Annaka

also a few things I needed to know.
“How did you do that thing last night? Did we time travel?”
“No,” he said. “It’s not time travel.” He looked between the journal in his hands to my face. “When you were young, you filled most of these pages with your imagination. I was part of that.”
“I know. I know,” I cut in. “I remember the first time I wrote about you in there. It was after the first day of grade primary and I had hated it. I didn’t make any friends, and Tia was in a different class.” Memories came back to me.
Clay looked me in the eyes and his began to glow blue. Everything around us turned pitch black. The garage, the truck, the tools—they all just faded away. Suddenly desks and walls lifted from the ground, and the floor below my feet turned into tiles. My jaw dropped. I turned around and everything was…different.
“This was it,” I managed to whisper. “My first day of school.”
“I know,” Clay replied. He crossed his arms, annoyed. “Go on.”
“I just remember during recess, I had what felt like a panic attack. I stayed inside and hid under my desk, away from everyone. The only thing I had was my journal. Grampy had given it to me that morning. He told me it was a gift—a good luck charm—and that it used to be his. He wanted me to write about my first day.”
I could see a little girl who looked just like me. She was sitting on the floor under a desk, drawing and writing nonsense in her journal. I walked over for a better look: I saw the outline of a person who looked like Clay.
“You’re doing it again,” I said. “But this time I’m just observing.”
I watched my younger self—I looked frightened, scared, and out of place. I remember drawing Clay, but I had had no idea he would actually become real.
I looked over at him now, and his eyes glowed blue again. The classroom around us turned pitch black. A few moments later the darkness faded into what looked like my bedroom, except the walls were brighter and the bed was different. I could see my younger self lying on the bed, face in the pillow, crying. Grampy was patting me on the back. This was after my first day of school. I had locked myself in my room until Grampy finally convinced me to let him in.
“I never wanna go back!”
“Why not?” Grampy asked. “I used to love going to school when I was young! There are so many new and interesting people to meet.”
I remember being scared to tell Grampy I didn’t want to meet any new people because they all made fun of my name. Earlier that day we all had to write our names on cue cards. I had written my full name: Annaka. Bobby, the boy Tia used to have a crush on, picked it out of the hat going around. He read it out loud and then said with a smirk: “What kind of name is Annaka?” Everyone laughed. I felt so embarrassed; I didn’t even want to go outside for recess. So I hid under my desk.
But I watched as Grampy patted my back, kissed my cheek, and gently said, “Try to get some sleep. Tomorrow morning I’ll make you pancakes, sausages, and eggs. Does that sound better?” He poked me until I heard my younger self giggle. Nobody made pancakes like Grampy could.
After Grampy left, I saw myself get out of bed. He never realized how sneaky I could be. I watched as I went under the bed and grabbed a box—inside were toy airplanes and cars. I watched as I began playing with them. Those were the simpler times; the times I wished could last forever. Before moving, before high school, before everything.
I knew what was coming next. I had gotten so lost in my imagination with the toys that I didn’t notice the noise at first. But soon I heard a creeeak coming from my closet. It got louder, and louder. I jumped up, and I knew I was remembering what Tia used to tell me: that she had monsters in her closet and they would come for me too someday. I turned around and jumped back into my bed.
“Who’s there?” I called out. There was no reply.
The creaking suddenly stopped, and the closet door opened slowly.
I could see my younger self scramble backwards, eventually freezing against the wall. I had been so scared I couldn’t even scream.
For a second, there was nothing but darkness. I waited, too scared to say anything. That was, until a small, round-faced grey figure stepped out. He didn’t look like a monster at all.
“Hi,” was all he said in a shy voice. He looked scared, out of place, and like he didn’t know what to do.
I pulled myself out of the memory for a moment and looked over at Clay, seeing how much he had grown over the years. He was now taller than me. His voice was deeper. Now he had hair, and looked much more, well, human.
“Who are you?” I heard my voice and looked back.
“I don’t know,” the little grey figure replied. “I’m me, I guess.”
Little Anna got on her feet and walked towards the closet. I used to tower over him when I was young. My younger self grabbed his hand and said, “Your hands are soft and grey. Just like…clay. Can I call you Clay?”
Then just like that, everything vanished into darkness.
“How do you do that?” I asked.
“Always could.” Clay replied. “Just in different ways. Remember that summer I turned the lake in the backyard into a sheet of ice?”
I nodded.
“I could do that because you wrote about a winter we shared.”
As he said that I could feel a chill in the darkness. I shivered and could see my breath in the air.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
The darkness transformed into snow all around us in the distance, and