The House

I went to the house today. I wanted to see if anyone was there.

It was a burned, blackened husk. The fire didn't even look recent. It must have happened weeks, maybe even days after I became unstuck. They can't be dead though. They can't. I've never seen their future selves, but they just can't be dead.

I met Bally. I was looking at the house, at the shell of the only permanent home I had known for a long time, when I heard her. "I knew you would come back," she said and I turned.

The left side of her face was burned. She awkwardly tried to pull a hood over her face and looked down nervously. "I knew you'd come back here," she said again. "I've been waiting. Ever since I got out of the hospital."

"What happened, Bally?" I asked.

"It's a long story," she said.

And then she told it to me. She told me about the fire and, more importantly, who was responsible: I was.