I’m here.

Her body twitches for motion, but she hesitates, staring at the strangely picturesque scene. The emptiness, the rivers of water weeping down an eternal path in the same direction, the concrete that bleeds out from her building onto the sidewalk and beyond.

She is in the Outside.

I’m here!

At the top of a three-step staircase, she jumps toward oblivion and lands on the sidewalk, a puddle of water exploding from beneath her bare feet. Two steps away is a black road, a bright yellow line splitting it in half through its center. The Outside is highlighted by yellow lights that shine down from tall silver poles with curved necks. She recalls a desolate street like this one—an image, printed in black and white, held between pale and boney fingers. As though her daddy had taken the photograph from where she stands now. From exactly where her feet are planted in this moment, his lingering presence radiating up through the pavement and into her soles.

“What is the street for?” she’d asked him, tapping her little finger against the glossy page.

“For the creatures to travel around,” he answered.

“Why are there no creatures in this photograph?”

“Because they are all hiding.”

Her head fills with noise, though the street seems to be vacant. She hears creaks and screeches and whispers in the distance as if they are only centimeters away from her ears. A loud bang from behind makes her jolt forward. She darts down the street, trying to run away from the racket, but it follows her.

Buildings of different shapes and sizes, ones made out of red stone and ones made out of glass rather than thick gray concrete, line the street. Some are short, shapes staring at her through their windows. Some have black silhouettes dancing behind their curtains. A feeling of uncanniness overwhelms her: a distant understanding that just hovers above comprehension.

Like the edges of a photograph that start to come into focus.

Although disoriented, she does not stop running. The adrenaline in her won’t allow it, forcing her to follow the tug in the pit of her stomach. Driving her to go and go and go or else the fear won’t stop. Or else the fear will catch her.

Until a sharpness rips through the bottom of her foot.

She screams, scraping the flesh of her throat. She skids to a halt and picks up her leg, hopping on her other foot to keep balance. Burrowed into the soft white flesh of her heel is a thick silver screw. Its flat and shiny cap reflects her terror.

It doesn’t hurt. Extremely uncomfortable and visually disturbing, yes. But it doesn’t hurt. Her foot bleeds, dropping globs of red onto the dark concrete which are immediately washed away by the passing stream. But it doesn’t hurt. Not in the way she thinks it should.

Her fingertips grip around the cap and pull. Her skin pulls with it, but the nail doesn’t slip out. She pulls harder and harder, but her skin only stretches farther out, spurting blood in reaction. She stops, watching a red snake drip down her heel and dive off its precipice, droplets falling onto the top of her standing foot. Her pale, wet skin, a sharp contrast to the now diluted pink liquid. It smells sweet but only scarcely so, a sour tang that threatens to ruin the appetite.