Crumbling

Her pool is the most relaxing place in the city. It’s silent. The neighbors have been asleep, for hours. Nobody drives down the Avenue at this time of night. We are the only fun people who live here. The pool is cold, freezing. But suddenly, it’s hot, burning our skin to a crisp. We hop out, and just in time, too. The pool is no longer swimmable. A thick substance floods out and almost covers our feet, like a mountain of wet cement. 

We run inside for towels, but the closet has vanished. Our search continues to the bathroom, but the door leads to an empty void. We slam it before falling in, not knowing were we would end up. As we turn around we notice the house starting to fade. The walls turn opaque as they thin. The kitchen cabinets silently fall from the wall, and disappear before they can hit the floor. We run out the front door and turn to watch the house crumble behind us. Even the iron gate has been sucked into the trap. 

We look around. All the neighbors’ houses are fine. None of them have any damage other than the house next door. The impact of the crumbling roof left a slight dent in one of their gutters. They’ll get over it. I turn to her. She turns to me. She is very pale. She looks healthy but sick at the same time. I've never seen anything like it before, but then again, I’ve never seen anything like her before, either. She falls to the ground and begins to scream, but no sound emerges from her mouth. Her hair starts to thin. Her nails become brittle. I grab her hands as they fall apart in mine. She melts away.

My tears fall to the place that she used to lay. I can’t get up. Not because I, too, am crumbling, but because I can’t leave. I can’t say goodbye. I can’t go on and live my life without her. I get up and look at the place I was supposed to sleep that night. It’s gone. It’s 3 in the morning and I have nowhere to go. I can’t ask the neighbors; they probably think I’m cursed. I sit back down and slowly start to drift into sleep. I’m so cold, covered in pool water, lying on the dirty pavement, but I can’t leave her side, no matter how hard things get.