Photo

Apr 4, 2026

"I'm in my childhood home but the rooms don't connect the way they should — I walk through the kitchen door and end up in a hallway I've never seen before, lined with framed photos of people I almost recognize. Every door I try leads somewhere that doesn't belong in this house. My mother is there but she won't look at me directly. She's cooking something at a stove that keeps moving to different walls. I try to tell her something urgent — I can feel how important it is — but I can't remember what it is the moment I open my mouth. She says "you already told me" and keeps stirring. The house starts filling with water from somewhere below. Not flooding urgently — just rising slowly, ankle deep, then knee deep. The framed photos stay dry somehow. I'm not panicking but I know I should be moving and I'm not. Outside the windows it's a neighborhood I don't recognize pretending to be mine. The streetlights are on even though it's the middle of the day. A dog is sitting on the sidewalk staring at the house. It doesn't move. It's been there the whole time. I wake up before the water reaches the stairs but I have the feeling I've left something important behind in one of those rooms."