The Envelope That Shouldn’t Exist
The dog didn’t growl or shy away. It simply watched me, calm and aware. The closer I got, the stronger the déjà vu grew — I’d seen those eyes before, though I couldn’t recall when.
I untied the envelope with trembling fingers. The paper was worn at the edges but dry — recently placed. The handwriting, sharp and controlled, carried an unsettling precision.
I opened it.
Inside was a single photograph.
At first, it didn’t register. Then my stomach turned cold. It was our old house — the one my family had left two decades ago without a word.
Everything was exactly as I remembered: the white fence, the rose bushes my mother trimmed every Sunday, even the cracked step my brother once tripped over.
But the photo wasn’t taken from the street. It was taken from the woods behind our yard — close enough to see inside the windows.
And at the bottom, written in faint red ink that had bled slightly through the paper, were four words:
“Do you remember me?”
