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𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐯𝐞
─── HELL WAS THE JOURNEY, BUT IT BROUGHT ME HEAVEN!
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THERE WAS SOMETHING FASCINATING ABOUT NOSTALGIA. Something intriguing about the complex way it could make you feel. It could be rather damaging──trading people for warm memories and trapping them in what they used to be, ignoring what they could be. It could be this whimsical feeling, this affection for the past.
For Orion, nostalgia was her sentiment to her childhood and to her mother. Long days spent playing with her lemon-colored dollhouse, making up simple adventures as her mother played along. Hot summers in southern California, basking in the heat and freezing winters spent huddled up with her parents.
Perhaps Orion missed who she was. The naive little girl she was allowed to be without burdens or responsibilities. It was easier, she thought. She was able to exist, and that was enough, which only worried her. Orion could relive the soothing memories if needed, but she could never be her again, and she feared she'd never shake that rueful feeling.
That was why Orion stood outside on the unseasonably cold winter night, attempting to relive a tradition started by her mother, cruelly left in the past.
When January danced into February, and the days got warmer, but the nights were still cold, her mother would take her to the local video store. Sat in the middle of a once-thriving strip mall, wedged in between an ice cream shop and an abandoned arcade, was the Video 2C. The rundown store had been a staple of Beacon Hills thirty-something years ago. Now it seemed to be forgotten by most, but not Orion.
Chilly winds swept down into the empty parking lot, a draft of air hitting her bare face and the sleeves of her mother's brown sweater. Her father was down the street, paying for a large cheese and mushroom pizza, leaving her on her own. Nonetheless, Orion kept a smile as she walked into the warm video store, adorned with red neon lights and flickering fluorescent bulbs,
