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Chapter 65

Author: Emory May
last update Last Updated: 2024-10-29 19:42:56

EMMA

I was five when I realized my imaginery friends weren't so imaginery.

Across the long table, my mother delicately cut into her chicken. When she saw me watching, she gave a dutiful smile.

It was strained.

I could almost hear the thought directed at herself, 'Pull yourself together Samantha.' I'd heard her say it in front of the mirror often, when she wasn't aware I was peeking in through the crack in her door. It'd been a mantra since dad's death.

Since then, she'd changed, gotten more sad. She didn't push me on the swings anymore.

"The pilot wants some of that," I'd said, a bit anxious to fill in the stifling silence.

She paused mid motion. "What pilot, honey?"

I pointed, like it was obvious.

Bunny, a gangly man with a cracked pair of googles and a razed dress shirt seemed to stare at the food through his empty eye sockets. Things I didn't want to look too closely into writhed around the rotting holes in his body. I would see a bump form beneath his burnt blazer from time to tim
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