Chapter 25
“Soraya…who is Ahvi?” Jesmine’s voice repeated from afar.
Soraya’s gaze drifted around the dark room.
On the far side stood a four-poster bed with a bare mattress and a set of drawers tucked underneath it.
The only other object in the room was a desk beneath the sole window on her left, its blinds half-drawn.
Yellow streetlight spilled across the desk and carpet, stretching halfway up the wall, making the room feel smaller.
It was as if no one truly had been living there for the entire summer…but she knew better.
However, Ahvi was…
Gone.
Walking into the room in a daze, Soraya opened the drawers one after another, only to find that every single one was indeed…empty.
Spinning around, leaving the drawers open, she turned to the desk, checking to see if Ahvi had left a note behind to explain her strange disappearance.
There was nothing.
She opened the desk drawer and found the same thing. Vacant. Barren. Empty.
“Soraya,” Jesmine’s voice called from the doorway. “No one has lived in this room the entire time we’ve been here. It’s just been me and you since Evie left.”
Soraya’s heart hammered against her ribcage. An electric buzz shot up and down her arms, and she felt her body humming with the same question her mind was asking.
Am I going insane?
“Hey, hey,” Jesmine said in a soothing voice—one Soraya didn’t hear often. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll get you figured out. How about you return to the living room, sit on the couch, and veg out to some shows? I’ll get the snacks.”
Soraya looked over at Jesmine, who nodded at her encouragingly. She…was she on something? Had she not realized it until now? Was it the black mold—can black mold cause intense hallucinations?
Ears ringing, she was about to step toward her friend when she steeled herself.
No!
She was not going crazy. She knew the truth, even though she could feel it rapidly fading from her mind. She clung to it, hardened herself around it, and a headache instantly flared behind her right eye. But she held fast.
If she was the only one who was, in fact, sane between the two of them, then she needed to convince Jesmine to leave the apartment. Maybe she could tell her she was going to have a panic attack unless they left for the night.
Once she got Jesmine out of there, she could plan the next step and figure out what happened to Ahvi. She had disappeared, and there wasn’t a trace of her left. All Soraya could do at that very moment was desperately hope she was safe.
She also knew that what was happening to her, to them—was bad. Really, really bad.
Was it collective poisoning from lead pipes? Carbon monoxide? Was someone pumping gas into their apartment to collectively kill them all for being too loud, causing mass hallucinations until they met their untimely end?
There were real psychos out there. Either way, they needed to leave the apartment.
Briefly, Soraya wondered if the past couple of hours had happened. Alkimos, the street fight, Makoto, the white glittering rooms, and the tsunami—she could still hear the faint rumble in her ears.
And even the other men she met before. Tariq, Sorenth, Lestis. Were they real?
If they were, why couldn’t she remember those encounters fully? It was like a fog shrouded certain parts of her mind.
Maybe she was being punished for her slutty behavior.
Soraya clapped her hands together to snap herself out of it. “Alright,” she said, looking up at Jesmine, who had pursed her lips. “We need to pack and… what’s that in your pocket?” Soraya’s eyes darted to a familiar lump in Jesmine’s jacket.
Jesmine pulled something out of her right pocket. “Just my phone.”
“Your other pocket,” Soraya whispered, chills breaking out across her skin.
Confused, Jesmine patted her left pocket and realized something was indeed in there. She reached in and pulled out—
“That’s my gun,” Soraya stated. Her gaze locked onto Jesmine as she watched her friend frown down at the weapon in her hand.
Jesmine opened her mouth, closed it, pondered for a moment, then opened it again and asked, “Why do I have your gun?”
Because Jesmine was on that street with Soraya. Because Soraya had brought the gun when she was tracking down Jesmine, who had called her in distress. Because it must have fallen out of her waistband when she was spirited away by Makoto.
“You tell me,” Soraya said, hoping against hope that Jesmine remembered something. “I brought that gun with me because you called me for help. Remember? We met at the intersection in front of the school gate—you hit a monster with a car.”
Jesmine continued to stare at the gun. “I—” she began before abruptly cutting herself off.
Faster than Soraya could react, Jesmine’s whole body stiffened, as if she had come into contact with a live wire. Her head jerked backwards, and the gun fell from her hand as she dropped to the floor and started to convulse.
“Jesmine!” Soraya shouted. She ran to her friend and dropped to her knees beside her, quickly realizing Jesmine was having a seizure.
Pulling out her phone, Soraya dialed the emergency line while turning Jesmine onto her side. Her mind went blank as she sat by her friend, unaware of how much time had passed until the first responders arrived in their apartment and strapped Jesmine to a gurney.
Soraya blinked, and suddenly she was riding in the back of the ambulance, watching as they intubated her friend.
She blinked again and found herself sitting in a waiting room.
Generic paintings hung on bland walls, and the cold, sterile air was like a blanket to her hot, numb skin.
Soraya didn’t know how long she waited before the doctor came in and told her that they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with Jesmine.
They wanted to keep her overnight for observation.
Soraya thanked the doctor and gave him her phone number in case there were any further updates before she left the hospital, still in a trance.
When she came to, she realized she was sitting on Ahvi’s mattress with two bags packed with her and Jesmine’s stuff. The only thought she could muster was that Ahvi was safe for now—away from the apartment.
At least, she hoped so.
The gun was sitting beside her on the bed. She didn’t know how or why it was there, but knew it was coming with her once they headed out. The question was: where would they go?
The shopkeeper from I’dolen Hollows—Laura—crossed her mind. Maybe she can help, Soraya thought desperately. Evelyn crossed her mind a second later, but she had no way of getting in touch with her oldest friend, and she needed to move now.
She decided she would send an email to let Evelyn know they were on the move.
Then there was the matter of Ahvi.
Once more, Soraya looked around the empty room.
It was true that she had never set foot in Ahvi’s room until now. But she could have sworn she had peeked a glance or two when Ahvi was coming in or out, and she had seen her belongings.
Hadn’t I? The thought crossed her mind.
That was the most puzzling part of the night.
Looking down at her phone, she stared at the unanswered text she’d sent Ahvi. She clicked out of the text messages and pulled up Ahvi’s contact info.
Her finger hovered over the call button. It wasn’t the first time she had tried to call Ahvi that night, but she secretly hoped that the outcome would be different this time.
She hit call.
The phone’s dial tone went through, but it was abruptly met with an odd chime before an automated voice informed her, “We’re sorry. The phone number you dialed is out of service—”
Soraya hung up and pocketed her phone.
“Who is Ahvi?” Jesmine’s voice echoed in her ears. Over and over again. It didn’t make any sense. How in the world could Jesmine forget about Ahvi? They have been roommates for…a couple of months now. All of them had become fast friends and—
Soraya’s eyes widened as a ringing began in her ears. She could feel the fog rolling through her mind, seeping into the very folds of her brain.
She slammed her eyes shut, forcing the fog to stop its advance. She wasn’t sure how or why, but for the past couple of hours, whenever she heard the ringing and felt the fog, she knew it was coming for her memories.
She repeated to herself, “Frog monsters, white rooms, tsunami, Makoto, and Alkimos.”
She repeated it over and over again until the headache disappeared. The episodes were coming faster now, and she didn’t know how long she could keep them at bay, or if she was even succeeding. What had she forgotten? How would she know if she was missing memories?
Panicked, she jumped up from Ahvi’s bed and ran out of the room. She didn’t stop when she flung the front door open, continuing her mad dash back to the intersection where her night had gone from bad to worse.
Feet pounding down the pavement, she chased after her memories until she arrived at the corner where she had initially stopped with Alkimos at her back.
It was completely empty. No car. No monsters. Not even any debris.
She scanned the intersection for evidence of the earlier fight, even checking the school’s gate where the monster had dented the metal when flung against it.
Soraya still wasn’t sure how it was sent flying against the gate, just as she wasn’t sure how she’d seen two men flying, with wings on their backs.
When her eyes landed on the gate, she sprinted to get a closer look. Out of breath, her eyes darted around the perfectly pristine iron bars. There was no visible damage anywhere.
Maybe I should have checked myself into the hospital, Soraya thought. With shaky legs, she took a step back from the gate.
The gate had been damaged. She had seen it get damaged. How was this possible? How was any of this possible?
She was losing her mind. There was no way around it. How long had she been losing her mind? A day? Two? The entire past week? Her whole life?
What was the age range for schizophrenia? Was memory loss a symptom of schizophrenia?
What else had she imagined?