world.

"Wait, where's your backpack?"

"what do you mean it's right-", I look around and she's right I don't have it. I was rushing to get dressed and it must have slipped my mind. "haha.....how silly of me....I must have forgotten it"

"you forgot your backpack...?", Maddie says as she gives me an unconvincing look.

"It's a problem when I do it but when Zack Hudson does it I guess it's completely fine.", I mumble under my breath as I walk back inside the house but I'm stopped in my tracks as I notice that 'Mom' hasn't moved at all from where she was when I left. She's just standing there. Lifeless. I look over at 'Dad' and he seems to be in the same state. It's like a repeat of yesterday. Although "yesterday" was only a few minutes ago.

"Emma? Are you not gonna go inside?"

"Hey Maddie, come look at this.", she's been acting like everything's fine but once she sees this she'll have to admit that something's wrong. But the moment she steps into the house.

"Oh hello girls, have you not gone to school yet?", 'Mother' immediately goes back to normal. Almost like someone flipped a switch.

"Hey, kiddo! Back so soon?" Dad seems normal again as well.

"That doesn't make sense you guys were frozen just a second ago"

"Frozen? What are you talking about sweetie?"

"Emma, are you sure you're ok? You've been acting strange.", I'm starting to get sick of her acting like I'm the crazy one here.

"Whatever, just forget I said anything.", I say as I quickly head up the stairs to get my bag.

"um...ok? I'll wait for you in the car.", Maddie leaves and like clock work the moment she closes the door my parents freeze into place. Guess my prayers for things going back to normal were never answered. Still, the thing I'm most confused about isn't why they're frozen again, it's why they only went back to normal when she came inside. But I don't have time to think about that. It's time for school after all.