Every State Has A Containment Site, What's Inside Is Finally Coming Out.

In the small town of Drayton, a 30-foot crystal monument appeared overnight in the central park. No one knew where it came from or how it was installed. The mayor promised to investigate, then forgot. The police tape came down. The town moved on. The narrator was seven years old that summer, and his mother—one of the parents who protested—kept him away from it. But one August morning, while her view was blocked by a gossipy coworker, he slipped over. Up close, he saw his own reflection in the crystal's facets, distorted and dusky. A plunging dizziness hit him, like the first time he threw up on a roller coaster. He sat down, eyes shut, until his mother lifted him to his feet. He never went near it again.

Years passed. By thirteen, the narrator was on the Junior Hawks basketball team, bullying kids for status. Sarah Mazuski—his kindergarten crush, now a shaven-headed outcast in black rags—was a favorite target. He never joined in when his teammates ganged up on her, which only made them angrier. One rainy morning, Andy Moder pushed her books to the ground. She threw a textbook at the narrator's head, then shoved him and stormed off. A sketch fell from her bag: the monument, drawn from the same spot on different days. "It changes," she said. "Or didn't you notice?" She told him to meet her behind the cafeteria dumpsters after school.