Sinkhole

Chapter 1: The Fall

TEXARKANA, TEXAS — LATE AFTERNOON, 2025

The rake scraped dry oak leaves with a slow, rhythmic pull—rust on rust, like sandpaper against memory.

James stood barefoot in the grass, sleeves rolled, faded jeans soft with age. His frame was strong but not proud—more like a man who’d fought the wind too long to care how he looked standing in it.

A Cadillac SUV sat in the driveway. Gleaming. Bought new, never washed by anyone but him.

The backyard was quiet. Still. The kind of still that made you notice the shape of your breath.

From the house, Sade’s “Sweetest Taboo” drifted through the mesh of the screen door. Faint. Like a song trying not to be heard.

James paused. Reached up. Rubbed the back of his right shoulder.

His fingers found the scar. Pale. Twisted. A reminder of something no doctor could explain.

He exhaled slowly and stared down at the leaf pile. It looked like a trap. Or a grave.

There’s a weight you carry, he thought. When you know how things could’ve gone—and you didn’t make them go that way.

From the yard next door, a cheerful voice called out, “Hey James, y’all grillin' this weekend?”

He raised a hand in polite response. No words. He hadn’t grilled for anyone in years.

He crouched. Scooped a handful of leaves.

A deep groan rolled beneath him—like the earth was shifting bones.

The rake jumped in his hand.

His eyes locked on the ground.

Then came the sound. A thunderous collapse.

The yard gave way.

No time to scream.

The last thing he saw was sky.

Then—roots, dirt, blackness. Gone.

Red lights flashed through the branches of the oaks.

Firetrucks idled in the street. A white utility van marked U.S. Geological Survey pulled up behind them. The backyard was now cordoned off with yellow tape and metal barriers.

A crater, twenty feet wide, yawned open beside a half-raked pile of leaves.

At the edge, an older woman stood in a knit shawl, clutching her phone with both hands.

“I—I saw him,” she told one of the responders. “He was right there. One second, he’s raking, next second he’s—just gone!”

A responder adjusted his headlamp and leaned over the edge of the hole.

“We’ve got zero echo down there,” he said. “No response. Looks like clay collapse. Possibly water erosion—but this deep?”

“No void registered on last month’s scans,” a geologist added. “This wasn’t just erosion. Something shifted under this whole lot.”

“You saying this is a fluke?”

“I’m saying the earth opened too clean. Like it was waiting.”

A stretcher sat unused in the grass.

No body.

No blood.

Just disturbed soil—and a man-sized absence.

James gasped awake.

Dark. Wet. Silent, except for his breath.

His face was coated in cold mud. His leg twitched. He groaned. Rolled over. Everything hurt.

In the distance—light. Faint. Yellow. Maybe two hundred feet away.

An opening.

He crawled toward it, wincing as sharp rocks bit through his palms.

No sense of time. No sense of self.

Only one instinct remained.

Go toward the light.

UNDERPASS BRIDGE — EVENING LIGHT — 1986

Birdsong. Sprinklers ticking across dry lawns. A boxy sedan rumbled past—antenna bobbing, rear window cracked.

James stumbled out of a concrete drain tunnel, coated in clay.

He blinked against the sunlight.

The air was different. Softer. Cleaner. A ghost of leaded gasoline in the breeze.

Across the street, a boy pushed a lawn mower in jagged rows. Ears covered by bright yellow hearing protection.

James stared.

The boy had his face.

Younger. Fuller. Untouched.

He walked across the street without thinking. Shoes soaked. Breathing shallow.

He tapped the boy’s shoulder.

The boy turned—startled. Dropped the mower handle and fell backward into the grass.

James knelt beside him, hand out.

“It’s okay,” he said gently. “You’re okay.”

The boy hesitated.

Then took the hand.

White light bloomed from their touch. The boy’s skin shimmered. His body rippled—face bending, reforming.

James exhaled sharply.

He looked down at his hands.

Small. Dirty. Eleven again.

But inside? He was still him.

Still forty-four.

He gasped once.

Then began to cry.

Not from fear.

But from the weight.

From knowing what’s coming.