The Stolen Neon Flamingo

Summer in Somberville did not start with a gentle breeze. It started with a headache that felt like someone had shoved crushed ice directly behind Peter's eyes. She woke up flat on her back, staring at the ceiling fan. The fan was broken. It ticked with every rotation. Tick. Tick. Tick.

This was the specific, terrible hangover of a bad dream. In Somberville, dreams did not stay in your head. They leaked. They spilled out into the room while you slept, leaving physical residue behind. Good dreams left the smell of sugar or a few stray flower petals. Nightmares left a mess. Peter sat up. Her joints ached. She rubbed her temples, trying to remember what exactly she had been dreaming about. Anxiety. That was the baseline. She was always dreaming about the Dream Weaver Academy. Acceptance letters. Rejection letters. Giant, crushing weights of expectation pressing down on her chest.

She swung her legs over the edge of the mattress. Her bare foot hit the floorboards. Crunch. Peter froze. She looked down. Scattered across the scuffed oak floor of her bedroom were dozens of sharp, jagged pieces of pink glass. They were glowing. A faint, electric hum vibrated through the floorboards. She pulled her foot back. A thin line of blood welled up on her heel. She ignored it. She leaned down, picking up a shard. It was hot to the touch. It was neon. Pink neon.

Her stomach dropped. The bottom simply fell out of it. She dropped the glass. It hit the floor and shattered into smaller, glowing dust. Peter scrambled to her window. She threw the curtains open. The summer sun was blinding, reflecting off the heat radiating from the asphalt of the street below. She looked down the hill, toward the town square. The square was usually the pride of Somberville. It was where the mayor gave speeches. It was where the farmers market happened. And in the dead center of the square, perched on a massive concrete pedestal, was Pinky.

Pinky was a thirty-foot-tall neon flamingo. It was the town mascot. It was a beacon. It was a tourist trap. It was the only reason anyone stopped off the highway. Peter squinted against the bright morning glare. The pedestal was bare. The giant neon bird was gone.

Panic, cold and sharp, flooded her veins. She backed away from the window. She tripped over her rug, falling hard on her hands and knees. She looked back at the glowing shards on her floor. The memory of the nightmare hit her all at once. It was not just a feeling of anxiety. It was a shape. A massive, jagged shadow. The shadow had long, sticky fingers. It had walked through the town. It had grabbed the flamingo. It had dragged the massive neon tubing through the streets, tearing up the pavement, dragging it right up to her bedroom window.

"No," Peter said. Her voice cracked. "No, no, no."

If the town found out her subconscious had committed grand larceny, she was done. The Dream Weaver Academy had a strict moral clause. You could not have a criminal record. You certainly could not have a record for your own feral nightmare stealing municipal property. She would be blacklisted. She would spend the rest of her life working at the Somberville diner, wiping down tables and sweeping up other people's happy daydreams.

She needed a broom. She needed a dustpan. She needed an alibi.

She grabbed her phone from the nightstand. The screen was cracked down the middle. She dialed Toby. It rang four times.

"What," Toby said. His voice was thick with sleep. He sounded like he was chewing on something.

"Get over here," Peter said.

"I am eating cereal," Toby said. "It is Saturday."

"I do not care about your cereal," Peter said. Her hands were shaking. She pressed the phone harder against her ear, trying to anchor herself. "I need you here right now. Bring a heavy-duty trash bag. The thick ones. Not the cheap ones your mom buys."

"Why do you need a trash bag?" Toby asked.

"Because my brain committed a felony last night," Peter said.

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. The sound of crunching stopped.

"I will be there in five minutes," Toby said.

Peter hung up. She looked at her hands. They were covered in pink dust. She wiped them on her pajama pants, leaving bright, glowing streaks across the fabric. She went to the closet and pulled out a pair of thick boots. She had to clean this up. She had to hide the evidence. She had to figure out where a thirty-foot neon bird could possibly be hidden by a shadow that lived inside her own head.

She started sweeping. The glass scraped against the floorboards. It sounded like screaming. Every time she pushed the broom, a new wave of nausea hit her. She was a straight-A student. She was the captain of the debate team. She did not steal. Her anxiety did not steal. It just worried. But the pressure had been building all summer. The Academy applications were due in August. The town expected her to get in. Her parents expected her to get in. The pressure had manifested. It had broken out. And it had taken the biggest, brightest thing it could find.

By the time Toby climbed through her window, Peter had a neat pile of glowing glass in the center of the room. Toby fell over the windowsill, landing in a heap of tangled limbs and a faded band t-shirt. He pushed his glasses up his nose and stared at the pile.

"Tell me that is not what I think it is," Toby said.

"It is exactly what you think it is," Peter said.

"You stole Pinky?" Toby asked. He looked at her like she was a stranger.

"I did not steal Pinky," Peter said. She pointed a shaking finger at her own temple. "That stole Pinky. I was completely unconscious."

"That is not a legal defense in this town," Toby said. He stood up, dusting off his jeans. He pulled a thick black trash bag from his back pocket. He handed it to her. "If your dream takes it, you bought it. Or, in this case, you stole it. Where is the rest of it?"

"I do not know," Peter said. She shoved the glass into the bag. It immediately melted a small hole through the plastic. She cursed and double-bagged it. "I woke up, my head was splitting, and the glass was here. The bird is gone."

"Okay," Toby said. He started pacing. He always paced when he was nervous. "Okay. We need a story. We need an airtight timeline."

"We were together all night," Peter said. "We were playing video games."

"Which one?" Toby asked. "We need details. If Marbles asks, we need to know exactly what we were doing."

"Racing," Peter said. "The one with the karts. We played for six hours."

"Who won?"

"I did. Obviously."

"Make it believable," Toby said. "I won. Three times. You threw the controller because you got hit by a blue shell."

"Fine," Peter said. She tied the bag in a tight knot. "We played games. We ordered pizza."

"Pepperoni," Toby said.

"Extra cheese," Peter added.

"Good. The receipt is in my email. I actually did order a pizza last night. We just say you were at my house instead of yours. I snuck you back in at dawn."

Peter let out a breath she felt like she had been holding for an hour. "Okay. That works. That is a good lie. It is a solid lie."

She shoved the trash bag deep into the back of her closet, burying it under a pile of winter coats she hadn't worn in years. She closed the door. She leaned against it. She looked at Toby. He looked terrified. His shoulders were hiked up to his ears.

"We are going to go to jail," Toby said quietly.

"We are not going to jail," Peter said. "We just have to find the shadow. We find the shadow, we get the bird back, we put it back on the pedestal before the mayor's press conference at noon."

"It is eight in the morning," Toby said. "We have four hours to find a thirty-foot flamingo."

"Then we better start looking," Peter said.

The Literal Train of Thought

A heavy knock hammered on the front door downstairs. It was not a polite knock. It was the knock of someone who had authority and was annoyed about having to use it on a Saturday morning. Peter and Toby froze. They looked at each other. The blood drained from Peter's face, leaving her feeling lightheaded and sick.

"Did your parents hear that?" Toby whispered.

"They went to the hardware store early," Peter whispered back. "It is just us."

The knock came again. Louder.

"Somberville Police Department," a gruff voice called out from the porch. "Open up. I know you are in there. I can smell the panic sweating through the drywall."

"It is Marbles," Toby said. His eyes were wide. "He is here. Why is he here? How does he know?"

"He does not know," Peter said, grabbing Toby's shoulders and shaking him once, hard. "He is canvassing. He is asking everyone. We live right up the hill from the square. Just stick to the story. Karts. Pizza. Blue shell."

Peter let go of him and marched out of her bedroom. She forced her breathing to slow down. She walked down the carpeted stairs, each step feeling like she was walking to an execution. She reached the front door. She unlocked the deadbolt. She pulled the door open.

Detective Marbles stood on the welcome mat. He looked exactly like a man who had not slept in three days, which, in his line of work, was probably true. He wore a rumpled tan trench coat over a white shirt that had a coffee stain on the collar. But the most prominent feature of Detective Marbles was not his clothes or his weary, bloodshot eyes. It was his head.

Marbles was entirely bald. Circling the crown of his head was a tiny, perfectly scaled set of model railroad tracks. And chugging aggressively along those tracks was a miniature steam locomotive. It blew tiny puffs of real gray smoke. It was his literal train of thought. When Marbles was confused, the train idled. When he was thinking hard, it sped up. Right now, it was moving at a brisk, steady pace. Chug. Chug. Chug.

"Good morning, Peter," Marbles said. He did not smile.

"Morning, Detective," Peter said. She leaned against the doorframe, trying to look casual. Her heart was beating so hard she could hear it in her ears. "What brings you out so early?"

Marbles looked past her, into the house. "Where is the boy?"

"Toby?" Peter asked. "He is in the kitchen. Getting a glass of water."

"Bring him out here," Marbles said.

Peter turned her head. "Toby!"

Toby shuffled into the hallway. He had his hands shoved deep into his pockets. He looked at the floor. He looked at the ceiling. He looked everywhere except at the tiny train running around the detective's head.

"Morning, sir," Toby squeaked. His voice broke on the word 'sir'.

Marbles narrowed his eyes. The train sped up slightly. The chugging got louder. A small stream of smoke drifted up toward the porch light.

"We have a situation downtown," Marbles said. He pulled a small notebook from his coat pocket. He flipped it open. The pages were covered in dense, erratic handwriting. "Someone, or something, took the flamingo. Sometime between two and four in the morning."

"The flamingo?" Peter said. She forced a look of shock onto her face. She widened her eyes. She put a hand over her mouth. "You mean Pinky? Someone stole Pinky?"

"Do not patronize me, kid," Marbles said. He tapped his pen against the notebook. "You live on the hill. Your bedroom window looks directly down at the square. Did you see anything? Hear anything? Any unusual manifestations?"

"No," Peter said. She kept her voice steady. "I was not even here last night. I was at Toby's house."

Marbles shifted his gaze to Toby. The train whistle blew. A tiny, high-pitched toot-toot.

"Is that right?" Marbles asked.

"Yes," Toby said. He swallowed hard. Peter could see the Adam's apple bobbing in his throat. "She came over around eight. We stayed up late."

"Doing what?"

"Video games," Peter interrupted. "Racing."

"I was asking him," Marbles said, pointing the pen at Toby. "Who won?"

"I did," Toby said. His voice was gaining a little traction. "Three times. I hit her with a blue shell right at the finish line."

Marbles wrote something down. "Did you eat?"

"Pizza," Toby said.

"Toppings?"

"Pepperoni," Toby said.

"Extra cheese," Peter added.

The train on Marbles' head suddenly screeched. The tiny metal wheels sparked against the tracks. The locomotive slowed to a crawl. Marbles looked up from his notebook. He stared directly into Peter's eyes.

"Extra cheese," Marbles repeated.

"Yes," Peter said. Her throat felt tight.

"That is interesting," Marbles said. He closed the notebook. He put it back in his pocket. "Because I talked to the delivery driver who works the night shift at Slice of Life. He said he dropped a pie off at Toby's house at ten-thirty. Said it was a vegan supreme. No cheese at all."

Peter felt the ground tilt beneath her. She had forgotten Toby's mom had gone on a health kick. The receipt Toby had mentioned. It was a trap.

Toby's face flushed bright red. "My mom ordered the vegan one. We ordered a second one. From the other place."

"The other place," Marbles said. The train started picking up speed again. "Right. The other place."

Marbles leaned in close. He smelled like stale coffee and ozone. "You kids are lying to me. I do not know why. You are straight-laced. You are an Academy hopeful. You do not get into trouble. But you are sweating. And he looks like he is going to throw up on my shoes."

"We are not lying," Peter said. Her voice was flat. She pushed the panic down. She locked it in a box. She could not afford to crack. "We were at his house. That is the truth. If you want to arrest us for forgetting our pizza toppings, go ahead."

Marbles stared at her for a long, terrible moment. The train chugged furiously. Smoke billowed around his ears. Then, slowly, he stepped back off the welcome mat.

"I am going to go talk to the rest of the neighborhood," Marbles said. "But I am going to circle back to you, Peter. Your subconscious has been running hot lately. The whole town can feel the static off you. If I find out your stress manifested and took that bird, Academy or no Academy, I am locking you up."

He turned and walked down the steps. He did not look back.

Peter closed the door. She locked the deadbolt. She leaned her forehead against the cool wood of the door. She closed her eyes.

"Vegan supreme?" Peter whispered.

"I forgot!" Toby hissed. "I panicked! He is going to come back with a warrant. He is going to search the house. He will find the glass in your closet."

"He will not find it," Peter said. She turned around. Her eyes were hard. The fear was gone, replaced by a cold, desperate adrenaline. "Because we are going to fix this before he comes back. We are going to the Alley."

Toby stopped pacing. He looked horrified. "The Alley of Discarded Figments? Peter, no. That place is dangerous. It is where all the feral dreams go. It is a slum for nightmares."

"That is exactly where a massive, glowing, stolen bird would be hiding," Peter said. "Grab a flashlight. We are hunting my shadow."

The Hollow Boy

The Alley of Discarded Figments was not actually an alley. It was a massive, sprawling ravine on the edge of town, where the municipal limits ended and the wild, unkempt woods began. The town used it as a dumping ground for physical manifestations that people did not want anymore. Old imaginary friends. Leftover childhood terrors. Half-baked business ideas that had taken the shape of depressing, gray slimes.

The summer heat in the ravine was oppressive. It was ten degrees hotter down here than up on the street. The air smelled like hot trash, burnt hair, and raw electricity.

Peter and Toby slid down the steep dirt embankment, grabbing onto exposed tree roots to keep from tumbling all the way to the bottom. Peter’s boots slipped on a patch of slick moss. She landed hard on her hip, swearing quietly. Toby scrambled down beside her, his flashlight already clicked on, slicing a pale yellow beam through the perpetual gloom of the ravine.

"Keep your head down," Peter said, brushing dirt off her jeans. "Do not look at anything directly. If you make eye contact with an abandoned figment, it might imprint on you."

Toby nodded, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground right in front of his shoes.

They walked deeper into the trench. The ground was littered with bizarre refuse. Peter stepped over a teddy bear that had spider legs. It hissed at her and scurried under a rusted-out car chassis. To her left, a floating, spectral sandwich—someone's forgotten lunch craving—drifted lazily through the air, dripping phantom mayonnaise onto the dirt.

"Do you see any pink light?" Peter asked, keeping her voice to a low murmur.

"No," Toby said. "Just gray. Everything down here is gray."

They pushed through a thicket of dead, thorny bushes. The thorns caught on Peter's shirt, tearing a small hole near the hem. She pulled free and stopped.

Up ahead, the ravine widened into a large, bowl-shaped clearing. And in the center of the clearing, pulsing with an angry, erratic hot-pink light, was the flamingo.

Pinky was entirely intact. The massive neon tubes hummed loudly, casting harsh pink shadows against the dirt walls. But Pinky was not alone.

Crouched at the base of the massive bird, holding onto its metal support strut like a toddler clutching a security blanket, was the Shadow.

Peter's breath caught in her throat. Seeing it in a dream was one thing. Seeing it awake, in the physical world, was horrifying. The Shadow was roughly the size of a minivan. It had no distinct features, just a jagged, shifting mass of ink-black darkness. It seemed to absorb the light around it. It had long, spindly arms that ended in too many fingers. It was trembling violently.

"There it is," Toby whispered. His voice was shaking. "Peter. It is huge. How are we supposed to move that?"

"I do not know," Peter said. She stepped forward, out of the brush. "It is my brain. I have to talk to it. I have to command it."

She walked slowly toward the center of the clearing. The pink light washed over her face, making her skin look flushed and feverish.

"Hey," Peter said. Her voice echoed in the wide space.

The Shadow flinched. It snapped its head—or what passed for a head—toward her. The trembling intensified. It let out a sound that was half radio static and half a dry, racking sob.

"You have to let the bird go," Peter said, trying to sound authoritative. She channeled her best debate-team captain voice. Firm. Unyielding. "You are ruining my life. You are going to cost me the Academy. Put the flamingo down, and get back in my head."

The Shadow did not listen. Instead, it recoiled. It scrambled backward, dragging the massive neon bird with it. The metal base scraped loudly against the rocks. The Shadow raised one of its long, jagged arms and pointed at Peter. The static sound grew louder, turning into a high-pitched whine.

It was angry. But beneath the anger, Peter could feel a wave of pure, unfiltered terror radiating off the thing. It felt like standing too close to an open oven.

"Peter, back up," Toby said. He stepped out of the brush, coming to stand beside her. He held his flashlight up like a club. "It is getting aggressive."

"Do not threaten it," Peter said. "It is a nightmare. Threatening it just feeds it."

But Toby was already stepping in front of her. He was trying to be brave. He was trying to protect her.

"Hey!" Toby yelled, waving the flashlight. "Leave her alone! Drop the bird!"

The Shadow reacted instantly to the sudden noise. It lunged.

It moved faster than something that large should be able to move. It closed the distance in a fraction of a second. Peter screamed, reaching out to grab Toby, but she was too late.

The Shadow did not hit Toby. It did not strike him. Instead, it reached out with one of those long, spindly hands and plunged its fingers directly into the center of Toby's chest.

Toby gasped. His eyes went wide. The flashlight dropped from his hand, hitting the dirt and rolling away.

Peter watched in absolute horror as the Shadow pulled its hand back out. Clutched in its dark, shifting fingers was a glowing, golden orb. It was the size of a softball. It radiated warmth and a faint smell of arcade carpet and cheap pizza.

"No!" Peter screamed.

It was a memory. The Shadow had reached into Toby's mind and ripped out a memory. Somberville nightmares did that when they were starving. They ate joy to balance their own terror.

The Shadow shoved the golden orb into its mass. The orb disappeared. The Shadow grew slightly larger, its edges becoming sharper, more defined.

Toby collapsed. He did not fall hard. He just folded, like a puppet with its strings cut. He dropped to his knees, then slumped backward, sitting heavily in the dirt.

Peter dropped to the ground next to him. She grabbed his face. "Toby! Toby, look at me!"

Toby looked at her. His eyes were completely blank. The frantic, nervous energy that defined him was entirely gone. His face was slack.

"Toby, what did it take?" Peter asked, her voice cracking. Panic tore at her throat. "What did it take from you?"

Toby blinked slowly. His voice, when he spoke, was entirely flat. Monotone. Dead.

"I do not know," Toby said. "I do not care."

"Toby, please," Peter begged, shaking his shoulders.

"Leave me here," Toby said, staring past her. "There is no point. None of this matters. The Academy does not matter. The bird does not matter. I am just going to sit here."

He had lost his spark. The Shadow had taken his happiest memory—the anchor that kept him grounded. Peter looked back at the Shadow. It was no longer trembling. It stood tall, holding the flamingo. It looked down at her.

Bile burned the back of Peter's throat. She had done this. Her stress. Her desperate need to be perfect. It had created this monster, and now it had hollowed out her best friend.

She stood up. Her knees shook, but she locked them. She looked at the Shadow. She looked at the stolen neon light. And suddenly, the static in her brain cleared. The panic evaporated. It was replaced by a cold, sharp clarity.

The Shadow was not trying to ruin her life. It was hiding. It had stolen the biggest, brightest light in town because it was terrified of the dark. It was terrified of failing. It was terrified of exactly the same things Peter was. It was just a mirror.

She could not fight it. She could not yell at it.

She had to forgive it.

The Town Square Confession

The walk back to the town square was agonizing. The midday sun was at its peak, beating down mercilessly on the asphalt. Heat waves distorted the horizon. Peter walked slowly, dragging Toby by his wrist. Toby dragged his feet, his head lulling. He was dead weight, completely devoid of motivation.

Behind them, the Shadow followed.

Peter was not pulling it. She had simply stopped running from it. She had looked at it in the ravine, lowered her hands, and started walking. The Shadow, confused by the sudden lack of resistance, had followed the invisible emotional tether that connected them. It dragged the massive neon flamingo behind it. The metal base scraped loudly against the street. Screeeech. Screeeech.

They reached the edge of the square.

The entire town was gathered there. The mayor was standing on the empty pedestal, holding a megaphone, looking red-faced and sweaty. Detective Marbles was standing at the edge of the crowd, his notebook out. The tiny train on his head was chugging along at a moderate pace.

The crowd went dead silent as Peter entered the square.

The sound of the metal scraping against the pavement was the only noise. The crowd parted like the Red Sea. People backed away, staring in horror at the massive, ink-black nightmare looming behind the teenage girl.

Peter let go of Toby's wrist. He sat down heavily on the curb, staring blankly at a storm drain.

Peter walked straight toward the center of the square. She climbed the steps of the pedestal. The mayor hastily backed away, nearly tripping over his own dress shoes. Peter stood where the flamingo was supposed to be.

She looked out at the crowd. She saw her parents standing near the bakery, their hands over their mouths. She saw Marbles watching her closely, his eyes narrowed. She saw the heavy, suffocating weight of the entire town staring at her.

The Shadow stopped at the base of the pedestal. It clutched the flamingo. It looked up at her, its jagged edges shifting nervously.

Peter took a deep breath. The air tasted like hot dust.

"My name is Peter," she said. She did not yell, but her voice carried in the absolute silence. "And this is my nightmare."

A murmur ran through the crowd. Someone gasped.

"It stole the bird," Peter continued. She pointed down at the dark mass. "It stole it last night. But it did not do it to be malicious. It did it because it was scared. And it was scared because I am scared."

She felt a bead of sweat drip down the back of her neck. Her hands were shaking again, but she did not hide them. She held them out, letting everyone see the tremor.

"I am terrified," Peter said. Her voice cracked, but she pushed through. "I am terrified of the Dream Weaver Academy. I am terrified of the applications. I am terrified that if I do not get in, I will be a failure. I have spent the entire summer pretending that I am fine. Pretending that the pressure is not crushing me. I tried to lock it all in a box. And when you lock things in a box in this town, they break out."

She looked down at the Shadow.

"It took the brightest thing it could find," Peter said softly, speaking directly to the dark mass now. "Because the inside of my head was getting too dark. It just wanted a light."

The Shadow stopped shifting. The static noise died down.

Peter dropped to her knees on the edge of the pedestal. She reached out her arms. Not to fight. Not to push away.

"I am sorry," Peter whispered. "You do not have to carry it anymore. I will carry it. We will carry it."

The Shadow let go of the flamingo. The massive neon bird clattered against the pavement.

The Shadow looked at Peter's open arms. Slowly, tentatively, it reached out one of its long, spindly hands. It touched her fingertips.

The moment they made contact, the coldness vanished. The Shadow began to shrink. The jagged edges smoothed out. It condensed, growing smaller and smaller, until it was just a dense, dark puddle at her feet. And then, it flowed upward. It crawled up her arms, sinking through her skin, absorbing back into her chest.

Peter gasped. A heavy, profound weight settled into her bones. She was not cured of her anxiety. The fear of the Academy was still there. But it was no longer a feral beast outside of her. It was just a part of her. A normal, manageable part of her.

The moment the shadow disappeared, the neon flamingo flared to life. The hot pink light blazed, brighter than ever. The shattered glass in Peter's bedroom, miles away, vanished, knitting itself back into the massive bird.

Down on the curb, Toby suddenly gasped. He slapped a hand to his chest. He blinked, his eyes widening.

"Arcade tokens," Toby said loudly, looking around. "I had fifty arcade tokens. It was my tenth birthday."

The memory had returned. The hollow look in his eyes vanished, replaced immediately by his usual chaotic energy. He jumped up from the curb. "Peter! I remember the pizza!"

The crowd erupted. People started clapping. The mayor let out a massive sigh of relief.

Peter stood up. She wiped a layer of dirt and sweat off her forehead. She felt exhausted, but her mind was quiet. The static was gone.

Detective Marbles walked up to the pedestal. The train on his head was idling perfectly. Chug... chug... chug. A thin wisp of polite smoke drifted into the air.

"That was a very stupid, very brave thing to do, kid," Marbles said. He looked down at the restored flamingo. "You destroyed municipal property. You lied to a police officer. You caused a public panic."

"I know," Peter said. She looked him in the eye. "I will clean the square. I will do community service. Whatever you need."

Marbles studied her face. He pulled out his notebook, stared at it for a second, and then snapped it shut.

"The bird is back," Marbles said. "No harm, no foul. Just keep your subconscious on a leash, Peter. Next time, I will not be so forgiving."

He tipped an imaginary hat to her and walked away.

Peter climbed down from the pedestal. Toby ran over and tackled her in a massive, clumsy hug.

"You did it," Toby yelled. "You got the bird back! And I have my brain back!"

"We did it," Peter said, laughing for the first time all week. The laugh felt real. It did not feel forced. The summer heat suddenly felt less oppressive. The air smelled like ozone and sugar.

They spent the rest of the afternoon helping the town maintenance crew hoist Pinky back onto the pedestal. Peter felt grounded. She was flawed, she was terrified, and she was entirely human. The Academy applications were still waiting on her desk, but they did not feel like a death sentence anymore.

Later that night, the house was quiet. The crickets chirped outside her open window. The broken ceiling fan ticked. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Peter walked into her bathroom to brush her teeth. She turned on the tap. She splashed cold water on her face, washing away the last of the day's grime. She grabbed a towel and patted her face dry.

She looked up into the mirror.

Her reflection stared back at her. She smiled. Her reflection smiled back.

But as Peter turned to reach for her toothbrush, she stopped. She froze, the toothbrush hovering halfway to her mouth.

She looked back at the wall behind her.

The shadow cast by the bathroom light was sharp against the drywall. It was her silhouette. The shape of her shoulders. The shape of her head.

But moving slowly, rhythmically around the crown of her shadowed head, was the distinct, undeniable silhouette of a tiny steam train.