I washed the pots and pans today. I even gave them a nice shine. I kept thinking about the cookies you used to make, so I tried to recreate them. I’m out of vanilla pods, though, but more are outside. Out there.

I still had flour, brown sugar, buttermilk, an orange, and of course, your most secret ingredient. The cookies weren’t the same without the vanilla, just like everything is different without you. I need to find more pods. 

Somehow, I hope I can find you again, too. Will you be waiting somewhere out there just as I remember? Maybe strolling down the lane or reading a book in the shade, your hair blowing in the breeze like the pods in the trees? Will I feel your presence even when I can’t see you?

I have to go out there again. I have to try. But what if the world looks different? Or what if it looks the same? How can it possibly look the same without you in it? I’m scared. I’m tired. My heart hurts so badly.

I see light stitched along the edges of the curtain. I see it pushing its way under the door, unrelenting and reaching. I can’t look away. 

Then something leapt through the crack of light into the darkness of my space. I jumped, hitting my head on the bookshelf.

Heart racing, I crept toward the door and knelt on the floor. I stretched my fingers toward the speckled slit of light to feel for the eldritch object…