Lost & Found.

I laughed as my dad drug me behind him and we raced down the sidewalk. We didn’t want to be late to the fair, but Kenny had taken forever trying to find the perfect outfit. Her normal dark attire wouldn’t work underneath the hot summer sun. I giggled as my eyes chanced a look at Kenny, who was struggling to keep up with us, but was laughing anyway. Her hand was clasped tightly in my father’s on the other side of him.

I felt like we were young again.

The ferris wheel came into view and Kendra’s eyes widened in wonder, as if she’d never seen one before. She pointed up at it and asked if we could ride it first as we approached the bright lights and colors of the carnival. I gripped my father’s hand tighter, afraid of getting lost in the enormous crowd that was surrounding us.

This scene was so familiar with all of the rides and the sun going down. It was my favorite time of the year. We got one more ride on the small roller coaster before dad said we had to go home. Time slowed as we walked towards the parking lot, where we could find the car and drive home for a fitful night of sleep.

As it started to snow everything became new. Kendra was walking on the other side of the large street and I was still gripping my dad’s hand. She was yelling at us, no longer laughing, no longer curious. Now she looked horrified.

The snow came down in flurries, blocking my sight for the most part, but I could still see my dad’s form next to me and Kendra on the other side of the street. She was pointing now and screaming. She was telling us something was ahead of us.

She was warning us.

But I couldn’t hear her.

The silence was killing my ears as my dad walked forward at a normal pace, never stopping, never slowing, never speeding up. Dread filled my gut as I tried to wrench my hand away from the tall, mechanically moving man. Nothing would work and even though I knew I was screaming for him to let me go, all I could hear was the silence.

My teeth chattered together while the snow fell harder, covering the bare skin that my shorts and tee-shirt left behind. Kendra, still across the street and still screaming at us, was bundled up in her black, puffy coat. I was drug along the sidewalk, the cracks tripping me and the persistent hand dragging.

The silence burned in my ears and the wind stung at my eyes, making me cry as we kept walking and slowly sped up. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Kendra screaming, trying to get us to stop.

She was an omnipresent dark outline in the distance. A constant reminder of what I couldn’t hear.

My dad stopped and I ran into him, not noticing soon enough. Kendra was collapsed on the edge of the sidewalk now. In the distance there was a blurry, dark outline of another man in a hat and cloak. He raised an arm that seemed to have a blocky extension and by the time I figured out what was going on I couldn’t stop it.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.

The hand slid out of mine and my father seemed to slip right through my fingers like sand as I tried to grab him. I tried to hold him and stop him from falling. He couldn’t die again. He couldn’t die in my dream.

It was my dream. He had to live.

The snow was tinged red and I could suddenly hear everything. A man’s deep laughter and running footsteps, the clanking of metal nearby. Kendra’s horrified screams as she watched us from across the street. My sobs and my father’s rasping breath.

“I love you,” he whispered and his voice was almost carried away in the wind with the quickly slowing snowfall. It was slowing enough so that I could see more than the deep red of his blood. I could see his sad face that was so familiar to me. I could see his eyes and his lips and his nose and the small little worried wrinkles in his forehead that wouldn’t ever go away.

I screamed as he stopped moving and looked up to the sky where the snow had stopped enough to show me the clear, black canvas of night and the full, glowing moon.

“No!” I screamed, trying to revive him, ignoring the hands wrapped around my arms. “No!”

“Ashy,” Kendra sobbed, trying to pull me away from his dead body. “Please,” her fingers pried at my hands, dragging me away from our father.

Foster, I had to remind myself.

“No! Kenny!” I thrashed away from her, hugging him again, feeling the cold seep through into my bones. He used to be so warm and it killed me to feel only the freezing cold against his skin. “No!” My throat was torn and I couldn’t make any more sound as Kendra succeeded in pulling me against the building.

“Rabbit, please,” the voice was deeper now, rougher, and the wall was softer and it moved. “Rabbit,” the voice pleaded with me, holding me tightly against themselves.

“No,” I whispered, opening my eyes.

“Please, Rabbit, please wake up, please,” Fox whispered, his mouth inches from my ear, his arms wrapped tightly around me. He was shaking his head and rocking his body, pulling me closer and closer into his lap. “C’mon, Rabbit,” he whispered, “please.”

“Fox?” I whispered, my throat burning, barely making a coherent noise.

I felt his body relax behind me and I felt his breath breeze past my ear. “Thank God. Are you okay?”

“How’d you get in?” my voice was soaked as I pushed him away, hiding my face from him, choosing to ignore what I know he just witnessed.

“I snagged one of your key cards. Now, are you okay?” he came up behind me and rested his hands on my shoulders. I didn’t let him turn me around, even though he tried to.

“Go away,” I pleaded, pulling away from him and running for the bathroom. I could hear him calling after me and I could feel him on my heels before I slammed the wooden door in his face and locked it behind myself as I threw myself backwards into the small room. My lower back rammed into the porcelain of the toilet, but I was too busy avoiding the mirror to notice the pain of the cold that seeped across my skin.

I toppled into the bathtub with my eyes blurring all of my surroundings.

“Rabbit!” Fox pounded against the door and the lights in the white ceiling burned against my eyes, which I kept clenched closed.

“Go away!” I tried to yell, but it still sounded more like a whisper.

He pounded his fists one last time against the wood before just letting them rest there, “Is that really what you want?” he was quiet and he sounded defeated. I let my head fall onto my knees, which were curled against my chest, my arms limp at my sides.

“I want you to leave,” I would have added ‘me alone,’ but a sob blocked my throat.

I tried to choke it down, but I could already hear his fists sliding down the wood and his slow footsteps. Soon enough the door to my room was closing quietly and I couldn’t breathe.

How had we gotten here?