The Morning That Should Have Been Ordinary
Some mornings pass unnoticed — ordinary, uneventful, destined to blur into the quiet rhythm of daily life. Last Tuesday should have been one of those mornings: drive to work, grab coffee, answer emails. But fate rarely announces itself before it changes everything.
Halfway down the empty stretch of Maple Street, I noticed movement near the fence line of an abandoned lot. A lone tan dog sat tied to a wooden post. It wasn’t barking, panicking, or straining at its leash.
It simply waited, still and watchful, its intelligent eyes following the horizon like it was expecting someone. That was strange enough. But then I saw the envelope — a manila one — tied carefully around its neck with twine.
My name was written across the front in neat, unfamiliar block letters. For a long moment, I sat frozen in the car, the engine idling. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the scene had been arranged — that the dog, the fence, even the position of the rising sun were part of something deliberate.
Finally, curiosity overpowered fear. I pulled over and stepped out.
The Envelope That Shouldn’t Exist
The dog didn’t flinch as I approached.
It merely tilted its head, calm and almost expectant. The closer I got, the stronger the sense of recognition became — as if I’d seen those eyes before, maybe in a childhood memory I couldn’t quite recall. I untied the envelope with trembling fingers.
The paper was slightly worn but dry, recently placed. The handwriting — firm, deliberate, confident — made the air feel heavy with unspoken intent. I opened it.
Inside was a single photograph. At first, I didn’t understand what I was looking at. Then, my stomach dropped.
It was our old house. The one my family had left twenty years ago without explanation. Everything was exactly as I remembered — the white fence, the rose bushes my mother used to trim every Sunday, even the crack in the front step where my brother once tripped.
But the photo wasn’t taken from the street. It was taken from the woods behind our yard. Whoever had taken it had been close enough to see inside the windows.
And scrawled across the bottom, in red ink that bled faintly through the paper, were four words:
“Do you remember me?”
The Memory That Should Have Stayed Buried
That question hit like a physical blow. For years, I had told myself the move had been ordinary — a job transfer, a better school district, nothing mysterious. But that was a lie.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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