I followed Casey into David’s apartment. She flicked on the light switch and illuminated the space, like magic. It looked like we had power back. I stood in the doorway. A wave of feelings wash through me.

I felt that I was so close to discovering something. It felt prophetic. The truth was hanging from a thread, just out of reach, and I watched it snap and fall into the bay. It was out there. I knew it. A little voice in the back of my head told me to go look for it.

I stepped through the hall leading out towards the living room. Casey was in the kitchen, dialing a number on her phone. She had thrown her coat on the floor. She was probably calling David. I dropped my backpack on the couch and sat down next to it. The remote lay right next to me, where I left it. I flipped on the TV to be welcomed by the same newstation playing a series of ads.

I was restless. I jumped up from the couch and walked to my room. As I passed the kitchen, I heard Casey on the phone with David.

“He made it all the way to the wharf! He’s gonna be in High School next year. We need to have a talk about his behavior…Yes, okay…Alright.”

I left her with David and closed my door a little louder than I intended for. I listened from the otherside. I could hear her talking about me. She sounded furious. She went quiet for a moment, but quickly returned to her previous conversation. Something David said to her made her think. I do not know what it was, but I did have a sneaking suspicion that it was about the incident.

Whatever.

I dropped my stuff and sat on the edge of my bed. I was exhausted. I ran so far that my legs felt like jelly. I still felt the weight of the streets slamming against the soles of my sneakers. My shirt is soaked from the sweat of running. I remembered the explosion that hung overhead for at least a half-hour.

What was it? My mind flew through a multitude of explanations. Nuclear warheads? ICBMs? I wouldn’t fault someone for believing that the government was experimenting with new and innovative ways to explode the population. David would probably say that. He would say that it was the government using the bay as a test site for some chemical weapon or biochemical jellyfish mine-field research. I could see Casey explaining it as a lightshow, a farce. Like a thanksgiving break firework bonanza that went haywire. She’d probably say that whoever orchestrated it wanted nothing to do with the bad press.

I pulled out my phone and began swiping through my socials. Oh, people were talking about it alright. Article after article from the city’s largest media corps were coming out. Videos of the incident were being posted everywhere online. An alien UFO sighting forum had a thread miles long discussing whether or not it was the work of some either benevolent or malicious visitor to Earth. I shut off my phone and fell back into bed.

It was quiet in the apartment.

A knock came from my door.

“Monty, can we talk?”

She opened the door and noticed me lying down. She looked at her feet.

“I’m sorry.”

“What?” I asked. Why was she sorry?

“I’m sorry that things didn’t go as you may have wanted today.”

She looked at me again and sighed.

“I know you probably expected something. Some weird thing taking place just outside your window. Like it was connected, It seemed like fate. It seemed familiar. Monty, I’m sorry that…” She hesitates. There is something that she wanted to say, but she could not find the words to say it. I looked up at her and her eyes met mine. The words were there, where her worry supplanted itself. She was sorry for me. But why?

I could not look her in the eyes for long. Not directly.

“David will be back anytime soon.”

I did not reply.

“I’ll be out here. If…” She said, “If you need me. Good night, kiddo.”

She closed the door. I could hear her leave the hallway. A little while later, I heard the TV turn on too.

Should I have said something? What would I have even said? I don’t think I even knew why I was so morose. I just felt that I was so close to finding an answer to a question I already knew the answer to.

Something stirred inside me.

I think it wanted out.

I look within myself. What is it trying to tell me?

I rolled over to my side to reach down to my backpack. I zipped it open. I was missing some stuff, a notebook likely. I thought back to the stairwell, and the big guy who almost knocked me on my ass. It probably fell out then. I remembered that I had to rezip my backpack after reaching the bottom of the stairs. I sighed and rolled out of bed, landing on my feet. I launched off and went to the door.

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Casey was down the hall, sitting on the couch. She didn’t notice me coming out, and remained sitting, watching the TV. I slipped along the hallway, moving towards the front entrance. I looked back at her. Should I tell her I’m going to check? A part of me wants to.

I decided against it. I don’t want to do that to her. Let her watch her TV. She’s already done enough today, enough for me. In the car, she watched me with bags under her eyes. She looked so tired. I remembered feeling guilty. What was I doing to her?

Instead of worrying her even more, I chose to slip out of the apartment on my own. Besides, I’m just staying in the complex. It’s not like I’m leaving.

The factory, as I usually called it, was pretty big; And it was strangely empty. In the dead of night, when everyone had gone to their respective apartments, and the bustle of the city quieted down, the place felt like a mausoleum. Above about four stories, the apartments were fairly normal, with wide hallways that felt more like highway tunnels than hallways. The bottom four floors, tough, opened up to a wide and open space. Each floor was open to the rest. From atop the fourth floor, you could probably see someone walking to their apartment on the first.

I, however, took the stairwell. It was removed, distinct from the wide open factory floors that I often found myself wandering from time to time. To some, the vertical pillar of air could feel isolating. I felt like myself in places like these. Corridors, places removed from the usual bustle. It feels like time has stopped. It was a retreat, a place to recover from chaos. It was behind the High School, beneath the art departments’ windows. Behind the comic book shop, where I could read in peace, undisturbed by passersby. Where I can belong to myself.

I walked down the stairs. A part of me expects someone to burst out those reinforced industrial doors into the stairwell and disturb my ruminating. No one comes. Somehow, I feel disappointed. I was disappointed that Casey did not follow me, did not catch me leaving the apartment. I was disappointed that David was away. I was disappointed that I was alone.

A few floors down I found a pencil. A notebook was face-down just a few steps away. I picked up the pencil. It had broken in the commotion. The notebook had been kicked into the corner of the stairwell. Imprints of shoes lined the cover. I picked it up. It was opened to a section of notes from social studies. I had drawn a little stick-man of Mr. Chelsea.

I flipped through the book. A few pages had been torn. Some dirt here or there. I think someone drew a picture of a dick in the corner of a math equation. “X equals suck it.” I laugh to myself. I can’t help but see the stupidity in it for what it is.

I placed the notebook and the broken pencil in my backpack. With nothing else to look for, I move for the stairs. Instead of going up, my feet think for themselves. I start to descend. The echoes of my steps reverberated up the stairwell shaft. Sometimes I wondered if someone was watching me from above, waiting for me to leave. Eventually I reached the bottom.

I walked outside the factory, expecting to be alone. For the most part, I was. Except for one other.

The girl from the stairwell before watched where the anomaly had been just earlier today. I remembered that she was helping that senior down the stairs. Was that one of her grandparents? She was alone now.

Some of the stars have started to come out. I could see a constellation that my dad once pointed out to me on a trip out to Raynham. I forgot its name. It had three stars that aligned like a stick, curved just a little. Two other stars glowed just out of reach, like arms raised in defiance. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it wasn’t the same constellation he showed me all those years ago. Maybe I misremembered.

She stared up at it, completely entranced. I walked up beside her, and it wasn’t until I was a few meters away that she noticed. She turned to look at me.

“You are that boy from the stairwell,” she said. “The one who flopped on his ass.” She laughed, amused by the memory of me getting knocked over. She threw an arm on her hip and turned to me. Her smile was haughty, confident. She raised her chin, completely turned off from the peacefulness of the moment just before I arrived.

“Names Cindi. Cindi ‘Super’ Seiko from apartment 403b.” She stretched out a hand. I hesitated to grab it.

“Come on, wuss. I don’t bite.”

Cautiously, I reciprocate the gesture. Her grip is strong. She nearly pulls my arm off. A glimmer of light reflects off her eyes. Like the rippling surface of water.

“Only been here for a few months now. It seems like everyone in this dump is a hermit. I think the only time everyone’s seen each other was earlier today. Couldn’t believe how many people lived here. You wouldn’t have known otherwise.”

I shrugged.

“Quiet kid, huh?” She asked. It was more like an observation. Something about her attitude ticked me off.

“Most of the time,” I said sarcastically. “It builds mystique.”

She snorted.

“Mystique. What are you, a magician? Gonna pull a rabbit out of your ass?”

“What’s crawled up and died yours?”

She scoffed, turned, and started walking down the road, away from the apartments. “Fine, jerk. Suit yourself,” she said, looking over her shoulder.

A pang of guilt hits me. I moaned.

“Hey, hold on,” I said. I followed her up the street.

“I’m sorry, okay?”

She stopped. She was considering something. She took one foot and swiveled around herself to face me, like a ballerina, but more forceful.

“If you're actually sorry, then prove it.”

“What do you want me to do?”

She takes a moment to think about it.

“How about a song. Can you sing?”

Incredible. She is even dumber than me.

“Not a chance.”

She scoffed, again. I think she did it to tick me off, because it worked.

“Well, what can you do?”

“What do you mean what can I do? I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter if you’re sorry. What matters is what you do to make up for it.”

She placed her hands at her hips and scowled. I could not stand her. Now, I was the one to turn around and walk away. She ran after me.

“Hey, chill dude. I was just pulling your leg. Come on? Are you really angry?”

I continued to walk. She pulled over to the side of me.

“What’s your deal dude? I said I was sorry.”

I stopped and looked at her. She stared at me. Her face is impish. A glint of mischief peeks out from behind her eyes.

“Nevermind,” she said.

Unbelievable. I started to walk again. She laughed behind me.

“Dude you need to relax⏤wait where are you going?”

My legs had a mind of their own. I am compelled to move forward. Whether by my own volition or some deep drive within, I started to walk. I did not turn to see if she would follow.

The Southshore was not very far.