Chapter 1 #2
I should keep walking. I should mind my own damn business.
I should head right back to the conference.
I paid to be here, and I need my professional development hours, if I can handle brushing my seven-year-old neighbor’s slime out of George’s fur after he rolled in it, I can handle another hour of lectures.
Or I could go back to my room, watch something mundane on television and scroll mindlessly on the internet.
I’m halfway towards the second option when they show up.
Three men. Bigger than they need to be. Leather jackets, heavy boots, too many rings. One of them has a toothpick. Another has a scar bisecting one eyebrow. A trio of cartoon henchmen. They’re not talking, not smiling, not flexing their oversized muscles. Just watching him.
I stop.
These are obviously not conference people.
They’re the kind of guys you cross the street to avoid if it’s late and you’re alone and you’ve learned to trust the way your skin tightens at the back of your neck.
They move toward the elevator and so does the first man, seemingly oblivious to the shadows looming behind him.
I know—instantly, instinctively—I don’t want to be in that metal box with them.
But he walks in. Calm. Like he doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.
There’s no real reason why I find myself jogging across the carpet and slipping between the metal doors.
I have no proof anything bad is about to happen.
For all I know my old classmate owes them money, or they’re undercover cops taking down a drug ring, or maybe they’re his buddies about to kidnap him—all in good fun—for some elaborate bachelor party.
But there’s a warning in my gut—screaming—and I can’t make myself ignore it.
I’m probably seeing problems that don’t exist, but if I’m wrong, I’ve done nothing more than ride a rickety elevator up to my room. If I’m right…
The world doesn’t get better by leaving good people to bleed alone.
Because sometimes the worst thing isn’t dying. It’s watching it happen and doing nothing. I can at least do this.
The doors slide shut behind me. My pulse is already rising. Something in the air has changed, even if not one of the men glances my way. Maybe I should be nervous, should uncap my pen and be ready to aim for soft bits. Something.
The elevator hums to life and we descend.
I swallow down bile. I’d been sure they pressed the “up” button, but I can’t deny the lurch of the elevator carrying us down.
Or maybe I didn’t see a button, maybe I just assumed since we were on the ground floor.
Assumed because I’d thought about going up to my second-floor room.
I wonder where we’re headed. The basement?
Do mid-level hotels in the middle of Ohio have basements?
It’s too quiet.
The kind of quiet that makes you aware of every breath.
Every heartbeat. Every bad decision that led you here.
I can’t make out the hum of the elevator anymore.
Just oppressive, ballooning dead air. The men behind me say nothing, but I can feel them.
Heavy. Coiled. Waiting for something I can’t see.
The other man in the corner—black coat, unreadable expression—doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. But his fingers curl just slightly at his sides, like he’s bracing for an earthquake only he can feel coming.
And then one of the others shifts. Not much. Just a tilt of the shoulder. A subtle lean.
But I see it.
I know that posture. I’ve seen it in alleyways, behind locked clinic doors, in the eyes of clients who’ve just been told their pet won’t survive the night. It’s the moment before. When adrenaline starts to lie. When someone decides who gets to walk away.
The man’s hand dips toward his belt. Something metallic flashes.
And I move.
It’s instinct. Not bravery. I step between them and grab his wrist.
“Hey.”
My voice is calm. Sharp. But inside, my heart is kicking like a spooked horse.
Big Guy’s head snaps toward me. His mouth opens. Are his teeth pointy? No. Adrenaline and cortisol are marinating my brain. I’m seeing things. And the man in black speaks.
It’s a single word, but it’s not one I know. It slides into the space between heartbeats, wrapping around my ribs like wire. My palm burns.
The lights explode overhead. Popping one by one like in quick succession. Sparks rain down. I should close my eyes. Scream. Find the emergency stop button. Would that help? Aren’t we supposed to take the stairs in case of fire?
The floor drops.
I fall.
Real fall. Not a stumble, not a trip, plummeting. Weightless. No air in my lungs. No ground beneath my feet. Gravity abandons me. Just heat and dark and a pressure that pulls me down, down, down, but burns like fire.
The sound rushes out of me, but I can’t hear it. My scream vanishes into a roaring silence so deep it feels personal. My skin prickles. My stomach flips. My vision doubles, then goes white-hot, then black. My limbs are jelly. My thoughts scatter.
This is it.
Not some magical shift. Not a moment of heroism.
Just—
The thought slides in between the chaos. Cold. Familiar. A whisper I haven’t let myself listen to in months.
You’re dying, Kay. Of course you are. And maybe it’s a little—okay, entirely—your fault.
Because I’ve been worn down for so long, I forgot what upright feels like.
Because I stopped checking in with people.
Because I told myself I was fine when I wasn’t.
Because I keep doing this—walking into rooms where I don’t belong, into other people’s fights, because it’s easier to bleed for someone else than to admit I’m tired of standing at all.
I should have walked away. Goddammit. What was I thinking?
My fingers burn. My chest aches. Something splits behind my eyes.
And still I fall. The silence isn’t comforting.
It’s hollow, like the beat after a final breath.
All I ever wanted was to matter. To someone other than my cat. Now I won’t get the chance, and he won’t even get to feast on my corpse for sustenance until the smell of my decay alerts the building super. Grand.
And then, impact.
Its not hard or violent.
I’m dropped into thick, humming air and lowered gently to the ground like I’m someone important. Like being caught.
My knees hit hot stone. I blink. Everything hurts, but nothing’s broken.
The air is thick, heavy with heat and the smell of something burning. Not smoke. Not sulfur. Something stranger—like scorched iron and sweet rot. My hands are scraped, my mouth tastes like copper, and I can’t tell if I’m sweating or melting.
I push myself upright, palms raw against the ground.
The sky above me is red. Not sunset red.
Not natural. It glows; a dark velvet canvas streaked with slow-moving clouds like smoke.
The ground beneath me pulses faintly, like it’s breathing.
Eventually, I get to my feet. Around me there are cliffs of dark stone.
A vast, lifeless plain stretching into red haze.
No hotel. No elevator. No men. No stranger in black.
Just me.
The heat presses in. My legs wobble. My body won’t stop shaking.
I take a step forward, and the stone beneath my feet hums like it’s listening.
The ground radiates heat in steady waves, pulsing up through my shoes and into my spine.
A wave of scorching air brushes over my skin.
It smells like scorched stone and something older.
Metal. Or ash. Or blood that dried too long ago to remember what it was.
I stare down my hands, half-expecting them to vanish or pixelate.
To fade into something ethereal. Like this is a lucid dream and I’ll wake up drenched in sweat in a hotel bed with too many emails and a neck cramp.
Like the kids in that movie about traveling back in time.
But my hands stay solid. Scraped. A little burnt.
Still shaking. And the pain in my knees is very, very real.
I don’t know where I am. But I hope I’m dreaming and not in a coma after a tragic elevator accident. Lying in some antiseptic hospital room hooked up to machines I can’t afford, my chart marked with a sticky note that says, “No Next of Kin.”
If this is real—this sky, this heat, this air that tastes like burnt sugar and rust—then I’m in trouble. Big, irreversible, possibly biblical trouble.
I turn slowly, taking it in.
Cracked earth stretches to the horizon, broken by jagged ridges of black stone.
They rise like spines from the ground, some shaped like crooked teeth, others split down the middle like they’ve been cracked by something massive.
The sky isn’t a sky. It’s molten. It glows dark red, swirling with lazy clouds that move like smoke underwater.
There’s no sun. No moon. No wind. Just heat and that strange, endless hum beneath my feet, like the planet itself is vibrating. Or I’m hallucinating while lying on the floor of a destroyed elevator box.
“Okay,” I whisper to no one. “Cool. Sure.”
My voice sounds too small out here. Like it doesn’t belong.
Neither do I.
I half-expect something to rise out of the earth. A demon, a dragon, the elevator doors again. Something to declare this a hallucination with some narrative structure. But the silence stretches on.
Maybe I hit my head.
Maybe I am already dead.
Maybe this is what it looks like—when the lights go out and no one tells you.
A few feet away is a large rock with a fairly flat top.
I let myself sit, pulling my feet up too tuck under my thighs.
My legs feel like jello, and I don’t want to faint dramatically into a lava pit.
Or whatever kind of pit they might have in Hell.
That’s what this place reminds me of, with the crimson sky, the heat, the ominous weight of uncertainty.
My hands go to my lap. My fingers knot together.
I used to have a grounding exercise for moments like this—Five things I can see, four I can touch, three I can hear, two I can smell, one I can taste—but it’s hard to find a name for this sky.
Harder still to smell anything past the heat.
I bite the inside of my cheek until it stings.
That’s something. Something real. Should I be able to feel pain in a dream/coma/death?
There’s a part of me—dark, familiar—that says: Maybe this is it. Maybe this is what happens to people like you when they stop trying.
I hate that part. But it’s persistent.
This isn’t a punishment, I think, not sure who I’m trying to convince.
I did something good. I stepped in. I helped.
And now I’m here—wherever here is—and who knows what happened to the dude in the elevator.
Maybe they peeled the flesh from his bones and wore him like a hat anyway.
Maybe they’re staring down at my unconscious body wondering if my stupidity is catching.
In the silence, something in my chest breaks loose.
Of course I wasn’t meant to make it back.
Of course this is how it ends.
Not in glory. Not in fire. Just misplaced. Forgotten. Like final destination. I cheated death all those years ago and it finally caught up to me. Isn’t that what my therapist says? That I may reckless, unsafe choices because deep-down I think I deserved to die in that car?
My hand goes to my pocket without conscious thought.
My phone screen is cracked, and it won’t turn on.
No bag. Just the clothes on my back, my name around my neck, and the taste of adrenaline in my mouth.
Even my coffee is gone. I wonder if that’s proof that I’m dreaming, or proof that this is real—that I dropped it during my free fall.
I glance at the horizon again.
Nothing moves. No birds. No plants. Just that thick, heavy silence like the world is waiting for something.
I lean forward, press my palms into my thighs, and whisper, “Well. Guess we wait.”
Because that’s the truth of it, isn’t it?
If this is a dream, I’ll wake up eventually.
If this is a coma, I’m not in charge. And if it’s real…
well, Hell isn’t exactly what I thought it would be.
I close my eyes tight. I breathe in, out.
I just need a minute and then I’ll do something. Just a minute.