dear diary,

when was the last time i made an entry? let me check...

oh, it was when i was eleven. i was writing about my birthday. oh.

why am i writing now?

it's because something has happened. something i can't explain. something that i need someone to hear, even though i know NO ONE should ever hear this.

i was on a long roadtrip. the reasons for this are not important, but all that matters it that i wanted to escape the world. reality had become to much, and i believed that if i just... left off to SOMEWHERE, i would find whatever i was looking for.

i might have.

at one point, it was nearly midnight and i had stopped at a motel in a small town in [REDACTED]. after settling in, i decided to wander around a little bit. the town, though seemingly uninteresting, carried a sense of... idk how to describe it... i just "morbid curiosity". something, for no particular reason, felt terribly wrong.

maybe it was because the buildings were slightly out of shape? were the store names very subtly off in some way? i don't think there was one reason, but whatever it was, i felt morbidly attracted to it.

while wandering around, i came across a wooden bridge at the edge of the town that crossed a small river. i decided to sit and rest for a little there.

but, soon after i did, the bridge began to shake. it started softly, but slowly became stronger. at first i thought there was someone under it, so i checked, but there was nothing. so then i thought maybe the town was on a fault line and there were tremors and that's why the buildings felt off but that didn't seem right either.

eventually, the shaking got so strong it threw me off the bridge, and i fell on the grass beside it. i decided to check under the bridge again, and found, in the corner, a small black ball.

and, i don't know why, but i decided to take it. it was completely smooth and opaque, but it felt... wrong in my hands. like my body was crying out not to hold it. it dropped it but reached to pick it back up. despite it feeling terrible to hold, i felt the need to keep it.

so i did. i took it back to the motel room and went to sleep with it on the desk nearby.

while i was dreaming it appeared. and it spoke to me.

it thanked me for taking it to the motel, for going to sleep, for letting it see my thoughts and memories. all while it was talking i couldn't say anything, just stared at it while everything in me told me to look away.

it said that with my help, it could finally become something. that i had given it life.

it said, when i woke up the next morning, to not be afraid, if i felt like i was no longer myself.

when i woke up the ball was gone. a note sat on the table in its place.

"thank you for giving me your dream."

i left the town very shortly after, and made a commitment to never return.