901. Finis

“Am I walking toward something I should be running away from?”― Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

I wasn’t sleeping. My mother was folding inside herself inside his shirts she laundered. Trying to ignore the screaming alarms in my head, I observed her wandering around, muttering like a chicken with it’s head cut off. Sometimes I lost sight of her entirely. All focus had to be on climbing out the pit of my father's making. Life hit so severely, she went missing for weeks. Weeks turned into months.

“I am like a small creature swallowed whole by a monster, she thought, and the monster feels my tiny little movements inside.” ― The Haunting of Hill House

The House had pockets of time loops if you knew where to go. Everyone circling their respective orbits wanting the ride to turn off. As I was headed to my bedroom late one night, all the lights were off except the kitchen night light and my mother’s bedroom/dressing room. My hopes of being undetected were dashed when called out for me. Bracing my body the only armor, I walked through the doorframe.

The energy constricting, my hair on my neck stood up as thousands of sensors zoomed through my body.

Something is Here.