Life wasn’t the kindest to you. Your home situation left a lot to be desired, you had very few, if any, true friends, this town in general was somewhere you desperately wished to leave, and no matter how many people were around, you felt lonely. Needless to say, your mental health was taking quite a beating, and your physical health wasn’t doing so great either.
There was one place where you found some smidgen of peace. Far past your house, deep within the woods, there was the ruins of an old building, nestled between two massive trees. No one else knew of the place, and thanks to the trees and what was left of the old stone building itself, there was plenty of shelter from the sun and rain.
One evening, you found yourself hiding away in your special place, once again, having fled from yet another blowup at home. The silence was a blessing and a curse, as now, you had to face your own thoughts.
Looking down at your bag, you noticed your notebook poking out, and mulled over the possibilities. You had thought of keeping a diary in the past, but writing to yourself felt silly, and you could not risk it ever being found. You almost brushed away the thought again, before your eyes locked onto something, and an idea bloomed to life.
Right in the heart of the ruins, was a tall metal postal box. You weren’t quite sure what the hell it was doing inside a building. Maybe it had been re-purposed, maybe it wasn’t a postal box at all. You couldn’t be sure. Either way, it always seemed rather out of place, but for this, it would at least serve a purpose.
Instead of struggling to write to yourself, you decided to word it as if it was a letter to one of your favourite fictional characters. It seemed to work relatively well, as you actually found yourself writing down a few of your troublesome feelings, even if it wasn’t much.
With a grin on your face, you folded the note, and wrote the characters name on top, before slipping it through the slot, pretending you were actually sending it. The moment you did however, you felt your stomach drop, suddenly filled with anxiety. Despite the fact that you were the only one who knew of this place, you couldn’t fight the paranoia building inside you, that someone might come across it.
With a few rough tugs, you managed to pull open the rusted old thing, trying to retrieve your letter. But there was nothing. No matter how frantically you looked, all you could find was moss, snails, and a few small weeds. Filled with anxiety, but needing to go home, you reluctantly left, deciding to check the next day, when the sky was brighter.
The next day left you just as lost as the one before, your letter nowhere to be found. Part of you couldn’t help but wonder if you had even written at all, if you could trust your own mind. Your racing thoughts were interrupted, as a shuffling sound, followed by a quiet clink, was heard from the direction of the box.
Confused, you hesitantly wandered over, and opened it back up after a little struggle. Sitting inside, you found a letter, that, much to your horror, was in reply to your own. Shaken by it, you simply shoved it into your bag and fled.
With all that was going on in your life though, it didn’t take you all that long to cave, and write back. Once again, you went to the box, and slipped the reply inside, only for it to vanish like before. This time, it only took a few hours, before a response came for you.
It unnerved you, seeing as you had seen no one approach the box at all, but your curiosity took over rather quickly. The responder claimed to be the person you wrote to, and quite surprisingly, they DID manage to act pretty in character in their letters.
Without intending to, you began to treat the letters more genuinely, and with their surprisingly genuine encouragement, you even began using them as they had originally been intended. To vent.
Your responder was rather helpful, something you hadn’t expected, and without realising it, you both began to grow very close. When you realised this, many months later, you felt your heart break a little. You knew none of this was real, but it had felt like so much more.
With your next letter, you wrote an apology. You explained that you would not write again, that you couldn’t take the pain of how real it felt, when you knew it couldn’t be. Over the next few weeks, you heard letter after letter arrive, but you refused to check them. Eventually, you stopped visiting your special place altogether.
Unfortunately, this meant a lot more time around the very ones who you wished to avoid. Everything seemed to be growing worse, and there was nothing you could do about it.
A month this went on, until you finally broke, running from home, running to that special place you had abandoned in your heart break. It was pouring with rain by the time you arrived, and you couldn’t even find it in you to seek shelter from it, curling up on the muddy ground instead, as you cried.
When someone knelt beside you, you flinched, looking up at them through the rain and the tears as you tried to scramble away. Your movements froze and your heart stilled in your chest, bewildered by what you saw.
Your favourite character was there before you, very much real, and just as drenched in rain as you were. Perhaps you really had gone insane.
yousharknotpass
tangentwithtanner
gracieabrams
germansingergirl
pixelskylines
snowghoul
