Deja Vu

Deja Vu

Beep, beep, beep! 

Alice groaned as she rolled over and smacked her alarm clock. She pulled the covers over her head and hid from the world. Through her thick blanket, she could hear heavy rain drops pelting the roof above her. Another day in paradise, she thought blackly.

Pulling back the covers, Alice reluctantly slid her feet to the floor. The cold surface of the creaky old wood reviled her toes, and she wiggled them in an attempt to re-warm them. No such luck. She sighed heavily. Slightly conscious, she shuffled into the bathroom. Her bedraggled reflection stared back at her and she growled menacingly at her scraggly appearance. She grazed her fingers along the wall, finally finding what she sought for. Snapping on the switch, the jaundiced yellow light tentatively clicked on above her head. She appeared sallow, malnourished. Even to herself. 

Clearing her throat in disgust at her freshly crumpled self, she grabbed the closest hairbrush and halfheartedly yanked it through her snarled hair. To no avail. Updo it is, she mentally decided. Pulling her tresses harshly into a severe bun, Alice clicked off the unflattering light and went in search of clothes.

The pale gray light of early morning Oregon poured through her window. Glancing out, she noticed it had stopped raining. A dense fog was now settling its way over her front yard. Alice could hardly see the end of her driveway anymore. She shrugged it off and pulled out a random T-Shirt. Closing the drawer with her hip, she tip-toed to the corner and picked up a rumpled pair of jeans. She slipped into them and sidled downstairs to put on her shoes. 

Seeing as she walked to school, and the fog was so dense, she chose her rain boots. A rain coat would be unnecessary since the precipitation seemed to have stopped, but the boots would protect her from puddles. Gathering her belongings, Alice prepared herself for another day. Routinely, her mental checklist kicked in: backpack, homework, wallet, purse, writing utensils. Yup, everything seemed accounted for. Her eyes flashed reflexively to the clock: seven twenty-seven. Right on time.

Since the house was quiet, she assumed her mother had already gone to work. Her mother, a travel nurse, was often required to leave for long stretches of time. Service was something Alice's mother stressed to a fault and having the ability to help others was a career her mother would never give up. Even if it meant leaving her seventeen year old daughter home alone for days on end. 

Throwing her backpack over her shoulder, she headed out into the moisture-filled day. 

Immediately she could tell something was off. Fog was one thing, Alice had seen plenty of fog. Frozen fog, sticky fog, wet fog, rain fog, fog that came straight from the ground, fog that obscured sight, even fog that obscured senses. But this? This was different. This fog clung to her, holding her, almost caressing her skin where it touched her. And although she had walked the route a thousand times, her feet were pulled back by the fog.

 

She shook her head to clear it of the nonsense it was becoming filled with. 

"Fog is fog." 

She said this aloud to certain herself and pushed forward through the opacity. Continuing on, she realized with slight alarm that she could no longer see anything. Not even her own feet. The world around her was a cool, fuzzy, gray. Her knees began to buckle. 

"This is fog. This is a natural weather phenomenon. There is nothing to fear."

Her words trailed off and absolute silence loomed in their absence. She laughed it off and continued walking. A loud crunching sound grated her nerves. Was that gravel? It couldn't be. The only gravel was in her driveway and she'd left that long ago... hadn't she? 

Anxiously, Alice increased her pace. The crunching responded in turn. The friction, the shifting of rocks speeding up as her footfalls accelerated. Abruptly, she stopped. The crunching ceased. Impossible, she thought to herself. She took a hesitant step forward. Without warning, she walked face first into a wall. 

"What the --!" 

She screamed at the inanimate object that had so thoroughly blocked her path. Tenderly reaching out her arms, she felt her way along the wall. She recognized the texture; this was her house.

"But how could I have walked in a circle?" 

She mused out loud. Led only by the sensory input from her fingers, Alice groped along the wall till she found her front door. With relieved hands, she twisted the knob. She crossed the jamb, and all was usual. The house was just how she had left it. She could even see that her mother had left a cereal box on the kitchen table. 

She rolled her eyes at her ridiculousness. Then panic struck, she had been wandering around in that blasted fog for who knew how long, what if she was late to school? She quickly ran down the short hall leading to the stairs and found the clock. Its miniature hands clicked away the time. Seven twenty-seven. 

Alice slumped down onto the floor and rested her head against the wall. She had plenty of time, why was she worried? Suddenly her head snapped up. Seven twenty-seven? That was when she left the house this morning! How could that have happened? Creeped out, she got to her feet and carefully avoided looking at the clock. 

With a new determination, she headed out her front door. Alice had walked this route a thousand times, nothing would throw her off. Nothing. Not even a little disorienting fog. Accidentally slamming the door behind her, she was disarmed by the loud slam. Or lack thereof. Immediately after the crack sounded, the silence forced itself into her ears again. The fog was actually absorbing the sound.

She chastised herself. It's just another morning, this is just another fog, and it's just another day. The crunching began again. Careful to listen to her surroundings this time, she heard the crunching beneath her feet stop. She set her foot down lightly. Feeling the asphalt of the main road pressing back against her foot reassured her and she put one foot in front of the other. Crunch.

Pressing her foot down again, she found nothing but the smooth black top. Laughing it off, she took another few steps. Crunch, crunch. Alice spun in what she assumed was a 180˚. She couldn't be certain of anything in this sea of dense moisture. 

A slight puff of air blew across her cheek. Fear pulsed through her veins. Was that a breath? Inhaling sharply, she mustered her courage  and thrust her arms into the air in front of her. Nothing. Of course there was nothing, silly. She upbraided herself and  about faced to head to school.

There in front of her was a blurry figure. Vaguely reminiscent of a man, but constantly shifting. Here a shoulder, there a leg, his outline twisting and writhing like static on a television set. His features were obscured. If there were any to obscure, she thought grimly. It seemed to move in and out of focus, close and then far away. A projection yet to be calibrated. 

A scream worked its way up her throat. Alice wondered macabrely if it too would be swallowed by the living fog. Just then, the figure held out its hand. The gesture might have been placating if it weren't so purely terrifying. Goosebumps prickling the surface of her body, she took an instinctive step back. 

The beast opened its mouth and she realized she could see through its hole of an orifice and into the fog on the other side. Horror flashed down her spine and jabbed into her belly. Words, raspy and distant, flowed invisibly from its transparent tongue.

"What you see is deception, what you believe are lies, not everything lives, but everything dies." 

With that, the being dissolved, melting into the solid gray walls. Petrified, she slid to the ground unconscious.

*****

Beep, beep, beep!

Alice groaned as she rolled over and smacked her alarm clock. She pulled the covers over her head and hid from the world. Through her thick blanket, she could hear heavy rain drops pelting the roof above her. Another day in paradise, she thought blackly.