The Hiding Game

Wait, is this me?” The words echoed faintly in Alyssa’s mind as she sat cross-legged on the grass by the old museum park, the same place where the games had always begun. She could still feel the imprint of summers past in the soil beneath her—sticky, warm, alive with ants and the occasional cigarette stub discarded by strangers. Here, time stretched and bent, caught between the laughter of children and the whisper of wind over iron gates. She no longer had to squabble with Jabu and Jasmine like before, though the memory clung to her as stubbornly as the dust on her sandals. They would argue about whose turn it was to hide, about who cheated when counting, about who deserved the title of “best seeker.” There was comfort in the bickering; it was the rhythm of belonging. She could still see the four of them darting between the sycamores, giggling as they stuffed themselves into absurd hiding places—the laundry basket, the shed roof, even once inside the washing machine that Jabu’s family left outside near the back door. But the museum park was never just theirs. Jabu’s father, a figure Alyssa recalled more vividly than she wished, lingered like a shadow around the edges of their lives. He seemed half-puppet, half-spectre, dressed in what looked like a costume meant for another man: a gold jacket with dulling seams, a starched white shirt, a maroon bow tie that sat awkwardly at his throat, black trousers with a faint shine, and shoes that clicked too loudly on the pavement. He always had a pencil tucked behind his ear or scribbling against a scrap of paper, as though keeping tally of invisible debts. Alyssa never understood his lists, but she felt the distance in the way he avoided Jabu’s eyes. Hide-and-seek itself had grown dull once the seeker discovered every hiding spot. There are only so many places a child can vanish, after all. But in Jabu’s home—large, maze-like, intimidating—possibilities multiplied. Hallways folded into endless corridors, closets smelled of mothballs and unopened trunks, and mirrors distorted their shapes into creatures both comical and frightening. To Alyssa, each game was a brief escape, a place where she could rule through cunning and boldness, where her small frame and restless energy became advantages. “Five… four… three… two… one!” Jasmine would shout, hands clapped tightly over her eyes, the sound muffled by fingers damp with sweat. Alyssa, meanwhile, had a knack for slipping away. She would wriggle into spaces no one else dared—beneath the kitchen sink, behind the iron stove, crouched atop the attic beams where spiders spun their slow, deliberate nets. She relished the thrill of being unseen, the invisible pulse of holding her breath as footsteps drew near. To be hidden was to be safe, and to be safe was to be powerful. Yet even in the safety of the game, Alyssa noticed cracks. She wondered why the hiding brought her such joy while discovery brought only dread. Perhaps it was because discovery always led to return—to faces, to voices, to expectations. The longer she could delay being found, the more she could remain her own. It was Alyssa who gave the game rules, who imposed her own standards with a voice that tried to sound grown. “You, Jasmine, will hide in the washing basket. And you, Jabu, will always hide behind the door.” Her words, hands planted firmly on hips, carried a mix of command and play. They laughed, sometimes teased her for her bossiness, but they obeyed nonetheless. For Alyssa, each round was more than a pastime. It was rehearsal. It was training for the art of vanishing—something she would one day need, though she could not yet name why. The park held its own atmosphere of secrecy. The museum’s brick walls loomed in silence, windows shuttered against curious eyes. Rusting swings creaked with the slow drag of the wind. Children’s chalk drawings stained the pavement in pale ghosts of rainbows, hopscotch grids, and jagged hearts pierced with initials. To an outsider, it was only a playground, but to Alyssa it was a stage, a map of her childhood etched in footsteps and laughter. She remembered the warmth of Jabu’s grin, wide and careless, teeth slightly crooked but beautiful in their sincerity. She remembered Jasmine’s quick wit, the way her laughter cut sharp as glass, teasing but never cruel. Together they created a world where time was measured not in hours but in rounds of the game, in the distance between “ready or not” and “I found you.” But games end. They always end. And as the years stretched onward, Alyssa began to feel the weight of endings more keenly. Hide-and-seek was no longer only about being hidden. It became about the fear of being revealed, of standing in the open where eyes—family, friends, strangers—could judge what they saw. The echo of those early games would follow her long after the park emptied, long after the museum locked its doors for the night. It would follow her back home, into the walls of the Eren household, where hiding was no longer play but necessity.