Every day, I saw his disapproval. He could barely look at me. Before bed, I used to stare at the ceiling fan and wonder how he used to be so gentle, so kind, and completely obsessed with me. I would constantly think about the times he’d drive hours to see me.
He used to fuck my brains out. The days of lying in bed, ordering pizza, and cuddling until my heart could explode with love disappeared in an instant. How was it possible? How did we lose each other?
I needed to leave the room—that much was clear, but try as I might, I couldn’t take the first steps. Now that I was actually here, I felt sick to my stomach. For the first time in so long, I was scared. Suddenly, I remembered the interviews I gave to a few locals only a few years back. They’d warned me not to continue with my search. They told me what I’d find here... and who I’d find.
“The Beasts.”
Gods among men. Devils guarding a holy tablet. The locals didn’t really believe any of that stuff, right? Those things were supposed to be a myth. But I knew what I had seen as a little girl. It had to be them.
“Fuck,” I groaned.
I took another glance around the room. It was a plain and small hostel room, nothing too fancy. The faded pink wallpaper torn at the edges. It was definitely the right place to get murdered in.
I checked my things. No communication device anywhere. No phone or outside line. All I’d managed to keep with me were my sample kits, clothes, an emergency battery, and a crude detonation device I had confiscated from an underling. “Just in case.” It probably didn’t even work, and as soon as I saw it, I wish I hadn’t brought it in with me.
The sickness continued to spread, as well as my fear things weren’t going as planned. More and more, it felt like I was losing control. Every step I took, I’d forget where I was, only to have my worst memories thrust upon me again.
I stumbled forward, heaving my body against the bathroom door. As I fell onto the stained tile floor, I began to salivate. “No,” I grunted. But it was too late. Within a few seconds, my gut reacted. Luckily, I made it to the toilet before I blew chunks.
“Not cool,” I murmured between heaving breaths.
The shower was near. It wasn’t the world’s best, but I had definitely seen worse. I’d be fine once I got a little water. I ran the faucet, listening to the abrupt sounds of the pressure building up inside the old pipes. Finally, a stream came from the head. I watched as the color shifted from yellow to clear.
“Disgusting,” I muttered before smelling myself. In this small and off-charted province, water was hard to come by. If I wanted to shower, I had to pay. Truthfully, I hadn’t bathed in days, so I wasn’t about to let some dirty liquid scare me off. I had been through worse. Plus, I wasn’t sure the color wasn’t another hallucination.
Stepping inside, I felt the looming presence of the narrow walls as if they were closing in around me. Though I was hit with the right amount of force and heat, I didn’t feel refreshed. Strangely, no amount of soap could scrub away the dirt. And then, as if this realm were taunting me, I could barely breathe. The steam enveloped my body until I lost sight of everything. Throat closing, I closed my eyes and tried to calm myself through the apparent panic attack, but I started coughing violently.
Dropping near the drain, I felt the hands of something sinister grab my throat and squeeze as hard as it could. A cloud overtook me until the heavy hand of darkness quickly evaporated.
For the time being, I was free. Was this a warning?
“Whatever happens,” I whispered, “I need to remember none of what I’m feeling is real. It’s all being pulled directly from my subconscious.”
What was this place trying to tell me? That the past year was a lie? I had wasted too much time on Zane? I came there to discover new territory so humanity might be able to reclaim something before Earth’s glaciers flooded the entrance to the portal forever. But I had to admit this was more personal than commendable activism.
Memories faded so fast. There were so many bad ones with Zane, but the good always seemed to linger above the rest. Still, I had wasted too much time. I spent a lot of my life trying to understand and fix other people’s problems. I dated the wrong men, worked on the wrong tasks, and supported too many family members who never gave the same effort back. Memories were important, but I had let so many of the good ones shine in order to be able to turn a blind eye to all the bad ones.
When I felt a little more normal, I exited the shower as I came in. I was still dirty, dry, and parched. I tried the sink, but when no sound rumbled, I knew it wasn’t working and hadn’t in a long time. I leaned against the counter and looked at my eyes in the mirror. Everything checked out as normal.
“Just keep repeating this: You’re okay.”
I nearly fell onto my face when I heard heavy footsteps in the hallway coming toward my room. Running out of the bathroom, I near the bed. The beasts I was warned about... They had found me. Three heavy knocks shook my core.
“Please be room service,” I whispered with cold fear in my chest.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
My heart pounded rapidly like a freight train with no conductor. Quickly wrapping the towel above my breasts, I clumsily leaned my cheek against the door to listen for any more unknown footsteps.
“Who is it? Who’s there?” I called out.
No answer.
I swallowed and slowly placed my eye in front of the peephole. What I saw was odd, to say the least. Resting and tucked neatly against the door was the day’s paper. Except, the date read 1989, and the picture over the illegible headline was that of my father. “Oh, okay. This makes sense,” I whispered, sarcastically. “Okay, Adeline. You have officially lost your damn mind. Maybe it’s time to leave.”
Surely, this was a weird situation to be in, and the hostel itself was quiet enough to inspire even more curiosity. Now, outside my window, I could see the whole region. The world looked about as mundane as it always had.
Still, I refused to open the door. Something about the green-tinted hallway outside that freaked the hell out of me. Like the stone tablet inside in my dreams, it felt ominous.