She had a relatively normal childhood, her parents were distant, focused on her older siblings and work. She slipped easily into the background, never stepping out of line. A completely average child, almost to the point of invisibility. Still she had a decent life, If you didn't count having grown up to watch those around her move on, move out, and never come back.
The only point of interest in her short life had been when she turned thirteen, a trip with her mother turned wrong. It had been simple. A quick weekend flight cross country to look at a new house. She didn't necessarily want to move but her parents definitely did. So as to not be a bother she just nodded when they asked her if it would be ok. Not that it actually mattered to them whether she cared or not, they would have moved anyway. But she didn't want to make a fuss, it would only make things more difficult. It was her best quality after all, being low maintenance in a house full of children. It had earned her what little praise she got from her parents.
The flight was nice and the house was nicer, she'd 'make new friends' her mom assured her. It was ok though, she'd always known people were temporary, at least for her. Everyone left eventually. So leaving would be fine, and if it made her parents happy then it would be worth it."Bo? Are you even listening to me?" She nearly jumped out of her skin, the ride to the airport was about three hours and not a word had been said. She fairly zoned out.
"Sorry ma, I guess I was just thinking to much."
"Always so oblivious, really I hope you grow out of this. It feels like you just can't be bothered to care about anything or think about other people. Always stuck in your own head, you know it's gonna show one day when you don't have any friends because you never try and be more social," and per usual her mother kept going and going. Bo wondered what she even missed to cause such an upset, but in the mean time she sat silently while her mother ranted, knowing better than to try and explain herself.
"...anyway we're almost at the airport so I want you to make sure you get everything out of the car, it's a rental so if you forget something we can't get it back."
Ten minutes later she was walking into the airport behind her mother, people milling about, weaving around the crowd. TSA was relatively quick and painless, so they had extra time to grab dinner. The airport was huge, five different terminals each with about 30 gates. It made her wonder how many thousands of people walked through here a day, all going somewhere else.
Her mother had left about 5 minutes ago to the bathroom and told Bo to meet her at the gates. She was waiting at the gate number she had messily written on her wrist. She was sure it was right but she couldn't see her mother anywhere. The line was getting closer and closer and she was ticketless.
"Ticket ma'am?" The attendant looked at her expectantly. She explained that her mother had them, and the attendant ask her for her name and mumbled a few clipped sentences into a comm at her desk.
"Your flights at gate 26 in concourse L, this is concourse K." The woman looked bored so Bo thanked her and turned, knowing that the flight was leaving soon she ran down the length of the airport. The crowd was suffocating, and the signs were confusing, she started to panic, couldn't help but wonder if one of the many planes taking off on the runway was hers. Whether her mother would even notice if she wasn't there.
She knocked into a tall mans shoulders as she ran, and she could hear him scoff as she stumbled. She looked around desperately for her mother, still not seeing her among the crowd. She had no idea what to do. What if she left already? Was she stranded thousands of miles from home with no one? Would her parents even care? The questions flooded her and she could feel the air thickening, her hearing going fuzzy as she fell to her hands and knees. She could feel the world around her fading and she felt so tired all a sudden. It only served to further her panic. She tried to stand back up but before she could the air seemed to fizzle, and everything went dark.————————
It seemed like both moments and an eternity has passed when she opened her eyes again. Expecting to see the crowd of people, maybe even her mother, she was shaken to find she was surrounded by trees. A loud hum filled the air and the trees around her shook, she looked up and in the dim light she saw a plane. Low flying, towards a group of lights. The airport.
How did she get here, her things were still with her and the sun was still visible on the horizon. There was no logical explanation to how she got here in such a short amount of time. It was physically impossible. So, scared and shaken she started to walk in the same direction as the plane, maybe someone there could help. As she breached the tree line she began to yell, eventually waving down a security guard who angrily escorted her to the airport. There she sat, tear tracked, shaken, and now knowing her mother had taken off without her, alone.
Looking back on it the process had been long, a police station visit and a call to her parents. Who were worried but furious more than anything. Her mother yelling about her not paying attention and playing games, her father growling about the money it would waste getting another ticket for her to come back. And in that moment of absolute self-hate for causing so much trouble in her already delicate parental relationship, her hands shook and her vision faded to black again.
Bo sighed and shook her head at the memory, that month had been the only times it had happened she faded every few days at least, sometimes three or four times a day. Always ending up in a different place in the city, until she had somehow landed herself in the foster system. Thought to be living off the streets of the city like so many others. The crowds she hated so much had turned to cover for her, she stole food and got caught, when the police asked she'd only told them her nickname, Bo.
Sick and tired of playing the same scenario of trying to get home her parents were losing faith, thinking she ran away and was playing some kind of joke. So she finally stopped asking for them. She'd been here ever since the top bunk of an already stuffed girls room at her most recent group home. Nobody wanted a practically mute 13 year old girl, deemed delusional after trying to talk about what she now so desperately denies herself. So foster homes never stuck, and she moved from family to family like a ghost. She'd be out soon though, and she planned to put it all behind her, leave the city and go to school for something simple, where she could be stable. A career and a town she could slip into and hide in, forget her past and move on.If only it could be that simple, because soon after she turned eighteen the teleporting started again.
YOU ARE READING
Dimmed
General FictionIt wasn't always like this. It happened the first time she had truly panicked, having lost her mother on trip. It was almost as if the further her emotions spiraled the more suffocating her surroundings became. Everything went black, and suddenly n...