A girl.

   A swift pen travels it’s way across the page in a chaotic yet delicate manner. The sun shines down through the window, looking almost divine in nature. The light illuminates the room, scattered with books and bits of laundry, along with a few left over plastic water bottles. Harper thinks to herself, “This story HAS to be perfect.” Harper is a 16 year-old girl who recently began her summer after her year as a Sophomore at Nevermore High ended. Harper puts down her black ink pen and gets up from her chair. She checks her phone, one of the newer models for it’s time. “About 5pm…” she says under her breath. Harper then approaches her wall-size mirror which is decorated from head to toe in photos. Harper stares at her reflection. She usually tended to wear hoodies and whatever sweatpants she could find. “Who is this person that I so often stare upon?” she says soon before touching her finger tips with the mirror. Thoughts swirled in her mind. “What is beyond here? Is there something more to this mirror? Who stares upon me if not me? Who is the one who drags the pen? Why is this self recognition so difficult?” Harper soon reached for one of the photos that lie taped to the mirror. She stares longingly at the photo.

A close look shows that it depicts Harper and her friends from 2 years back. They hold hands and smile at the camera directly, a nostalgic capture of a fleeting moment. Harper reaches for another. This time, the photo shows Harper and her friends at a photo booth around the same time as the last, two years ago. She ponders, “What were their names…?” Unable to even recall a letter from their names, she drops the photo. Harper slowly leaves her room and approaches the living room. Empty. Not a single piece of furniture or anything. The only rooms that didn’t have this lack of usage were Harper’s bedroom, the bathroom and the kitchen. Harper looked around the kitchen. It was dull, undecorated. “Smells of old people, as per usual.” she says to herself. A single letter slips through the front door. Harper approaches it and lifts it up. Addressed to her and her brother with the letter’s only odd characteristic being a small symbol that mimicked an eye. No sender was directly made apparent on the letter either, just three letters, “HAA.” An association she assumed, yet the letters never rung a bell specifically. Harper ponders, “Where have I seen this symbol…?”

Her brother, Clint, had been the one who let Harper stay in the house. He and his sister had been alone for a while. Harper can’t quite remember much of her parents and how it was before, other than a picture she had kept to herself of them. This was the only item from them she had left really, not fully sure of what their profession even was. Something in a lab is the most her mind can put together. Harper often does recall a single memory, a simple one where she recalls carving a stick figure into a tree upon a hill, yet just another baseless memory that she hadn’t seen any significance or appeal to. Clint hadn’t told her anything either about their past, no matter how much she asked what happened to her parents. Her brother had gotten more closed off and focused on his work as time passed from when she first moved in. After a while, Harper only saw Clint once a month.