The apartment was familiar. The living room is the same as I remembered. The kitchen is also at the first left turn from the living room. The door leading to the balcony is the same, but the glass is cracked. The house is empty, but I remember coming here because I was invited, not because I wanted to come on my own. If it were up to me, I would never return to this place. But when those friends, people you haven’t met in so long suddenly send you a letter to meet at the old apartment that we shared, you can’t deny, albeit only out of curiosity. 

I felt the letter in my pocket. I remembered what it said, although I didn’t remember having read it. But, of course I did, how else would I know what it said? Who sends a letter in today’s day and age, but then again, I don’t think the phones work anymore. Why do I think so? I don’t know. 

I reach my old room, the door is locked, but it can’t be, I see a sliver of light coming from the side. Something is preventing it from opening. I push on it, and it moves half an inch. A lot of dust falls on me. Why would they invite me here, that too with a letter. I think. I take a couple of steps back and quickly push on the door with my shoulder. The hinges give out and the door swings inwards. 

Green. That’s what I see when I enter the room. There’s large plants and small ones all over the place. Heavy monstera leaves hanging off off the walls and smaller plants growing happily in their shade. There’s cacti too in some places, and the floor is covered in dirt, cut up by the overgrown roots of all these plants. What am I looking at? I wonder. 

I wonder again why I was invited here. And why I came here in the first place. No immediate answer comes to mind, but I know that I want to find out. And so I head off to the other rooms. They’re both locked from the inside. Maybe they’re also reclaimed by nature just like mine is, but. At last I figured there was no way to find out the true reason for me being here. 

I pull out the little letter in my pocket. It’s filled with gibberish. Weird symbols like I have never seen before float around all over the page like a bunch of lost ants. I try to read, spot a few English words, and then I lose them, only to find them on a different line. 

“Things have changed.” I hear someone say. I turn around, but there is no one. I walk back to the living room, where it’s all perfectly normal. I spot something that I hadn’t before, a note on the table. I picked it up. 

“Bathroom.” Only one word. 

With doubts, I head over to the bathroom and open the door gently. There is a tree there, standing underneath the broken shower, shaped like a person. 

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