And the cassette reels

It is dusk, but not dark enough to prevent people from making out the pavements, buildings or trees. They appear greyish with a tint of sunset orange. She is walking; her feet are trying to trace her regular path. She must have been too busy with her thoughts. She must have taken a wrong turn or two for her to be in this unfamiliar part of town. Her phone shuts down while she tries to find her way back. She looks around. “Ehh... It’s not that bad”, she thinks about the place and shrugs her shoulders. This is somewhat exciting, she thinks. She walks along with a bounce now.

She stumbles upon an old cassette tape in front of her foot. A wave of nostalgia strikes her. They were a huge part of childhood. How she used to go through them. Sometimes, the tape of the cassette would tangle in the cassette player. She would untangle it and wind it back in the reel with a pencil. So many memories are attached to those little rectangular boxes.

She sighs and comes back to the present. She wonders what happened to the ones that belonged to her back in the days. She glances at the cassette tape on her path. Something seems off about it, but she is unable to put a finger on it. A fume escapes out of one of the holes at the centre of the reels. She raises an eyebrow and bends down towards it for a closer look. The fume gets darker and spreads more. She gravitates more towards it. It gives off a smell. Her mind plays glimpses of her old memories she had locked away. Her head begins to ache. She starts struggling with the memory of her inner-demons, which was supposed to be dead.

The cassette is now in her hand. The fume gets darker and spreads more. If scrutinised, one can see that the tape from the cassette is now reeling itself onto her brain, leaving her paralysed. From a distance, it looks like she disappeared into the dark as the night approached.