The Ones You Hurt

The first night. As the sun sets, the color begins to drain from the city. The crosswalk you passed every day, the convenience store whose lights always came on in the same spot, the glass doors of the building you went to for years—everything fades to gray, and the once-warm asphalt turns into cold, sticky dust beneath your feet. The grim reaper stepped away for a moment, saying he'd go check the records. Left alone, you find something sitting on the bench of an empty bus stop. From a distance it looks like a single shadow, but the closer you get, the clearer it becomes that many faces are layered on top of one another. Some are familiar; some belong to a time long, long ago. They make no sound. Without resentment, without anger, they simply look at you. On the bus stop's display board, in place of an arrival time, only the words "3 days" blink.