A text from an unknown number starts something so much more. Supernatural realms, monsters, and an imaginary friend--who might not be so imaginary after all.
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In March 2017, I wrote a version of this for Wattpad's Tap messaging story app. If y...
There was a boy I used to know, long ago, when my world was more lines than color. He was the first person I could see clearly.
And now this dude texting me was claiming to be him. There was no way.
I didn't put it together at first. Not when he said his name was Arlen, I didn't get it. It took a while before the pieces of the puzzle came together in my mind. He was Ren. Yeah, that Ren. My imaginary friend.
Or at least, I thought I'd imagined him.
It had to be some sort of a prank. But he knew things that nobody else should have. Like when I got chased by the moth monster and fell down and scarred my leg.
Ren. I still hardly believed it, but he said if I got my old diary he'd explain.
Alright, I'd play along for just a little bit longer. I messaged him to let him know I'd found it and sent him a picture.
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It wasn't exactly the most normal diary for a little kid. It was old and bound in what looked like embossed leather. I feel like little girls are usually given cutesy-print booklets with flower print or something on them. Princess stuff. That's mostly what my parents tried to give me. Come to think of it, I couldn't even remember where I'd got the diary. It was just there. I didn't even remember ever writing in it.
I sat on the edge of my bed and spread the diary open in my lap. The pages were cut uneven at the edges yet felt smooth under my fingers. Blank. They were blank for a fraction of a second, and then--a looping, perfect script spread across the pages. I flipped to the next page and watched the words roll in, faster and faster until I couldn't flip pages fast enough and the whole diary was full. The book grew warmer and warmer and spread through my fingertips and up my arms. It was a strange sensation that only grew stronger as I tried to make out the words. And then--
I was no longer on my bed. Not in my room or in my apartment, either. The world slipped by in shades of gray. Clouds gave way to earth and pines rose up above me from a foggy creekbed. There was a small child on the other side of the mist. She was running. Behind her was the moth. It circled down and around in closer and closer circles. I was watching my own childhood.
And then I was her. I was tumbling down the embankment and trying to get away but realizing that I couldn't move. I was trapped in the movements that I'd made so long ago as a five-year-old.
Then Ren was there. And then my child self was crying. And he took me through a patch of ripples where the air grew thick like jello and made my head spin.
On the other side, we came to a city where spires of houses and shops rose up into the starless sky and rows of lanterns lit the streets under eaves.
The longer I walked with Ren, the more dizzy I became. The seriously weird part about all this was not that it was happening, but that every step into the world was one I knew I'd taken before. It was a memory.
