The Dawn Dopler Effect

My Friend Rips Herself Out of Existence

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8TH, 2029

I turn down her neighborhood, the cul de sac she lives at the end of-

Her house is gone. Not blown to smithereens or burnt to a crisp as I imagined would happen one day, but utterly removed from it's place.
Hell, even the grass is grown there, as if no building had ever been built there. I circle round' and park on the side of the road where it was originally.

One of her neighbors, an old lady in a pink apron with a kindly smile holding a much less kindly looking, much more scraggly and mean looking, cat, is ogling the plot of land amazed from their driveway. I run up to her,
I ask her questions in a stuttery befuddled voice, "What happened? W-was there a noise before it left or did a tornado run through here or...?"

She turns to me, still glancing toward the perfect little rectangle of grass where Dawn's house should be, and shrugs. "No clue, sonny. Was ere' when I went to bed, gon' when I woke up."

I scan her face for lies, and I believe she's truthful. I walk frowning over the grass where her house laid hours ago, when I visited.

I fall to my knees, what has she gotten herself into now? I think back to the day before, the afternoon I visited her...

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7th, 2029.

I'm on my way home from work,
a boring-as-beans engineering job where I tell rich people how, yes, I know you want a waterslide installed into your roof flowing into your infinity pool, but what I'm pretty sure you don't want is your children crushed under a ton of thick plastic and supports whenever the whole thing falls in, when I check my phone again and frown.

No messages, no reply. It's been a week now, the Labor Day cookout, since I talked to her. Usually she replies within minutes.

I think of the worse; she's finally burnt down her house with one of her insane experiments, and she's now charred remains under a bunch of bricks, or she accidentally teleported the neighbor's cat to Jupiter and now they chase her down with pitchforks and torches screaming 'Witch! Witch!'

I smile at that. Dawn probably would do something like that, or at least try to.

I pull into the parking lot of my apartment complex, an ugly stack of brick and white paint that should've been left as a patch of pine trees, but it was the cheapest place to rent and as they say, home is where the heart is.

I wave off a neighbor, an old lady who kept trying to pawn off her brownies on me, and I honestly think they're the same batch each time, and fiddle with my keyring till I find the one labeled 'HOEM'.
It is misspelled on purpose, and will not be rectified.

I shove it into the lock and open up the door, shedding off my suit and tie as I walk in and shut the aforementioned door back shut.

The floor is dirty white tile, drywall walls covered in a gaudy vintage wallpaper, and a small hallway leading into a wide room with all the amenities; couch, TV, small kitchen counter along one wall with a fridge and sink.

An extra thin wall partitions off the tight bathroom, room to sit on the toilet or shower standing, mirror in the shower.
A dresser stands beside the TV, full of my clothes and knick-knacks, as well as a bar out the side that hung my suits.

I collapse onto my couch, forgoing the luxury of shorts or a T-shirt, and stared at my phone.

No response.

I've been thinking she's been busy, working on whatever latest project it was, and forgetting to charge her phone... Though usually she's calling me constantly and warbling on about whatever little advancement she made or adjustment she planned to make with whatever project she worked on.