Catching up

It takes a long while for you to break out of your shock and get up from your seat. What Olivia told you is a lot of process and but you know it's all true. The first thing you do is head to the kitchen where you start gobbling down any food or snacks you can find. You're sure you were being fed through a tube while you were in a coma, but you're famished. With every bite, you feel a little bit of your strength and mental clarity returning to you.

When you can consume no more, you go up to your bedroom where you power up your computer, eager to find out what you've missed. It looks like the world is still in shambles and conflict is everywhere. Out of morbid curiosity, you look up yourself online, and you find a brief paragraph about you in the crime blotter. Your family had filed a missing persons report after not hearing from you or being able to locate you, but it looks like the police made no real attempt to find you. Your family must be grief-stricken, you think, and you decide you should pay them a visit. Quickly jumping into the shower and throwing on a set of fresh street clothes, you grab your phone and teleport to the outside of your family home.

When you get there, you're taken aback once more. The house you grew up in looks different. The coat of white paint on the exterior looks fresh. All the years you lived there, never once have your parents painted the house. As you walk up the steps to the front porch, a breeze blows through, causing something on the front lawn that you hadn't noticed to swing. You turn to look at what it is, and you see a "for sale" sign, covered partially with a "sold" sticker. Your heart sinks as you run up the porch and to the front door. You realize you don't have your key, so you knock on the door furiously, hoping to hear footsteps inside, but it's quiet behind the door. Not wanting to wait, you teleport inside.

The first thing you notice is what's beneath your feet. The carpet is gone, replaced with brand new hardwood floors. You look around and all the furniture is gone. You know it's futile, but you start running around and upstairs, calling out for your parents and sister in vain. The room you end up in is your old bedroom, and you don't even recognize it any more. Devastated, you put out your phone and check your social media accounts, looking for your sister's page. You find it, and it looks like she's having fun in college, and it takes a little bit of scrolling to find what you're looking for. It seems that with your sister off to college and you presumed dead, your parents had decided to sell the house and move to Seattle. They look happy in their new home. That's when you realize that your old life is better left behind. Your family has moved on and there's nothing for you to return to anymore.