This is my entry for emmaeverafter 1000 story word contest! I entered and won second place!♡

This is the cover

Here is the story;

The empty roads are calling me.

“Grace!” They scream at me. Call me. Haunt me. The empty roads, blazing, with their loneliness. The empty roads, which haven’t been driven on in months, years even.

Time has slowed for those empty roads. Stopped even. The empty roads, covered in overgrown moss. In a few years, no one will be able to tell there were even roads to begin with.

And so the empty roads call me. Scream my name. Beg to have my soft feet, that haven’t been outside in years, walk upon them. They ask me to bless them with the rare touch of mankind's feet. “Grace!” They call my name, “Grace!”

Outside my window, the world is frozen. It has been frozen, for years at a time. On occasion, a human will walk on those roads, sidewalks, and feel free. They will walk past the windows of the neighbors and stare into the mores of the ponds and swamps, gently humming with the memory of the fairytale like creatures that used to bathe in them. Slimy green creatures that croaked and ate away the flying insects that carry the diseases. Little creatures that swam, with their golden scales glistening in the light.

Oh, and the light. The light in the fairytales, that used to shine in people’s windows, like the one I am looking out of now, and wake them up in the morning. Then the light would leave for the night, and leave the humans praying for it’s return in the morning.

But now, there is no light coming from outside my window. There is no sound coming from the creek across the moss covered road. There is no human walking outside, smelling the fairytale like scents and sugar sweet aromas of the world outside. There long haven’t been those humans. The wanderers, as I call them.

No, everyone is inside, with their windows closed, the drapes blocking the absence of light outside. Inside, where the only light comes from the television screens, and rectangular devices that humans now call communication.

Inside.

What a funny word. What a funny phrase. ‘Don’t judge what is on the outside, judge by what is on the inside’, my mother used to tell me.

I stare at the world outside my window. There is nothing outside left to judge. Everyone is inside now.

The few people who dared go outside, are now outside forever. Social outcasts. Doomed to die alone. That is - if anyone deems to notice them. If anyone tears their eyes away from their devices, for even just a second. For just a moment. Long enough to see the world outside the window. Long enough to see the man, or perhaps the woman, maybe even the occasional trans-sexual, who dares to walk outside and look around.

I mean, really look around. Not at the constant beeps and rings of their rectangular, hand-held devices. Not at the constant nothingness radiating off of their television screens. But at the world, the damaged, non-walked upon world. Who dares to feel the moss, beneath their soft feet, that never walked upon a softer, yet undeniably rougher, surface.

Drunks. Addicts. Psychopaths. Idiots. Anti-social outcasts.

All the words the world deems to call them. Drunks, perhaps they are, but what better way to drown out the emptiness inside of us. Addicts, to what? To the fresh air and the taste of the world outside the window? Psychopaths. Who is to determine which of us are the physcopaths? The ones who ‘communicate’ through their rectangular devices, or those who walk outside with their ancient devices, made of the tall beings long gone from this world, called trees. The thin pieces of parchment, the few that remain. And the long draw sticks. ‘Pencils’ I think they are called. Psychopaths that dare take their parchment and drawing sticks out into the world outside the window or psychopaths that have never once opened the drapes, or peeked outside? Which are the real psychopaths and who determined that? Idiots. Doubtfully one can be called such a demeaning phrase for being outdoors, but it happens. The people who go outside the window are rarely allowed back in.

Last, anti-social outcasts. What is the meaning of the word ‘social’? Does anyone know anymore? Has anyone survived to tell us? If we don’t know the meaning how can we understand who is social and who is not? Or perhaps, there is a new meaning. A different one. One that means communicating from the rectangular devices, or through the television, with the imaginary people on the other side of the screen. One that means that robotic servants bring you everything, so that the furthest you have to move, is from the couch to the door. One that means that books, like the ones hidden in my closet at the moment, are strange and a sign of closed-mindedness.

What has happened to the world? What has happened to the animals and creatures that used to walk upon it? What has happened to the people, not the humans, no not those who dare call themselves humans, but the people, the ones with feelings and emotions so deep they could propel ships and destroy the world, but not deep enough to help it? What has happened to the people who dared go outside? What has happened to those people, whose doors always seem to lock behind them, whose families are so alright with never seeing them again? What has happened to the people?

And what has happened to me? I used to consider myself one of them. I used to want to walk outside, in the world untouched. What has happened to me?

I stand up and walk to the door. I open it. I step outside. No shoes exist, no reason for them.

So I am barefoot. The air is fresh and silent. I take a step. The moss is soft, the air warm, and the silence fills the empty void of life. I finally see the world outside the window.

TO BE CONTINUED...

POSSIBLY