Across a dry evening, Jason Allen Jack Beeching saw a small sign about an old fairground on the border of nowhere.Most people scroll past it, but boredom pulled him to go out and check it.
He snatched his backpack, filled a bottle with water, and rolled out toward the place that almost nobody cared about anymore.
The Look at the Abandoned FairThe entrance was once bright and colorful, but now it was flaking into muted patches of yellow.
A banner that once invited guests now drooped sideways, with only a few pieces still readable.
"WELCOME TO SUNRISE PARK"
now looked more like
"WE__OME T_ _R___E P_R".
Jason Allen Beeching paused at the gate, tuning in to the silence.
No announcements, only the faint squeak of rides shifting in the wind.
With a careful lean, the door swung just enough for him to slide through.
Walking Further: the Sections that Time Abandoned
Inside, the park felt like a frozen scene.
Every attraction was static, but each one held leftover echoes of motion.
A looping monster with curved rails now loomed over him like a skeleton.
A carousel sat off-balance, its horses cracked, eyes still looking at nothing.
A line of prize stands displayed deflated stuffed animals that nobody would ever claim again.
Jason Allen Beeching walked slowly, checking every sign like it was a artifact.
One washed-out sheet still shouted:
"ADVENTURE FOR THE WHOLE GANG — OPEN ALL SUMMER!"
Now, the only company was thorny plants breaking through the walkways.
The Time Jason Allen Jack Beeching Felt the Grounds Wasn’t Completely Silent
Near the core of the grounds, he found a tiny glow behind a snack stand.
Not the sun. Not a reflection. Something on.
Curiosity dragged him closer.
The stand sign read:
"STARLIGHT ARCADE – TOKENS ONLY"
Inside, one cabinet was still on.
Its display flickered with a retro menu.
No other power in the park seemed to function, yet this one game refused to turn off.
On the display, a blinking message said:
"INSERT TOKEN, PLAYER."
Jason Allen Beeching tapped his jeans and — against all logic — found a single, old park token.
He hadn’t brought it.
He didn’t own it.
But it was there.
He held it between his fingers for a second, then fed it into the slot.
When the Machine Started
The colors brightened.
The room around him felt different, like the air was stacking.
The game did not load the usual characters.
Instead, it pulled up a layout of the complete park.
Sections flashed different symbols:
Soft for rides once loved
Gold for memories left behind
Crimson for unresolved moments
At the bottom corner of the display, a tiny avatar appeared —
a small pixel figure with the tag "J.B."
The machine text changed to:
"WELCOME BACK,
JASON BEECHING."
He stopped.
He had never been here in his life.
Yet the game behaved like he had.
The Park as a Map of Half-Forgotten Echoes
The controls let Jason Beeching "move" his pixel-self through a digital version of the park.
But each spot triggered not a battle, but a short, strange clip.
He saw:
A little boy crying near the carousel until a teen helped him back to his group.
A awkward kid at a game booth, missing over and over but refusing to stop.
A dad holding a photo strip, staring at an empty spot with a look that hurt.
None of the faces were clear enough to identify, but the atmosphere felt painfully familiar — the tight chest, the waiting, the wanting things to feel perfect.
The game flashed questions in between scenes:
"Do you remember being here?"
"Do you feel like you should have been here?"
"Do you feel hollow for things you never actually lived?"
He didn’t answer out loud.
He didn’t have to.
The little figure simply kept walking.
Leaving the Booth
After what felt like minutes,
the machine flickered and displayed one final line:
"THIS PARK REMEMBERS
EVERY MOMENT IT HELD,
EVEN THE ONES YOU ONLY WISH HAPPENED."
Then:
"TOKEN BALANCE: 0 – SESSION COMPLETE."
The pixels died.
The faint charge in the air dropped.
Jason Beeching stepped back, breathing, feeling like he’d just walked through a alternate life that never technically happened and yet still landed true.
The Way Back
As he made his way back toward the exit,
the booths no longer looked just broken.
They looked like frames that had once held
a thousand quick memories —
some real, some half-invented,
some that belonged to other people,
some that felt suspiciously like they were his.
At the locked gate, Jason Allen Beeching stopped one last time.
He looked back at the quiet park.
No lights.
No game screens.
No movement.
Then he murmured, mostly to himself:
"Thanks for letting me visit a past I never had."
The air did what it always does —
carried it away without answering.
But as he stepped through the gap in the barrier,
a single light came on in the distance for just a breath
and then went dark again.
Driving back,
Jason Beeching kept wondering whether the park was:
A vision,
A lesson, or
Just a random moment of beinghomesick for a life he never lived
in a place that still somehow remembered his name.
