Leo
Berlin, Germany
The sound of birds chirping through the open window woke Leo. The sun was at its zenith and shinned straight in his face. “Ugh,” he mouthed, turning to the other side and stretching. ‘How long was I out?’ he thought, feeling great after what seemed to have been full ten hours of uninterrupted sleep.
‘What a weird dream,’ he considered, stretching his shoulders and recalling the high-speed car chase he was part of and the rescue of this beautiful girl.
Leo got out of bed and stretched in delight, hearing his back popping. ‘Where am I?’ he thought, looking around, not recognizing the room around him. It had beige-colored walls, a single bed, and contained wooden furniture with the fanciest carvings he had seen. It did not resemble his single-room apartment in the slightest.
Leo panicked a little, having no idea how he got here. ‘Did I drink too much again?’ he thought and found his clothes folded on a chair. They were neat and straight out of the dryer. ‘That is very odd,’ he considered, getting dressed, not being used to find his stuff so neatly packed. Then he went to the only door in the room and opened it.
Walking out of the room, he found himself in a heavily decorated corridor. It had the fanciest rugs he had seen and numerous small tables around the walls with small trinkets on them. “Hello?” he called out in the corridor, hoping someone would answer his call. He waited for a few minutes, but no answer came.
Not discouraged, Leo closed the door behind him and walked toward the staircase to his left in the pair of slippers he had found. Not knowing where to go, he headed toward the only place which made sense - the first floor. Climbing down the stone staircase and looking around, Leo found the room he was searching for - the kitchen. Hungry, he walked straight to it, not bothering to check other rooms.
Inside, he found a girl with platinum blonde hair sitting behind the kitchen island with her back against him, dressed in a white shirt and beige shorts. ‘She seems familiar,’ Leo thought, thinking back to his dream. Minding his manners, Leo called out to her, “Good morning!”
“Aaahh!” the girl screamed, startled, dropping the coffee cup she was holding on the kitchen island and spilling it. She whipped her head around to find Leo’s smiling face and said, “Dammit, you scared me! What are you doing sneaking up on people behind their backs?”
“Sorry, I did not think I was that quiet coming in here,” Leo apologized. “Truth be told, I just woke up and have no idea where I am,” he continued, looking around the room.
The girl paused and asked, “You do not remember me?”
“Trust me. I would,” Leo answered with a slight laugh, looking her up and down. “I have no idea where I am or who you are. Can you help me out in that regard?”
“Sorry, then it might seem a bit awkward for you. Tell you what, sit down, and I will make a coffee and something to eat while we talk. How does that sound?”
“That sounds wonderful,” Leo answered and sat down where the girl had pointed, next to her vacated seat. Looking around, he noticed that the whole kitchen was done in a beautiful modern style, without any handles to open the kitchen cabinets. The furniture looked new, barely used. He guessed the family did not use the kitchen or had moved here recently. ‘All of this looks like a bad joke, staged to scare me. Did I get kidnapped?’ Leo thought, glancing over his shoulder.
Looking outside the window to his right, he saw that he was not in the city but out of it, as a beautiful garden and vast lawn spread before him. Examining carefully, he could see that the park around the estate spread everywhere, covered in various plants and flowers.
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‘We must be pretty far away from the city. No house or road in sight,’ he thought, moving his gaze back from the garden to the girl who had finished cleaning the tabletop and put a coffee mug before him.
“Would you fancy a toast?” she asked.
“Yes, of course, whatever you have available,” Leo said and gathered the courage to ask the obvious, “Sorry, but where am I, and who are you?.”
She stopped and blinked a few times. “Where are my manners,” she said and bowed slightly. “My name is Heidi Aer of clan Aer, and you are in our estate.”
‘Clan Aer? What is with the formal speech,’ Leo thought.
“You are Leon, right?” she asked.
“Yes, but everyone calls me Leo. Have we met?” he asked, eyeing her, dumbfounded by the turn of events.
“Yes, briefly,” she answered and put the toast on the island top next to the coffee, brushing Leo’s question off.
He looked at her, then at the cheese toast, and then again at her. Shrugging, he said, “Thank you.” Then he took the first bite and started to chew, thinking over his options. ‘She did not answer where I am or how I got here,’ he noted. ‘I need to understand what happened and if someone else is in the house before I make a run for it. All of this is just too weird.’
“I imagine you slept quite well, given that it is well past early morning hours?” Heidi asked.
“Yes, thank you! Slept like a child,” Leo answered, finished chewing. “Sorry, but you dodged my question earlier. Where am I? It is not like me not to remember how I got somewhere. Did you kidnap me or something?”
Heidi laughed and shook her head. “If only that were the case, Leo, but no. I did not kidnap you. I do have some stuff I would like to discuss. Regarding the last few days,” Heidi said while pulling up a chair next to Leo and sitting down, facing him.
‘Few days?’ Leo thought, baffled, trying to recall the last thing remembered. He felt a headache come over him in a moment. It made him dizzy, and his vision started to go hazy, prompting him to lean on the kitchen island and look at his hands. He tried to count his fingers but had trouble seeing them.
“What is the last thing you remember, Leo?” Heidi asked in a far-away voice he barely registered.
He looked at her and saw her silhouette swimming in his vision. ‘Did she drug me just now?’ he thought and tried to gather his thoughts. ‘What do I remember?’ His head refused to work. He recalled how he came back from the airport and dropped his things off in the apartment.
“I remember that I came back from university. I had a friend to meet,” he started slowly, slurring words as he explained.
“Alright, go on,” she urged him.
Leo thought harder, and another scene came to mind, “I remember how we met in a bar in the city center and had drinks. A lot of them.”
“What happened next?”
“I do not know!” he burst out and thought some more. “Ah! I remember that I woke up. Wait, did I not wake up here?” Leo asked, confused.
“What day was it?”
“It was Friday. What day is today?”
“Today is Saturday, Leo,” Heidi explained. “What happened on Friday after you woke up?”
“Emm… I remember that I was late. I woke up around 8 AM. I needed to get to the capital to catch an interview. What is wrong with me?” he asked, shaking his head.
“What do you mean?” Heidi asked.
“I can barely remember anything from the past few days. My head is killing me when I am trying to do so. It feels like it will burst,” Leo said, clutching his head.
“Alright, it seems that it is worse than we thought. Leo, I need you to concentrate and answer my questions. What happened next?”
“I remember driving in my car, speeding to make it on time. There was this truck before me. Or was he behind? I do not know,” he recalled looking at her. “What happened? Where are we?”
Leo turned around to look at the room again and noticed a foreign newspaper on the dinner table top. Looking carefully he read the headline, ‘Aktuelle Nachrichten aus Deutschland, Neues aus Politik, Wirtschaft, Kultur und Gesellschaft.’
‘What the hell? Is that German?’ he thought, feeling the panic set in as his eyesight cleared just barely.
Looking out the window, he tried to make out the garden again. It turned out to be more difficult than he imagined. When his vision cleared enough, he noticed that the greenery did not resemble anything he had seen back in Riga. All the plants had an exotic tint, as if in a botanic garden.
‘What is going on?’