The sound of construction woke her, and she found herself in an alien apartment. Her head was pounding, and her mouth was filled with an acrid acid taste.
Pieces of the previous night flooded back to her.
She’d gone out with Molly and Sarah. They’d gone to Harold’s for happy hour, then popped over to Erv’s, and finished the night at Beluga Bar.
She’d met Kyle—or was his name Kevin?—at Erv’s. He’d bought her a drink. They talked the whole night. Later at Beluga Bar, they made out by the bathroom. He asked her if she wanted to go home with him. She said yes.
They took an Uber back. Or was it a Lyft? Maybe even a yellow cab.
Lower East Side. Fuck. His apartment was on the Lower East Side, which meant that she was going to have to slog all the way back uptown to her place on 92nd, something she wasn’t looking forward to. She felt like absolute shit. Her hair was a mess. She didn’t have a change of clothes. Vomit was trying to bubble its way up and it would take all her strength to keep it down until she got home.
She looked over at Kevin or Kyle—or maybe it didn’t even start with a K? Maybe his name was Tyler? It was something like that, though. Some simple white guy name that gets made fun of all the time. Trevor? Maybe Trevor.
A shiver went through her as she looked down at him. He was gross. Twenty or thirty pounds overweight. Really hairy. An oniony smell wafting up from him. She remembered thinking last night that he was weird. Weird but cute at the same time. But seeing him through sober eyes confirmed that the cute part had been accentuated by the liquor. He was just plain gross. And what a freak. Sleeping with his eyes open.
Wait, what?
Sleeping with his eyes open. She looked closer and saw that his mouth was agape and twisted.
She called out to him, “Trevor?” Praying that was his name.
No answer. She froze. He was dead. Definitely dead. He wasn’t breathing. She didn’t want to touch him but willed herself to check for a pulse that wasn’t there.
She leaped to the other side of the studio apartment. Vomited right there on his hardwood floor.
Jesus. What the fuck? How the fuck?
Hot panic tears, uncontrollable, came then. She went to her phone. Call the police. Call the police and just come clean. We were both sleeping. He died in his sleep.
9-1-1. She pressed the phone to her ear, swallowed the leftover vomit coating her mouth.
The phone rang. She could hear her heartbeat. The sounds of construction still blaring outside. It was really loud. Like someone was crunching diamonds.
More rings. Aren’t they supposed to pick up right away?
She held the phone between her shoulder and ear while she slid her heels on. The phone kept ringing and ringing. Then a busy signal.
That’s not supposed to happen.
She checked to make sure she’d dialed the right number. There it was in her call history. 9-1-1. Must be some weird connection issue or something. She dialed again.
Same result. Ringing. Ringing. Ringing. Busy signal.
Maybe she was getting bad reception and it would work if she stepped outside. If it still didn’t work, she could flag a cop down, something she definitely did not want to do. Flag down a cop in the middle of a busy Lower East Side Sunday and tell them that a guy she’d slept with had died, and he’s right upstairs in that apartment officer, the brunch crowd ogling at her through it all? No thanks.
She collected her things. Phone charger, purse, watch. Her wallet had been thrown on the counter of his kitchenette. She checked to make sure all her cards and cash were there. They were. She put the wallet in her purse and left.
His place was on the fifth floor. Legs like jelly and vision blurry, she started down the steps.
On the third floor she froze.
Adrenaline shot hot and cold through her and she felt vomit bubble up again. She couldn’t hold it back. She turned her head from the two bodies and let loose.
She froze like that for a moment, her head turned away and looking down. If she looked back, they’d be real. Two bodies splayed out. Their eyes open, mouths twisted and agape. Just like Trevor or Kyle or Kevin had been.
Something was very wrong in this building. She needed to get out. Whatever or whoever had killed all these people could still be inside.
She got to the first floor and ran to the door. Hands shaking, it took her a couple of extra seconds to get it open. The sound of construction. Crunching diamonds. It grew louder and louder.
Red outside. Blood red. The sound. An endless crunch. It was grinding her mind and twisting it. She looked up and saw it.
A massive tower. Flat black—an absence of light and color. A void. A tower. A void. A tower. A black forever and her mind twisted trying with futility to wrap itself around what she was seeing.
She tried to find where the tower ended, but it touched the sky and went past it. And the sky. Deep blood red. Strange clouds swirling and swirling, like thousands of little black hurricanes.
The tower crept slowly downtown to the sound of crunching diamonds and a high-pitched whine. The sound grated at her mind. She clasped her hands over her ears.
Falling to her knees, she saw all around her the bodies. They seemed to have dropped where they stood, littering the sidewalk. Some had fallen in the middle of the street.
“Another one here.” The voice came in like a thought she was having. “Another one here. We missed them.”
The voice came to her like a thought, but it wasn’t her and it wasn’t talking to her. It was talking to something else. Or somethings else. Somethings she now felt. Millions of eyes looking at her from somewhere she could not know or see.
“Don’t worry.” The thought-voice came back and it spoke to her directly now. She could feel its intention.
“Don’t worry. None of them knew anything. Actually, you’d rather have been one of them. I can imagine how terrifying this whole thing must be for you. But don’t worry. It’ll be over soon. One little adjustment. That’s all it will take. You’ll be gone from this place. Just stay calm. This will all disappear soon, and you’ll forget it and you’ll wake up somewhere else and everything will be back to normal. Well, you right now wouldn’t think it’s normal. But that won’t matter because you’ll have forgotten the right now and it will be normal to you then. So don’t worry, this happens all the time. It’s a constant turning. Everything transitioning. We seed everything like this. You’ll go up the tower with the rest of them and be turned into the seeding, then you’ll come back in some other time in some other place. Then maybe it will happen again or maybe you’ll be dead before it happens, and you’ll be somewhere else already. Doesn’t matter really. You’ll always be back. It will be okay.”
What is this?
“Doesn’t matter if I tell you or not because you’ll forget it once you’re gone and back again. Just know that this is how it all happens. It doesn’t appear by accident. We seed it. Let it grow. Then seed it again. Don’t worry. You’ll be back. It’s okay. There’ll be black for a little while. But you won’t even remember that part. You’ll just wake up and you’ll be back somewhere else. It’s alright. Just relax. Don’t worry. One little adjustment. This happens sometimes. It doesn’t always get everyone in the first go around. Unlucky for those like you to see this. It’d be better if you just went away like the rest of them. But, oh well. Not everything’s perfect. Not even us.”
What are you doing?
“Re-seeding everything. Just relax. It’s okay. Everything will be fine. Calm down. We feel bad about it. Really, we do. Always have. But it has to happen this way. We don’t make the rules, unfortunately. And, even if we did, it would still need to happen like this. Up the machine and out into everything to become everything else. That’s how it has to happen. Even if we did make the rules it’d be the only sensible way to do it. Strange, right? How things have to be done a certain way no matter what. But it’s alright. Everything needs to transition and then you’ll be back before you know it. Can’t tell when or where or who or what you’ll be, but you’ll be back. And, if you don’t like it then, you’ll come back again some other time. Don’t worry though. You’ll forget everything that happened before. Strange how it works, right? But it’s for the best, really. Now, just relax. One little adjustment. That’s all it will take. Really and truly it will be over very soon. It’s a nice transition actually. It’s just black for a little while. We think you’ll find it relieving. And his name was actually Franky.”
And then everything went black for a little while.
