Oregon was always too big for me.

The sky stretches too wide; the forests swallow too much. I will drown in its air if I breathe too hard.

We only traveled there for my grandmother. I’ll admit I loved the pine trees—though only the ones in her backyard. They were small enough to trust. The others whispered too much, their bodies towering and conspiring.

Once, I saw a bird land on a branch and sink straight through it. The tree recoiled, shuddering as if disgusted by the creature’s frailty. No one else seemed to notice.

My grandmother’s guest room had a bed so high I had to climb onto it using an old taxidermy bear. He was always such a gentleman. The bed was alive, its wooden frame a ribcage, its mattress rising and falling like breath. I felt the pulse beneath the sheets, steady and waiting. Its heartbeat was too loud.

The wallpaper was navy blue, dotted with tiny, bright pink tulips. I studied them obsessively. I was convinced they moved when I wasn’t looking, stretching, merging together like bacteria. Some mornings, I woke up with pink stains on my fingertips.

One day, we visited a museum called “Lava Lands.” I might have enjoyed that trip if my father hadn’t mentioned Oregon had 13 volcanoes. I felt them—slow-breathing things beneath the earth. Vast and waiting.

I took something home from that trip. My mother called it igneous, but I knew better. It was the volcano’s baby. It was mine now... I saved it. I found comfort in its meekness.

That night, as I washed my hands in my grandmother’s bathroom, the water heated too fast. The pipes groaned.

I turned off the faucet. The groaning didn’t stop.

I pressed my ear against the porcelain sink. Beneath the house, beneath the ground, its mother was here for her lost child.

The tiny tulips on the wallpaper began to cry. They dripped down the walls in long, pink streaks.

The floor beneath me cracked open the gates of hell. It was as big as I dreamt.

The rock in my palm had cracked open.

Inside was an eye.

It blinked.

The first thing my baby rock saw was its mother swallowing me.

Jolynne Mallory (she/her) is an English major at Corban University with a passion for storytelling. While not artistic in the traditional sense of painting or drawing, she expresses her creativity through words. When not immersed in literature or writing, she enjoys hiking in the Pacific Northwest and spending quality time with her family.