Near the end of August, when the hours stretch on longer than they should, the world enters a melancholy state. Inhabitants of sleepy American towns are unsure how to spend the hours, so the time is passed in contented confusion. The world feels exhausted, tired from upholding its clear blue skies, yielding instead to vibrant oranges, pinks, and reds in preparation to put the day to its final rest.

On days like these, you figured it would have been better to stay home and enjoy the day there than wait on the still-hot sidewalk for friends that wouldn’t be coming.

You pace in your checkered shoes, looking more upset with every minute that passes. You figured this might happen. They’d never invited you to do anything before, so the invitation had been unexpected in the first place, especially considering it was the middle of summer, of all times. No excuse to bring you along, no club nor obligation… of course it was a ruse.

It stings a little more considering how excited you’d been. How far your hopes had fallen. Just last night, you had prepared yourself for talking to the people you’d always longed to befriend.

There’s Danny, who always has the coolest new songs to show his friends. You remember one time he mentioned an album in class that has now become one of your favorites. Ravi is beyond cool, a talented gymnast who’s won many trophies for the school. You’ve always admired his drive. Or Zoey, who smiles beneath her dark eyeshadow in a way that you’d never expect. She’s shy too, always sticking to Janna’s side like they are attached at the hip. Janna herself is a social butterfly, and her welcoming voice filled you with joy when she called you last night.

Distressed and on the verge of tears, you slump down on a nearby bench and bury your face in your too-warm hands. How could they forget? They’d only made the plans yesterday. Had you said something wrong? Maybe you were too enthusiastic. You were supposed to watch a movie together. You were supposed to become friends.

Now it’ll never happen. Sniffing all your feelings back inside, you try to cheer yourself up by looking around. Maybe there’s someplace around here where you can eat your feelings instead of wallowing in them. In the middle of your search however, something different catches your eye.

It’s a peculiar looking shop, so strange that you’re surprised you hadn’t noticed it before. The sign over the door is carved from wood that looks ancient and weathered. Inside, bright colors and unusual shapes catch your eye and shine even in the dim lighting of the store. You could even say that they glow despite the dim light. Compared to the tacky stores around it, the old shop looks authentic… welcoming, even.

Before you know it, you find yourself entranced. One last sniffle and you’re on your feet, moving incautiously towards your intrigue.

The store is still open, even though it’s past 8:00 at night. Your heart leaps in anticipation. This little adventure might distract you from that horrible prank those kids pulled on you. Anything to pull you from your pathetic loneliness.

The door chimes as you edge it open slowly. The noise rings out in an echo that you don’t expect from the crowded-looking store.

“New here, aren’t you?” The voice hits your ears suddenly, causing you to gasp and then slap a hand over your mouth in humiliation. The owner of the voice sits in shadow. No wonder he shocked you.

“I suppose.” You shrug, trying to regain some composure in faux casualties. “Is there anything I should know?” you ask without thinking. You know it’s a strange question, but it’s already out of your mouth by this point.

The man straightens in his seat–you can see that much. “Don’t touch the merchandise that doesn’t want to be touched,” he says cooly, a smile sounding in his voice. You fight a shiver and wonder what in the world it means and then if it’s not too late to leave. Instead, you turn to a shelf and begin to browse like everything is as it should be.

It isn’t, obviously, and half of you begs your impulsive side to give up on the stupid adventure. But you ignore logic. Something else has caught your attention.

A radio sits on the top shelf, and it is turned on. It’s speakers squeak out a tune that your ears recognize, but your mind can’t put a name to. You’re so near to revelation that it irks you. Perhaps if you could only hear the static-heavy sound closer…

You reach your hand up cautiously, fingers hovering above the small device. Does it want to be picked up? You almost ask the question out loud, and then shake your head, feeling foolish. He was probably just messing with you.

You retrieve the radio, and pull it down to inspect it. At once, the song you were hearing stops. Did you incidentally toggle the volume? But you hold the radio to your ear and still, nothing emanates.

“Hm, I could’ve sworn–” you stop, because the whisper doesn’t come from your mouth; it comes from the radio. Your hands shake, you feel violated, and you shove the radio back to where it was as fast as possible. You don’t know how and you don’t know why, and you don’t want to know. You touch your throat and breath out, intensely relieved to hear that the sound comes out right where you expect it to.

What a… funny audio illusion. That’s what the store must be, right? An illusions shop. Right? Well, you aren’t very amused, but you can’t… bring yourself to leave just yet.

Maybe it’s the social pressure of the man at the counter, where you can feel a gaze on your back. Maybe because you still need to forget your recent rejection. Or maybe it’s the way that the radio made you feel, for just a moment, like you were changed.

Either way, you shake off your goosebumps, and wander, more cautiously, down the aisles. The store is unique in its disorganization. You don’t think you’d be able to find a pattern if you walked around for hours. Still, the items are not scattered, and they are not haphazard. Each item appears perfectly in its place, with a little placard by each piece. Some, you notice, are even hidden from direct view, and something inside you whispers that it is deliberate, that those ones are the untouchable kind.

And another thing– from the first look, each item is so… normal. You hadn’t expected this. From the outside window, you had seen things that glowed, strange shapes that you couldn’t identify. Here, the shelves are lined with things that you’d find at a yard sale. A vacuum here, a hairbrush there, and each bears its own ornate placard.

You highly doubt that any of those things are as normal as they seem.

Curiosity steers you onward, and that insatiable feeling is what makes you pick up your next item, a fork colored a deep reflective red. You pick it up too fast though, and it slips from your grip right back on the shelf. You squint your eyes and try again, barely grasping the handle right before the smooth metal practically backbends out of your hand. You try a couple more times just for the intrigue, watching the contortionist utensil work its strange magic. But as you’re playing with the fork, the back of your hand brushes against something that sticks fast. You rip your hand back suddenly but a scaly black glove is already encasing your palm and your fingers and– oh! Is it fusing to your skin? You want to panic and hurl the glove across the room, but the man is still watching, and you are unable to throw something that is swiftly becoming a part of you.

You flick your hand frantically yet silently, desperate to keep the rest of yourself together. The two sides of the glove have just merged together in the center of your hand and you think, hopelessly, that this will be what your hand looks like forever.

But then the glove changes again. The oppressive tightness of the morphing glove suddenly releases, and you flex your hand involuntarily. Your left hand reaches shakily for the hem of the right glove and, seeing that it is now possible, you rip it off and set it back on the shelf. Convinced that you barely made it away with your hand intact, you scurry away from the shelf like a frightened animal, making a beeline for the exit. Curiosity killed the cat after all, and you rather like your felines alive.

Before you can reach freedom however, his voice stops you in your tracks.

“So you’re going to leave without purchasing anything? Why, that’s rather rude, don’t you think?”

You turn around slowly, a grin plastered on your face. Your mouth opens, intending to say something apologetic as an excuse, but his disapproving look stops the words before they come. Sometimes you really wish you weren’t such a people pleaser. There has to be something in the store that isn’t incredibly cursed, right? Maybe if you buy some gum, he’ll let you leave.

“I assure you, any purchase you make will be satisfactory.” Those words don’t make you feel any better, because you seriously doubt his claim. A few shuffling steps forward, and you are as close to the man as you ever want to be. You notice his sallow, almost lifeless skin and his pudgy noise that is incredibly ill-fit to the rest of his thin face. His eyes are sharp, an icy detached blue. Or maybe it isn’t his eyes, but the way he uses them to communicate that he’d be eager to swallow you whole. He gives you an awful feeling in the pit of your stomach, and proximity only magnifies that discomfort.

On top of the counter there are various knick knacks that seem mass-produced enough to be harmless. A butterfly hair clip, for example. The one in the basket there looks tacky, and you are relieved to pick it up and find that it feels just as commonplace.

“I’ll take this,” you say hastily, reaching in your pocket for a ten dollar bill and sliding it forwards by the corner so as not to touch him accidentally. He nods, and attempts to make a transaction, but you stop him with, “Oh, there’s no need, you can keep the change.” You don’t want his likely cursed money, no thank you.

He nods, and you turn on your heel before he can say anything else, gripping the hair clip in one hand and trying not to think too hard about it. Finally, you pull the heavy door open and escape into the evening. Your first steps out of the strange shop are hasty, but they slow as you make your way across the street to the familiar sidewalk towards your home.

The further you get away from the place, the more ridiculous you feel about the whole trip. Why did you even think those kids would show in the first place? When you could’ve just played games at home with your sister or something instead of ending up in a tricked out shop with weird creepy men and weird creepy things that–

You stop your stride and your tangent when you reach a park trash can on the sidewalk. Why can’t you just chuck the dumb hairclip in the garbage right now? Just to take it out on all the awful people that you had (or, technically, hadn’t) encountered today.

You unclench your fingers, staring down at the indents in your hand left by the butterfly clip.

You want to, but then again… you don’t. Maybe it’s an inkling of pride or lingering curiosity that was not quite satiated. You reach up and clip the pin into your hair, the action hasty and angry and impatient. Who cares anyway? You want to yell it to the wind. Not you. You couldn’t care in the slightest. You bought it, and you aren’t afraid of what is surely just plastic.

You stomp away from the trash can, feeling foolish again, and then being angry that you feel foolish, and the cycle goes on. Wind rushes past your ears loudly as you march. It seems as if the wind is coming primarily from your left side, because that’s where most of the whisper is coming from.

Wait– whisper? No, it’s the wind. It’s the wind.

But the wind or the whisper keeps growing, and after a while you can no longer dismiss it as nothing. You stop walking and simply listen to what you presume is the hair clip, impatience boiling in your blood.

It takes a minute to hear it clearly, but there it is.

“Wait…”

Your body shivers on its own, and a hand flies up to the clip to throw it onto the ground.

But you don’t make it far before,

“Don’t be afraid of us…”

Your hand stops. Of its own accord. You… you aren’t afraid. Not anymore. You almost want to be afraid, just so the hole in your perception can be mended. You know that you probably should be but… it’s almost as if, by command, all your fear vanished at once leaving you with… absence.

You await your next order, hand still hovering above the clip.

“Relax,” the voices hiss, and you drop your hand with a sigh. You can’t really explain it but the submission is nice. It’s simple… easy…

That voice though. One of them is so familiar. It pulls you from the mindless peace to feel a twinge of annoyance. It’s like a song, that voice. It’s the same feeling from earlier, and it’s as if there’s a cloud of fog keeping information from your memory.

“Give in to the–”
You gasp, and all of your senses return at once. Fright pierces your heart; panic floods in. You are free to be overwhelmed because you finally recognized her voice. Hers. Janna’s. Janna is stuck in the butterfly clip, and if you can only reach and free her– it just seems to be so easy but– your hand. It is still only partially in your control.

“Stop.” The voices command, but you can only hear Janna’s tortured voice now. You aren’t fighting just for yourself now, but for her, too. You forgive her, to fight harder, hand shaking at the midpoint between your hip and ear. You yelp and fall to your knees on the sidewalk. Trying so hard to regain control. The voices keep urging you to stop, the cadence a steady tick of hypnotism squirming into your brain.

But you are stronger now. Your finger grazes the clip and hope rises in your chest as you near freedom. This close to unclipping it, and then you can–

A boot flies in out of nowhere and kicks you in the side, hard, knocking you to the pavement. Pain distracts you from the mental struggle, and the “Stop. Stop. Stop.” grows in volume and power.

You feel something else. Different from pain. You are… draining. You don’t know how else to describe the feeling of your soul being taken from your body other than that. Feeling is vacating your limbs faster than you can fight to feel again.

In your last act, you crack open your squinted eyes to see the man standing above you, still smiling a sinister smile.

He is holding your soul in one hand, and a friendship bracelet in another.

You surrender.

You hope your placard will be pretty.