Silver Meadow's Stories

A short story by Silver Meadow

To: K.Morales@westhavenpd.gov

From: Yarahinds255@gmail.com

Subject:

The Story You Said You Were Gonna Read, but you Didn’t

Dear Detective Kevin Morales,

It’s been a year since my friend, Yara, was abducted by the Nostalgia Monster.

You’ve told me a bunch of times that you’ll access my account, yet you haven’t. Instead, you and several other ‘justice-oriented’ staff want me in a straitjacket.

Well, here’s your damn straitjacket:

I knew something was wrong when Yara sent at least fifty videos a day regarding Christmas in the 2010s, and how it was much better than whatever late-stage capitalism slop we’re dealing with now. They’d all have a classic holiday song like “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” by Frank Sinatra or Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song,” with children giggling in the background.

Winter nights blanketed in snow, sugar cookies in the shape of snowflakes, a classroom playing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” on an ancient TV as children huddle on the carpet, and, of course, the warmth of a Christmas tree and fireplace: an assemblege of all things 2010s holidays.

You know how the comments go. Everyone’s like, “Why does nostalgia feel bittersweet?” “Take me back,” “Life has never been the same,” But most importantly, “Why does nostalgia hurt so bad?”

Because it does hurt.

Nostalgia is meant to hurt.

That’s how it gets you.

The holiday season was hard for Yara. When she was only seven, her parents divorced. We’re teenagers now, but pain doesn’t dissolve with time.

She said, “My parents used to take us to see the Christmas lights after our last day of school before winter break. We would blast Mariah Carey’s album the whole time…”

But unfortunately, one December, Yana’s mother found her dad in the family van with another woman, then almost set the car on fire with them in it, but it was too windy for the match to ignite.

From that point onward, when she was seven, the glow of Christmas began to die. All the colors of December muddled into gray wax.

Instead of the magical bewilderment December offered, a throng of hurt assaulted Yara. Instead of Christmas movies, a tree, visiting lights, and baking Christmas Dinner, her parents split.

Her dad became too ashamed to visit, and her mom, and Yara, and I quote, ‘would light his a** up like a Christmas tree,’ if he dared to come around.

Every year, every Christmas, reminded Yara of the painful truth that her family would never be whole again. Her mother who was once someone who braided her (and my) hair after school, became someone who didn’t even care to take her daughter to school.

Yara would walk every day no matter what.

Even when we rolled past her, offering to take her, the answer was still no.

One day, she almost caught hypothermia and collapsed in the school’s parking lot.

She told me, “I want to walk because I dissociate. I can daydream about the times before everything died. It feels like I can go back there…revisit the day before Christmas break…”

That day, her third-grade teacher, Mrs. Apple (yes, that’s her actual name), threw a festive party, leading her students in arts and crafts, cutting snowflakes out of printer paper. Then she played “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” on the new and improved flat screen.

“There was just like a warmth to everyone sitting on the carpet together with our plates full of sugar.” Yara giggled. “Someone got one of those mini marshmallows stuck in their nose, and Mrs. Apple was like ‘blowwww, blowwww, like a dragon!’”

Later that day, Yara’s mom picked her up in the family van, which she had almost set ablaze.

“Where’s daddy?” Yara was confused by his untraditional absence.

“On top of some trick in a shake n’ go wig.” Her mom shifted the gear and reached 80mph in a school zone (Yara saw the speedometer with the help of her booster chair).

She didn’t need her mom to say there would be no Christmas lights or Mariah Carey tearing their speakers up that night.

But enough with the backstory, you need to know the truth about last year. So, fast-forward to December 2024, Yara sent me a bunch of holiday nostalgia videos every day. I even turned my phone off during class from how much it vibrated on my desk; my teacher almost snatched it away (that miserable piece of s***).

We didn’t see each other much during school because our classes and lunch were polarized: she’d eat at 11:15 and I, 1:15, she would go to art club after school, and I would go the frick home.

But one day, on the Friday before break, our paths crossed. I was cleaning all the crap from my locker since we’d be coming back in the New Year. Yara walked up to me with arms crossed, hunched over.

She groaned, “My stomach been hurting all day…”

Her shoulders rose and fell like she just ran laps around our track and sweat sparkled on her forehead.

I asked, “You wanna go to the nurse?”

“Nah,” Yara said. “She’d just give me an ice pack or tell me to lie down, but lying down makes it worse.”

She ate what she always had for lunch: pizza, an apple, and milk—couldn’t become more classic than that. She knew it wasn’t her predictable lunch.

“I wanted to show you this,” she said, sharing a picture of Mrs. Apple’s class from 2015. “Mom found this when she decided to clean our attic. She was looking for her dang cassettes.”

I clocked Yara with her snaggle tooth smile and Snoopy Christmas sweater on. I’ve never seen her smile so bright; it was often lopsided and contrasted with that somber look in her eyes.

It had been nine years since her parents divorced, and a few years since we had been close friends. This was the only version of Yara I’ve seen. Somber and introspective, the one I invited to family dinners, holiday parties, and movie nights; the answer was always ‘no.’

She told me she just wasn’t interested, but I believe she felt like an intruder. Besides, our holiday celebrations cannot compare to the perfection of what her family used to be. As though nothing could ever compare to that day, before everything fell apart.

“You were a little cutie,” I said, handing the picture back over.

She giggled, “Yeah, sometimes I wish I could go back. My dad is taking me to see the lights today, though. It won’t be like old times, but it’s a start…”

I assumed Yara found it better than birthday cards with giftcards to places she doesn’t even like wedged in them every year. Courtesy of her mother, her dad should’ve pulled up in a bulletproof vest.

“Mom doesn’t know that we’re going,” Yara said. “She’d lose her mind.”

Some reasonable alarm bells went off, but listen, Yara’s dad IS NOT A CRIMINAL, DETECTIVE KEVIN MORALES. He’s just a loser. Despite being the last person she was seen with, HE IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR HER DISAPPEARANCE!

Even her mother, the woman who wants him dead, denied him as Yara’s captor. Yara might’ve gone behind her mom’s back to see Christmas Lights with him, but only because she knew her mom would probably kill him out of spite, not due to any present danger.

Even then, his concern didn’t lie with being incarcerated—it lied with finding his missing daughter, whom he sobbed in the courtroom for.

After they saw the lights, Yara begged to spend the night at his house since her mom was insufferable around the holiday season (yes, because of his cheating). But her father, although a homewrecker, was the one who took Yara to the ice cream shop and taught her how to ride a bike while growing up.

Of course, she expressed her anger towards him, but that anger never overpowered her longing to be a complete family again.

On your end, Detective Kevin Morales, it was lazy to assume that just because she vanished without a trace in her father’s house, her captor must be her dad. Because 1+1 = 2, right?

No, 1 + 1 = open the damn case back up, since I can prove The Nostalgia Monster took my best friend and not her loser but somewhat loving father.

Yara dragged her feet, still hunched over, and intoxicated by that photo as kids parted for her directionless meandering down the hallway.

It wasn’t like her.

She went missing later that night.

On 12/19/24: the day before winter break, coincidence? I think the f*** not.

And like you, I believed her father was to blame.

Until now.

Guess what showed up during my recent doom-scrolling? Some rogue video shoved into my algorithm, filled with hair tutorials that leave my twist-outs looking like a cry-out…for help.

Anyway, it was some creator in a dark room with a spotlight on her face. In my opinion, the podcast mic was too close to her mouth, but I digress. She recalled accounts of something referred to as “The Nostalgia Monster.”

An entity responsible for several disappearances with little proof, because this monster would take them outside of our realm of existence. Without a trace.

Victims were described experiencing an intense longing, nostalgia, and illness such as stomach aches, headaches, fatigue, and a bunch of things to be brushed off by some doctor weeks before their abductions.

How the monster captures its victims? It’s unknown.

Some have speculated a door manifesting before victims, strong with the warmth of memories, enticing them to step through. Luring them to its domain. Some kind of trap.

The creator shared how every case ran cold. Closed. Victims never found or considered beyond TikTok conspiracy videos. Ain’t that sad?

But I found The Nostalgia Monster.

And Yara.

Sadly, you and your team won’t band together to believe me.

So, this holiday season, while everyone else was crowding roads, stores, decorating trees, wearing flannel, baking cookies, watching Hallmark Movies, arguing which Christmas movie or song was the best, I was trying to find The Nostalgia Monster.

I assume this is prime time, since the holidays create this sense of belonging, hope, and cheer that many have lost along the way. A lot of end-of-year reflection. A time when people like Yara are vulnerable.

There’s a lot of lore that surrounds The Nostalgia Monster. Some describe it as a host of cumulative pain, strong enough to trap souls in a realm created by grief and loss. A space for people who suffered to get high on nostalgia.

Yet The Nostalgia Monster’s origins are still unknown, especially regarding when it was created. Many believe it derived from humanity’s collective grief over time that was strong enough to create an entity.

It feeds on those who long, and long, reflect, and reflect, ruminate, and ruminate, until they die. And when they die, a part of them is snagged on another layer of existence where they could thrive off the feeling of nostalgia forever, unaware of the greedy bastard that drained their life energy.

People like Yara, who will accept any beacon that represents life before everything changed for the worse.

It could never have too many hosts.

It cannot have Yara, though. Not for much longer.

So I dug deep, really deep, and I mean forums posted from the early 2000s research, to find ways to reach The Nostalgia Monster’s realm.

Some say to think about something you missed dearly while staring in the mirror. This could take hours, but I didn’t have hours: I’m a student and finals were coming up. I dedicated as much as I could to this cause.

So I went with option two: get his attention the same way Yara did.

It was easy to build nostalgia around our friendship. Although we met a few years ago in middle school, we have endless memories. Like that one time Yara spent a night at my house and we painted each other’s nails then my mom freaked when we spilled the whole jar of polish on the carpet.

Or when she slammed my brother’s guitar like how they do in the movies, except he worked all summer at the community center to save up just for some twelve-year old girl to destroy it.

She would lowkey tear our house up, but we loved her.

I distracted myself with memories, spent time staring at photos, and we even took Yara’s mom out for dinner, where she ordered five entrees to-go once she found out my parents were paying (hungry a**).

I stared at her the whole time. Partially because she looked just like Yara and partially because I hoped The Nostalgia Monster was lurking somewhere, picking up on my supposed ‘longing.’

She looked up from her plate, squinting at me. “What? You’ve never seen a Black person before?”

My brother believed she started doing drugs again—my dad laughed at that, and mom told them both to shut up since she’s grieving (and stuffing her fridge with free takeout).

All to no avail.

So I just took the L and went with option number one from the y2k forum: stare into the damn mirror even if your face contorts into something you’d see in a horror film after two minutes and you might fail all your finals because all plans of studying cease to exist.

I thought about Yara. Beyond the memories. I wanted to capture our friendship’s essence. What our friendship felt like. Our time together was like lying underneath the sun rays in a plain of shiny grass, with hills, butterflies floating, and a gentle breeze.

That’s why my mirror swirled into a snowscape.

I should’ve brought my jacket.

The snow was up to my knees as I stood at the top of this valley.

If this place were a barren wasteland on Earth, I’d be dead. But in The Nostalgia Monster’s realm? Everything is a figment. Even the cloud of breath leaving my mouth was decorative.

A warm glow emitted from the base of the valley, a tiny building surrounded by blizzard conditions. No signs of The Nostalgia Monster yet. Just a starry night and frosty hills.

No one who has allegedly encountered the monster came back to describe its features. The online community has all sorts of illustrations with some even romanticizing its appearance as some hot emo boy or giving the monster an 18-pack with a question mark for a head (and you claim I need a strait-jacket).

Anyway, I was more concerned about Yara than this monster. So I sprinted down the hill and ran straight towards the building. Running in snow is like a hamster in its wheel, but I made it.

A brick school was to blame for the light piercing the snowy night. Oakridge Elementary. The building was torn down a few years ago, which I imagine added to Yara’s anguish.

The closer I got to the building, the brighter it grew, eye-watering bright. It began to hurt.

Then everything muted like critters in the forest when a predator is nearby.

The snow fell and the winds blew without sound. It was here. It found me. Yara had to be inside; she just had to because her affinity for this school and this time before her dad wrecked his entire home was what brought her here.

With the hairs standing up on my arms, I spotted Yara in the front window, sitting on a carpet with children not even half her size. She had on that red Snoopy sweater and a plate of mini marshmallows, dots, cupcakes, and pretzels in her hands.

I balled my fist, ready to bang on the window to get her attention. Snap Yara out of it. But The Nostalgia Monster pressed down on my muscles, paralyzing me.

The air was weighted. Every ounce of gravity squeezed around me until my lungs expanded just enough to take short breaths. I’m shocked my bones didn’t crack and shatter.

So, The Nostalgia Monster isn’t some sexy monster to sketch in your free time. It’s an unseen force that relies on feelings. It could give you a visual, a beautiful prison, but it cannot manifest before you with a question mark for a head.

The Nostalgia Monster is the pit in your stomach while looking at old photos, the verge of tears lining your undereye when craving for days past, it’s invisible in the realm in which it dwells.

What The Nostalgia Bastard didn’t know? I’m a fighter.

So with every fiber of strength ever created in my body, I strained against its confines. All my tendons stretched thin as hell, and my wrist found movement again.

My knuckles were inches from the glass, yet I paused. Yara smiled. Not at me, she ain’t even see me, but at Mrs. Apple and at all the children of the past. I’ve never witnessed such contentment from her. There was always something for her to drag her feet about in the real world.

I thought, “Who was I to disturb her?”

Yes, she was lured and trapped in a realm that would ultimately drain her life energy forever. But what if that same energy would also deplete in a world that has done nothing short of betraying her?

All the cruel reminders like holiday cheer, commercials with families gathered around the tree, and expectations for you to be doing the same…but Yara couldn’t.

Not anymore.

There, in the snowscape, in the school, in the facade, Yara was happy. I could tell by the way she watched “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” like some big kid. I don’t think she knew where she was or that it wasn’t Earth nor 2015, nor Mrs. Apple’s classroom, and maybe everything was better that way.

The gravity The Nostalgia Monster pressed on me loosened as I unballed my fist. Frank Sinatra’s “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” first verse played, covering the landscape in a soft tune, sounding like a speaker that rang from the hills of the valley.

And Yara, her stomach no longer hurting. I could say the same for her heart…

Then her world faded from me, transporting me back to my bedroom, leaving me with the strong desire to never see my reflection ever again.

I thought to myself, “I’ll let her stay a little longer…”

The End.

Detective Kevin Morales, if this could mean anything to you, let it be this: Yara’s father is a terrible person, true, but he DID NOT kidnap his daughter; the Nostalgia Monster did.

Just because he decided to be a good dad and pick up his daughter on the day she went missing doesn’t mean he’s her captor. I get it. It’s easier to believe that than the potential centuries old monster milking nostalgic feelings from Yara.

As much as I despise that man, he deserves to be free. Yara would want that since she’s already free herself.

I have evidence, no not photo because my phone vanished from my pocket the moment I crossed over, but physical. You, me, and whatever task force you send, staring into a mirror, thinking about Yara.

Pick any day or time. I’ll skip school if I must. IDGAF.

This case ain’t closed.

Happy Holidays! (I guess).

Sincerely,

Strait-jacket-occupant

The End (for real this time).