The Open Door

The nightmare escalated the next morning.

Clara woke to a biting, unnatural cold. She shivered, pulling the thin duvet up to her chin, her mind foggy from a night of restless, tear-soaked sleep. The radiator hissed in the corner, but it was no match for the freezing draft sweeping through the narrow hallway.

She sat up, her brow furrowing. "Mia?"

The apartment was dead silent. There was no hum of Saturday morning cartoons from the living room television. There was no sound of plastic blocks clattering against the hardwood.

Panic, cold and sharp as a knife, sliced through Clara's chest. She threw off the covers and ran into the hallway.

The front door of the apartment was wide open.

"Mia!" Clara screamed, her voice tearing her throat.

She bolted to the entryway. The deadbolt had been turned. Mia had figured out how to drag a dining chair to the door to reach the lock. Clara didn't bother changing out of her flannel pajamas. She grabbed her heavy wool coat from the hook, shoved her bare feet into a pair of winter boots, and sprinted out the door, leaving it hanging open in her wake.

She took the three flights of stairs two at a time, her heart hammering a frantic, terrifying rhythm against her ribs.

She burst out of the lobby and into the harsh, unforgiving urban morning. It had snowed overnight—a thin, dirty layer of gray slush that coated the concrete sidewalks and the hoods of parked cars. The wind was a physical force, biting into the exposed skin of her face and ankles.

The city was vast, indifferent, and incredibly dangerous for a child. And Mia, despite her adult body, was a vulnerable, trusting seven-year-old trapped in a metropolis that would not hesitate to swallow her whole.

"Mia!" Clara shrieked, sprinting down the avenue.

Pedestrians in heavy parkas gave her wide berths, staring at the manic, weeping woman running in pajamas. Clara ignored them. Her mind was a terrifying carousel of worst-case scenarios. Traffic accidents. Predators. Hypothermia. The regression had made Mia utterly defenseless. She didn't know how to cross a street safely. She didn't know not to talk to strangers.

Clara ran for blocks, her lungs burning with the freezing air, her tears freezing to her cheeks. She checked alleys, peered into the windows of corner bodegas, and desperately scanned the faces of people waiting at bus stops. Every second that ticked by felt like an hour. The angst was absolute; it was a physical weight crushing the breath out of her.

"Please, God," Clara gasped, clutching the lapels of her coat as she turned onto a side street. "Don't take her. I'll stop yelling. I'll accept it. Just let her be safe."

Then, she heard it. The high, rhythmic squeak of rusted metal.