“Shh,” I hissed angrily at the little rascal that was my brother. He grinned back, prancing around my heels. “She might hear us,”

I glanced over my shoulder at her, perched on the very edge of the mossy park bench, as if ready to leap into flight. Her back was turned, but beyond the mane of glossy bleach-blonde hair I knew exactly what expression she’d be wearing; one of disgust, and also of significant longing for the days when children just weren’t her problem.

“So what if she does?" My twin swept his dark hair out of his electric blue eyes, all too similar to mine. “India’s scared, India’s scared! Scaredy cat!” He called in a ringing, singsong voice. I grabbed his wrist and dragged him behind a tree.

“I can’t believe you talked me into this,” I muttered angrily.

We inched forward onto yellowing withered grass. No sunlight ventured this far through the thicket of trees, and despite the warm July day I felt a little shudder dance down my back. An ancient brick wall towered ahead of us, riddled with illegible monochromatic graffiti. The unmistakable sounds of the park- toddlers laughing and the barking of dogs- seemed to fade into the distance. It was like we had stepped into another world.

And not in a good way.

As we tiptoed further away from the mundane, I thought I heard distant voices, gruff and unintelligible, but when I spun on my heel the only moving thing in sight was the gentle, almost entrancing, sway of the sycamore trees. Even that was queer; I could have sworn that there wasn’t a breeze two minutes ago.

I gripped his hand. “Joe, we need to get out of here,”

He smirked. “Told you that you were scared. Don’t be a wuss, India, it’s fine,”

With my free hand, I tugged nervously at the end of my raven-hued braid. I shivered yet more violently, the sounds only growing in amplitude. The lush greens of the park seemed like miles away, and my voice began to sound high-pitched and squeaky, panicked, even to me.

“Seriously, I’m not joking, Joe, I-“

I felt a coarse hand wrap around my bare upper arm, and my frail body stiffened in shock. My vision blurred.

As my limp form crumpled soundlessly to the floor, the gruff voices echoing incomprehensibly inside my brain, bouncing off my skull, I dropped his pale wrist.

I dropped his pale wrist as the scene cut to black.