Alone.

It was one of those rainy evenings where heavy pouring would overpower most sounds from the bustling city below. A time most suitable for a long meeting with the bed. So did he-leaving himself hamstrung by the warmth of the cotton duvet and these big, soft pillows no one would want to let go after laying down.

Alone with beep.

One new notification popped on the charging phone’s screen. One massive shift to the other side from him. “Not now, please.” The young man stared at the beige wall bordering with that side of the king size bed. The window’s reflection filled the wall like a broken projector rolling an old film, droplets akin to grain. He was not tired in the slightest, but anyone looking at him right now would think otherwise.

But then, a wild thought crossed his mind. “Could that be Rich? He hasn’t called in a while.” A quick U-roll brought him right next to the commode, whisking the charger away from the socket with his index finger instantly.

The young man’s face lit up along with the screen, his hazel eyes fixated on the notification. That was not Rich. The message preview read:

[James Sloan]

Yo Hugh my mango

I covered for u today again

Dad is mad but if u peeps talk then all good I think

So u gonna come tomorrow or what

Let me know hope u alright man

Hugh let out a sigh and turned away, looking at the wall again. He let the phone slip on the duvet with a dull thud. His right hand rocked midair, waving, as if to stroke the reflections of the rain on the wall.

“Sorry Jay. You have to cover for me tomorrow as well”, he muttered. While retreating under the covers, he kept whispering to himself, voice muffled by the softness of the pillow. “And the day after tomorrow. And the rest of the week. And next week, and who knows…”

He felt his mind going numb. Knees pulled up and brought closer to the chest, face buried between the pillow and the duvet’s end. The young man resigned to this position and stayed still for a while. Did minutes pass? Hours? Is it dark outside already? But it kept raining, and time felt so irrelevant.

Alone with call.

The vibration of the phone made Hugh grumble. “What now…” His hand reluctantly reached over the duvet to grab the phone back down. Darkness shattered as the vibrating screen glowed up underneath the covers. “Brochard” was calling. Seeing this made Hugh spring up and almost stand on the bed, flinging the covers behind. He cleared his throat and licked his lips before answering the call.

“Hi Rich!”

“Hey, my bro in the southern city flow! Not busy right now, are you?”

Rich’s voice was steady and sincere but had a vividity to it that made Hugh feel obliged to respond in the same tone.

“No no, I can talk just fine right now. What’s up over there?”

“Well to begin, my pay! Sorry for not keeping in touch as often, but I’ve been busting my ass hard. All the crunch time is starting to pay off. I’m also getting leisure points starting this month.”

“NICE!” Hugh spurted out vehemently while getting out of bed.

“And it’s all fair coin, Hugh. Things are looking up. I’ll get you back in college in no time.”

“Wai---no Rich, come on! I have my own job, I’m fine. Don’t start saving up for me again.”

“So you say, but you can’t get the funds alone like this. Anything exciting happen at work recently?”

Hugh paused for a second. “Nah, same old. Gas stations only get action in movies. Though James did get a fake bill recently.”

Rich’s loud laughter erupted from the speaker, echoing throughout the bedroom.

“Ahahahaha! Oh, I wish I could see that! Did he go after them? He must have been fuming!”

“Yeah, yeah he did.” Hugh looked out the window. He could easily imagine James running after someone across the muddy, rain-whipped street just to get his bill proper. But no such thing ever happened.

“Listen bro,” Richard said in a suddenly serious shift of tone. “There’s this girl at work… and I’ve liked her for some time but you know, I’ve been focusing on the assignments...”

“Uh-huh.” Hugh’s foot met a soda can that was instantly shoved away from the bedroom carpet.

“But I finally got a chance to ask her out, and she said yes, and we are now dating.” Richard went silent for a moment, then continued. “So I want your super duper a-bro-val by dropping by so you can meet her sometime. Sound good?”

Hugh had by now started walking in circles around the room, carefully avoiding litter on the grey linoleum. He took a deep breath. “Wow, bro, that’s great? Yeah. So, when would that be?”

“I’ll let you know when we have enough free time to travel all the way to you. I want to see you, little bro. We’ll go out for dinner and talk about all sort of things, I got so many new stories from work, and we can see about the classes you’ll get back to.”

“Rich, I--”

“Hugh!” Richard blurted. “You have to resume college. It’s for your own good, and you want to. I know you want to.”

There was mutual silence. Hugh let gravity draw him back to bed and let out a loud sigh, which prompted Richard to speak again.

“Are you eating properly?”

“Yes. Oatmeal.”

“Oatmeal,” Richard mirrored. “Please be careful when going to shop, or to work. The Monsoon killer is still out there, you know.”

“I’ll be fine. Thanks for caring.”

A thudding sound was heard from the speaker, then some rustling. Richard finally replied, “I’ll be in touch, Brugh. See ya.”

“See you Brochard,” Hugh mumbled; but the call had already ended. He stood up and took a few slow steps towards the corner of the bedroom. Sighing, the young man put his back against the wall, slowly sliding down until he sat on the floor, head between knees. Contrary to the silent outlook, Hugh’s mind was bursting with thoughts.

“Of course you won’t call as often if there’s a girl. Damn. You shouldn’t have me in your life at all, I’ve always been a burden. Just forget about me Rich, you should save up some cash for yourself, and live good.”

Hugh clicked his tongue and looked up.

“Monsoon killer still on the loose, huh? I sure wish I’m next! I want to ray up. Screw college, what’s the point if I’m like this. I don’t feel like working either. I should ray up. Watch it happen to me.”

He got up and went straight to the window, clearing the blurred glass with his palm. The rain had calmed down a bit, yet the skies loomed dark above still. Hugh gazed in the distance, looking for something. Moments after, a subtle string of light emerged from the cityscape and pierced the sky, only to promptly disappear altogether. Then another, thinner string from much farther away flew up and vanished.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Lucky bastards”, Hugh mumbled, making his hand into a fist against the window. His eyes watered as a recent memory resurfaced.

-One week earlier-

“Jay, do you know how many people die every hour?”

Hugh was looking outside while cleaning the glass front door of the gas station. A tired but fixed gaze, independent from the chore. Jay-or James Sloan-was behind the counter, adjusting wiper cylinder boxes on a stand. He answered without stopping.

“A lot? But just as many are born. In the end, we are increasing in population, but it’s how we see this whole ‘circle of life’ thing. Like the sky is blue but not actually blue, as you also said.”

Hugh turned around; his eyes met James, who was staring back with a smug face.

“You looked that up?”

“Hell yeah man, you often say weird stuff that I gotta look up to relate, but I swear it’s not always a good thing!”

Hugh tilted his head and seemed like he was lost in thought for a moment, then said: “Would you like to know what happens to us when we die?”

James emptied another pack of wiper boxes. “Damn, what you on about? Are you preparing me for some afterlife trivia?” He shifted towards Hugh and pulled a smartphone from his pocket, placing it on the counter. “Do I gotta open the browser for this?”

Hugh ignored the quippy remark and went on while wiping the door with a dry cloth.

“What good would suddenly knowing do, really? To have this kind of knowledge would be useless in hindsight. It would either modify your way of life for what’s coming, or make you feel like it’s too late to do anything. Don’t you think?”

James wasn’t doing anything anymore, instead he was intensely looking at Hugh. “I think,” he said while squinting, “that I’d love to have what you’re having. Damn! Of course I’d want to know if there’s a second life, or reincarnation, or whatever. The unknown is scary, man. But what scares me more,” he pointed at the metal door beside him, “is dad when he sees you still haven’t unpacked and arranged the new antifreeze shipment.”

“I’ll go check the pumps first.” Hugh put the cleaning cloth aside and stormed off, the glass door hitting the entrance bell behind him. James pondered for a moment, only to have an epiphany. “Wait, the pumps don’t need checking… get your ass back here!”

Hugh heard James but pretended otherwise. He, too, knew that the pumps were fine, but wanted to find an excuse to loiter around until his shift was over, which was soon. It was a calm afternoon and a soft wind was breezing through, much better than being in there unpacking antifreeze bottles.

There were no vehicles refuelling and the gas station felt vacant. Every pump was allegedly checked by Hugh, so he went by the road to look around. That’s when he heard a siren; quickly turning towards the source of this alarming sound. An ambulance was speeding on the empty lane towards the city center with no signs of slowing down. It only took an instant for it to run past Hugh, vrooming, the tailwind slapping his scruffy black hair into a frenzy.

And in that moment of turbulence, Hugh saw it. A brief glimmering from within the ambulance, then a huge vertical ray of ochre light bigger than the vehicle itself burst through the metal roof and reached the sky, only to evanesce. Of course, Hugh was the only one who could see it. That beam-like ray did not reflect on its surrounding, only his own eyes. And he knew immediately that someone right then and there, had just drawn their last breath.

He kept staring at the ambulance, which soon faded out from his line of sight. Again with that tired but fixed gaze. Hugh was filled with an empty, dark feeling, like a bud plucked from the garden prematurely. The same feeling would fleet by whenever he looked into the distance. Close or far, sooner or later, there would always be a distant ray, beaming up.

The young man could see those for as long as memory serves. Though he didn’t know what seeing them meant at first, he would eventually come to face the truth behind this ‘ability’, if one could call it that. “I should be numb to it by now, right?” But no; especially at that moment, Hugh felt like he saw it for the first time, back on that dreaded day. And even though he had no idea who it was that died this time, the young man felt suffocated; drowning in in the everlasting presence of death, he could take it no more.

Alone with thoughts.

Hugh turned away from the window, let his fist slide down, and took a good look at the bedroom.

“What a mess.” Leftover food and soft drink containers littered the floor, clothes piled up by the wardrobe, dust and hair gathering all over the place. The carpet in front of him was stained and sticky, probably from something being spilled on it. “My mess. I’m a mess.” Hugh crossed arms and rubbed his biceps while walking away from the bedroom and into the bathroom.

He completely missed a dark blue shade levitating outside, briefly passing by the window and swaying around it, although the apartment in question was on the third floor with no balcony.

Not alone.

There was some noise in the corridor outside, and two rings on the doorbell. Hugh peeked out from the bathroom and sloppily pulled his pants up while working his way towards the front door. Looking through the peephole, there was no light outside. Hugh flapped his right hand next to the door to press the switch for the light outside, then looked back while shouting “who is it?”

Not alone. Not alone. Not alone.

There was no answer, and blackness on the opposite side of the door remained. Hugh tried the light switch a couple of times to no avail. He frowned angrily and stepped back, shouting “Hello? Mr. Rand, that you?”

Notalonenotalonenotalonenotalonenotalonenotalonenotalonenotalone

A subsequent fizz could be heard from outside, then a sudden bang, and the bell rang again. Somebody knocked the door twice with a slight thud, like scratching. Hugh felt a chill down his spine. “I’m definitely not opening now, whoever you are!”

Dark smoke started to seep through the keyhole and slowly worked its way to the floor. This made Hugh jump backwards and knock his head on the wall behind. “What the hell, what is this?” He instinctively grabbed his nose and fell to his knees, his frightened heart pumping like crazy. A voice in his head was wailing repeatedly:

NOTALONENOTALONENOTALONENOTALONENOTALONENOTALONE

The young man felt cold sweat drench his whole back, like he had just made a horrible mistake. His fully dilated eyes were staring at the thick smoke, which started to take form after spreading from the doormat into several inches above.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT ALOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE

The sight left him strangely mesmerized and unable to move. Eventually, the smoke dissipated with a sharp poofing sound, and a dog-sized animal emerged in its place. But it was no dog. It looked like parts of different animals were mixed together; light brown fur with black stripes covered the creature’s back, like a tiger, but not entirely. A hunched spine similar to that of a hyena, but not exactly. It also had a fox-like head and a stiff tail like a huge rat, but its body was fairly disproportionate to these features. Its pearly eyes were now staring directly at the young man, and its long jaw dropped down to reveal a series of sharp fangs. All the while, a distraught Hugh could still hear someone talking in his head:

Not alone. Must move quick. No open door. That is order. If want life. Move. Now.