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Cody Camargo: Twenty-nine days in.

My heart won over itself without exploding, as I found myself waking up perfectly alive the next morning. I began peeling open my eyes, much too groggy to grasp how the rest of my body felt yet. My attention wouldn’t have taken that long to get there if I hadn’t seen Elijah in his usual reading spot across the room.

“E-… Elijah?” I groggily moaned.

He looked up only slightly to meet my view.

“Hey, what’s up man?”

He looked down to his book again like that should have been the logical end of the interaction.

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“I… don’t know, what is up?” I said between yawns. “I thought I was gonna wake up from someone pounding on the door again.”

“Well, I wanted to let you sleep in a little,” He said without looking up. “Just for an hour or so.”

As nice as the sleep had felt, I didn’t really like the sound of that. I felt like I needed that hour for more than just time to relax on the road. That hour was a safety net for any fill-in-the-blank contingency.

“Is there no… schedule for when I should be leaving?”

“Are you kidding? Did you see the same Natalie I saw yesterday? You should be leaving about twenty minutes after Dawn each morning.”

My heart began to feel like it had yesterday afternoon.

“But… I slept in? For… an hour? Are you sitting still because the decision for her to kill me has already been made?”

He smiled slightly as he closed his book.

“Actually,” He said. “I have a little bit of a surprise for you.”

I recoiled slightly.

“You aren’t keeping this one in your pants, right?”

He chuckled and slowly stood, walking up to me. He reached down in front of the table, and came back up with a water bottle, placing it in front of me.

“You can go out like normal tomorrow. I got permission to do something else with you today.”

I cautiously took the water bottle.

“Okkaaayy,” I said as I unscrewed the cap. “Is this the real kind of permission? Or is it the kind you usually tell me about having?”

“Um, it’s real,” He said sassily as I sipped. “Can’t imagine why you’d expect me to lie about something like that.”

I suspended my disbelief, placing down the bottle.

“Whatever, what did you sign me up for?”

His smile spread wide.

“The grand tour!”

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Elijah took me to the human bathroom.

I passively apologized to a late-thirties man about being in there during his time slot. Elijah made me a promise that he would bring up adding me to the schedule. I didn’t put too much faith in that promise. He closed the cornerstone building’s door behind us, as I unscrewed a second water bottle he had given me.

“Alright,” He said. “I’ll show off the important stuff, and then I actually have to drop you off at the pantry. I have some stuff to take care of, and you’ve been obligated to see what happens in the kitchen. It’s like 11:00 right now, so we’ll go for a solid half-hour. Does that sound good?”

My heart felt better, but the fear of it was still distracting me.

“Huh? I don-… maybe dude-you never really tell me anything in detail until I’m thrust into it. What are we seeing?”

“Well, you’re a citizen now. A pretty important citizen at that. I wanted to try and let you get to know your home a little better.”

Home. I was definitely not going to feel comfortable using that word for a while.

“So, am I no longer on expositional time-out?”

He patted his sides as we began walking.

“I’d like to keep the questions related to what we’re doing, but I’ll tell you about something I can easily explain in the next two minutes.”

“How am I supposed to know what’s easy for you to explain?”

“I can do a game show buzzer if you want.”

How has this guy not killed me in my sleep?

“Okay, so if I asked you to explain what’s up with me being the sudden ninth ‘member’ of The Omen-“

“-errr.”

I huffed and looked to the “sky”, balancing to not fall as I walked blind. I thought for a second before looking back down.

“Can we do a person a day?” I asked.

He gave me an incredibly nervous glance.

“Hope you’re not expecting a yes or no before explaining what ‘doing’ means…”

“Backstory.”

He tilted his head.

“You want backstory?”

“At least a little. Don’t tell me anything that they wouldn’t personally tell me.”

“Cody I-… you seem to know pretty well that most people here would not currently feel comfortable telling you shit-“

“-yeah but like general stuff. How they got here. What they’re like-UNBIASED as you can. Maybe what they did before. I don’t know. I don’t want to be living with strangers.”

“The way to avoid that is usually by having a normal human conversation with them, not by getting a Wikipedia preface from someone who only knows what they’ve chosen to tell him.”

I groaned.

“Is that a no then?”

He rubbed the back of his neck.

“How about I just tell you if the person is someone you should figure it out yourself for?” He said.

“Super-deal! Not so hard, huh?”

“Well…”

“… let’s do you,” I said.

“Okay, let’s start saying ‘talk about’ instead of ‘do’-“

“-What’d you do before getting stranded here?”

He rolled his eyes and looked away.

“Well I’m a pretty talented guy, ummmmm… I was… an I.T. assistant-“

“-Are you making that up, or did you genuinely forget for a second-“

“-I forgot my occupational title, Young Sheldon. Shut up and let me monologue. Yes, I was an I.T. assistant, and a kinda shitty one at that.”

(RA) “Tried turning it off and on again type beat? Were you Roy or Maurice?” (RA)

“The worst of both. I liked computers a lot, like a lot a lot a lot but… I only liked them because they confused the hell out of me. I worked support for a litigation plant, just one of the physical offices that did record retrieval. It was full of a bunch of people that were either just my age or double it. A.K.A. people who either took their job way too seriously or barely knew they worked there. A.K.A. people who valued their computer’s wellbeing more than my human emotions or people who were completely fine if I wasn’t able to fix their issue for a day and a half. Sometimes I had to help develop their database filing system with this director guy that didn’t understand that there was a point where I technologically didn’t know the sea from the sky. He would put me on these troubleshooting projects where I would just dick around for like four hours, and act like I was following a thread I couldn’t find with Stephen Hawking coaching me. I knew a lot of things that most people who are ‘good with computers’ didn’t, but I think he knew I was a little untrained. He DIDN’T know I was in as far over my head as I was, even for an ‘assistant’. I don’t even know how I got that fucking job… Indeed is an idiot’s magic trick.”

“LinkedIn myself,” I interrupted again.

He waved his hand flippantly.

“You call that a user-interface?”

I smirked while he was looking away. That was his one time for the day.

“Anyway, I think we can skip what I’m like,” He continued. “I can’t remove bias from myself, and it’s a little rich to assume that you wouldn’t have your own bias towards anything I claim myself to be or not to be,” He sang in old English.

And I have to give it to him, he can definitely make a solid point.

“What about how you ended up here?” I asked in replacement. “What was that day like? You remember?”

“Do I REMEMBER? You couldn’t scrub that day off my hippo’ with steel wool. You sure we haven’t talked about this already?”

I nodded as he blew out a sigh.

“Let’s seeeeee. Lost my DUI hearing, knew I had absolutely no one to reasonably call about helping commute, and certainly couldn’t afford to Uber or Lyft thirty minutes there and back everyday. I told my job as much, asking if I could have a remote workload. That was a resounding ‘no’, followed by a pretty immediate termination. Well, they called it ‘contestable suspension’. It was my job if I could find a way to keep doing it before they found someone else in like a week.”

DUI? I wouldn’t have pinned him for that in a million years.

“‘Contestable suspension’? That just sounds contractually unethical-they used those exact words?”

“That bald-headed excuse for a floor manager did, yeah.”

I felt a guilty urge to relate to Elijah.

“Anyway, I gave up on that fight pretty quickly,” He continued. “I had a… marginally close friend that worked at one of these places.”

He waved his hand through the air to regard the beautiful establishment he was referring to.

“I was gonna see if he could get me a job, and it was so much closer to home that I could realistically walk if it worked out,” He said. “I just needed an in-between, but asking that favor was so daunting. Dude, I was so embarrassed that I walked in and out of every store in the immediate area for like two hours before I worked up the nerve to even set foot in this place. My last stop before ground zero was stress-eating at Dairy Queen.”

“Five Guys for me.”

“Now THAT sounds like a last meal request. Wish I’d done the same… I never even saw him. I remember my last thought before realizing something was wrong, was that I had very possibly confused my memory of the location that guy actually worked at. Heh… sometimes I daydream about going back and deciding to give up working entirely. Just busting out the most balls-to-the-wall plan I could possibly conjure. Fucking hitchhike to Indiana, integrate myself into the Amish Mafia, get some thirty-seven year old widow pregnant and focus on organic agriculture until the clock runs out.”

He smiled to himself for a moment, before it slowly slid away, and he closed his eyes for much too long to call it a blink. I thought of the correct way to proceed and/or end this conversation.

—————

“Who’d you leave behind?” I mumbled.

His immediate and extended silence would’ve been a sufficient indicator that the question was too much. It’s Elijah though, so instead…

“…errr,” He buzzed dejectedly.

Hint taken.

“Alright,” I said. “Is this tour gonna be a way for you and I to have a conversation that doesn’t end depressingly? Because I think we need that.”

He turned to me, smiling again.

“Think we need a tension breaker? The strip club is right down this street.”

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Elijah showed me The Infirmary.

“You should hopefully never need to know this building exists.”

I had a fifteen-bullet-point list of incredible ways I could’ve responded to that to make him feel guilty. Instead, I just silently stared at him, slowly rubbing my rib.

“… again anyway,” He said.

The Infirmary was in the heart of the town square, the dry fountain resting in its courtyard. Certainly not the easiest building to avoid acknowledging the existence of. It appeared to be the tallest building in R&E, boasting three stories with a balcony reaching out of the third floor. The scaffolding that supported it was quite similar to that of the observation deck on the gate.

“You guys housing refugees?” I said sarcastically. “What’s the average population of a three-story infirmary?”

“It’s only the first floor. The other two… they’re a secret.”

“I didn’t ask you that part yet.”

“Anyway, this is Sandra’s domain. Unfortunately, she‘s becoming pretty stifled in there with our numbers increasing. The Infirmary is just as much an Urgent Care as it is an Emergency Room. We’ve been trying to plan the logistics of moving her into a space that better compliments her needs, but construction projects have gone onto a serious back-burner this past year. I was really pushing for it too. I think this building would be much better suited as a clock-tower.”

“What priority is going ahead of the needs of your head-of-medicine?”

“No one. We’ve just recently lost the ability to manufacture like we have in the past. We’ll get into that some other time, but trust me, we’re not putting anybody ahead of her. Not even you, sir.”

I was just about to request a Chickie’s & Pete’s.

“Can I see inside?”

“Ehhhhhhhhhhhh……. nnnnnot right now. That’s a very low-tolerance building. Not only because of the things it’s below, but we have a very strict ‘only enter if necessary’ rule for everyone except Sandra, who it’s always necessary for. We try not to have people just walking in and out of there. If you wanna get a closer look you could, I don’t know, get in another fight, maybe?”

“Am I getting your ‘permission’ to stop using my words?”

Elijah mimed zipping his lips. I’ve never seen a grown man do that in real life, and I hope to never see it again.

“Also, ‘Head of Medicine’?” He said. “I think she would hate that title, but it would be nice to put that on a name-plate.”

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Elijah showed me The Library.

“You CAN, see inside here though!” He said. “This is a much more sacred building.”

He guided me inside a two story building with flower pots in front of all of its windows. Each story seemed to be quite tall, as it looked more like two-and-a-half stories from the outside. Stepping inside, the soft orange light felt like a warm blanket over every blood vessel in my head.

“Just in case you somehow hadn’t put it together yet, you’re never gonna see a TV show again in your life,” He said. “If you want entertainment…”

He spun around with both his arms wide.

“… Welcome to Heaven!”

I looked around the room full of bookshelves, not only around the walls, but creating long rows across the massive room. Finding an empty spot was rare.

“This is… kind of beautiful,” I said.

He smiled and snapped his wrist.

“Wait till you see this shit,” He said. “Come on.”

I followed him deeper into the room, breezing past random titles as they passed, before the back corner of the room led to a staircase that Elijah climbed up like nothing. Of course he did, because it was just stairs. However, I hadn’t really appreciated this being the first time I needed to see the second floor of any building here. You ever seen a dog be trepidatious to climb stairs for the first time? That was me for some reason. I guess it was because of the escalator flashbacks.The stairs were the same random-assortment-construction, but as I took a nervous first step, they felt just as stable as the floor of the vastness. I stepped up a little quicker to follow Elijah.

He stayed silently at the top until I slipped up next to him, taking in the coziest room I had ever seen in my life. Full of decorative pendant lamps, half of the floor almost covered in giant bean bags, and the other housing six L-couches Tetris’d around each other like the world’s most comfortable hedge maze. It smelled like lavender and… ginger maybe? Unlike the usual assemblage job of weird random flooring, the room had somehow been fully carpeted by a mosaic rug so soft that I almost felt like I was barefoot with my sneakers still on. The aura I was standing in was making me want to put my hair in a ponytail and fuck whoever could put a cup of hot chocolate in my hand immediately.

Even the obnoxious outside-luminescence stayed to the surface of the window, refusing to obstruct the atmosphere.

There was what looked like eight people scattered around the room, incubated into what must have been the closest thing to escaping the reality they lived in. It was so peaceful.

“The books are always here obviously,” Elijah whispered. “But this room is actually a pseudo-schoolhouse every Monday and Friday. It’s not very intensive, just better than pretending a child’s education needs don’t exist. Otherwise, this room is kind of our most treasured possession. There’s no schedule like everywhere else. If everyone wanted, they could overcrowd this room with 130 people at once. We don’t though, it’s like a circadian rhythm the way we all respect the sanctity of the calm silence in here, taking our turns without ever really discussing it with each other. I’ve never been in this building with more than twenty people.”

A portal back to normality. I couldn’t even imagine how good it would feel…

“Would I… ever be allowed to come here?” I asked.

He shrugged.

“Probably, but for now, definitely not without a leash.”

We walked back downstairs and past a man I hadn’t previously noticed. He was sitting at a desk in the back of the room, reading a book called “Nick Drake: The Life”.

“That’s Sam, he’s one of the librarians,” Elijah said as we moved towards the entrance. “There’s three others. We take the duty of keeping tabs on the books pretty seriously. That guy will kick your ass over losing one.”

He whispered that last part to me, as I looked back and noticed Sam’s large frame. I was beginning to feel like I was very much on the far edge of the physicality belt curve in R&E.

“Do you have to make overdue fees?” I asked. “You don’t have your own currency, do you?”

“Nah, there’s no time limit, but everyone wants to read. You can’t get a new book until you return your old one. If you lose or mistreat the one under your name, you have to kind of appeal for amnesty. It depends on your track record, you might just get stuck with some shitty chores for a week and then it’s forgotten. If you’re a repeat offender, you might get put on hold for a couple days. Might not sound so bad, but I’m sure you know that the feeling of doing essentially nothing for even one day here is like…”

“Prison.”

“Uhhhh… yeah.”

We reached the door as I thought about this building.

“Sounds like your collective sanity is… unhealthily dependent on this place.”

Elijah gave me a weird look as he stepped outside.

“I thought you didn’t want our conversation to get depressing. Can’t you just focus on how beautiful it is in a vacuum?”

Well, as beautiful as it seemed, it was nice to know what building I needed to burn to start total anarchy.

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Elijah showed me The Church.

“I really don’t want you to tell me anything about this thing,” I said. “You can’t expect me to believe that this is more sacred than The Library to anyone, right?”

He cocked his head, as we stopped and stared at the twisted building together.

“You would be extremely surprised… and I mean YOU specifically would be extremely surprised.”

I didn’t know what he meant, but I didn’t want to ask any questions related to this place, so I let it fall into an obscure unknown.

“Anyway, let’s not get lost in those reeds,” He continued. “I don’t know if you’re religious, but Otto tries his best to give a sermon for those who are, so if you’re interested…”

I don’t know if I’m religious either. Being trapped here was a good reason to see the appeal of God beyond a notion, but my desire to acknowledge that was still in the court of insincerity. I hadn’t had the most respectable history with “God”. Whatever, who has?

“I think I’d like to figure out whether I’ll be alive for another month first,” I said. “Without… God’s help.”

Elijah shivered a little and began walking away.

“Sunday is whatever you want it to be,” He said. “If you want to start committing, just put a chair in there somewhere. Everyone who goes has their own, and some couples just have a couch. You don’t have to show up every week, it’s up to you.”

Just the way God intended, huh?

“Do you go?” I asked, breaking my rule.

Elijah didn’t turn around as he answered.

“God gives me the heebie-jeebies. I have an idea that you feel the same…”

God does? I’d have to figure that out, but that atrocity of a building most definitely does.

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Elijah showed me Vernon’s Workshop.

“I promise we don’t have to spend too much time on this,” He said to me. “Vernon is probably busy weaponizing dark matter or something, so hopefully we won’t get stuck into anything too deep.”

“Wait, we’re going inside?”

Elijah paused at the door of a one story shack, just about double the size of the cell. It was made out of random materials like everything else, but the walls housed a gradient of texture from left to right. It didn’t make me as uncomfortable as the makeup of the church, but I felt very annoyed by this building.

He looked back to me.

“What, you… don’t want to?” He asked.

“Is he in there?”

Elijah’s face slumped.

“He’s always in there.” He whispered.

I groaned in discomfort.

I know no one will believe this, but I hate profiling people. When I met Vernon in the council meeting, I was completely willing to believe that he might’ve just been having a bad hygiene day. The bathroom’s might have running water, but an IKEA bathroom doesn’t have a shower. I’ve seen plenty of showers here, but not working ones. Despite that, I somehow haven’t met anyone here that strikes me as being… musty. The sinks have hot water, and there’s soap everywhere. The option to not smell like shit is readily, and thankfully, available. I would guess that the more persuasive folks in R&E keep that in check.

That is all to say, I don’t think Vernon followed those social standards.

“Do we have to?” I pleaded.

“You will at some point in the future, yeah. But… I can just give you the synopsis that Vernon is the person who handles our tools and building… but only the physical aspect of it. He used to have a ‘colleague’ a year back, someone who handled the design and architecture, the practicality of infrastructure. That is… no longer the case. The two of them worked alongside each other, but not really together. Vernon doesn’t really know how to plan those kinds of things.”

“… wait, is he… definitely in there?”

“Yeah, for sure.”

“… you don’t think he can hear you?”

“Cody, he can hear my thoughts. I’m not too worried about what Vernon can hear me say.”

Elijah took his hand off the door and walked past me, welcoming me to step away from the shack with him. As we walked, I made sure we were far enough away before inquiring.

“So… what does he… do all day?”

“Well we have him on call to fix anything that’s threatening to burn a building down. I don’t know if you remember me mentioning the electricity, but it’s dangerous sometimes. He’s the only one that ‘understands’ it. That’s how he likes to say it, but it’s really that he’s the only one who feels comfortable fucking around with it… that reminds me. Since you’re alive, you clearly haven’t found out you need to be scared of this, so I’ll tell you. If you see an open outlet anywhere, DO NOT TOUCH IT. To be short… it will kill you in what is basically an instant.”

I stared at him blankly, as I thought about my old idea to find a charger and charge my phone.

“Otherwise, he does weird experiments and masturbates,” He added in my silence.

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Elijah showed me the HR Office.

It was another one story building, but had a much more calmly approachable composition than the OCD hypertension of the previous point-of-interest.

“This is where you go if you have a non-life-threatening concern. Anyone can come here with an issue and pretend it is life-threatening. Now, a lot of folks are embarrassed about their concerns, a lot of folks don’t like talking, and a lot of folks don’t like talking to Tecca. Since his feelings are mutual, the submissions are urged to be made mostly by way of paper. Tecca sifts through them all and decides what should be brought up to The Omen. Well, Tecca sifts through most of them. There’s some names that he sees and automatically throws away.”

“Would my name be one of those?”

“First of all, please don’t submit anything. Second of all, again, you are not a normal citizen. You can just like… voice any concern to us out loud. That way, Natalie can vocally throw it away face to face with you. Third of all, Tecca throws away the requests of people that are not really cognizant of what is and isn’t a pressing concern.”

“Is it really fair to expect everyone to understand that spectrum?”

“Not for the first twenty times, no. But I would say after the next forty, the communal hand-holding dissipates a little bit.”

We walked inside to see what looked like a receptionist lobby. Fake ferns and disgustingly sun-stained brown leather couches neatly littered the room. Anything being “sun”-stained in here was an impossibility that made me sure they were made that way. We walked through the room to an open door on the other side. Elijah rapped his knuckles on it as I saw Tecca sitting at a desk in the center. Besides from the typically horrible walls, the spacious office looked just like Don Draper’s stomping grounds. Tecca had his feet up on the desk, reading a book called “Call to Joy & Pain”.

“Where’s your assistant?” Elijah asked him. “No one greeted us at the door.”

“She’s at the jeweler’s,” Tecca said without looking up. “Icing out the shackles I bought her.”

So cool.

Tecca sat up, closing his book and placing it on the desk. He knit his fingers politely in front of himself.

“Alright,” He said to Elijah. “What’d he do?”

Elijah looked back and forth between me and Tecca a couple times.

“Who… Cody?” He said. “Nothing, I’m just showing him around. He should probably know about your office.”

“Nobody should know about my office-you sure he didn’t inappropriately touch someone?”

“I-… did you?” Elijah said to me. “I can’t really protect you if you did.”

I glared at him without responding.

“Ah,” Tecca interjected. “I see. I wasn’t using the proper sensitivity, ahem.”

He leaned in close to the desk and shook his shoulder before staring me in the eyes. His eyes were so polarizing that I actually felt myself going a little white.

“Cody,” He whispered. “Did somebody touch you?”

“What?!” I exclaimed like a cartoon. “No! I was not… touched by anyone!”

“You sure? Listen… I know it might be hard to speak up against someone when you’re scared they might hurt you for it, but if Natalie is abusing you-“

“-HA!” Elijah burst out laughing.

Tecca stayed in position, but let a smile spread across his face.

“… making you feel as if you aren’t safe,” He continued. “I want you to know, your happiness is important. You are loved, you are seen, you are heard.”

Elijah kept laughing as Tecca de-stressed and sat back in his chair.

“Sorry if this is crazy to say,” I said. “But I think you guys need an HR department to protect people from your HR department. This building is a bad idea.”

“You have no idea,” Tecca said playfully. “You know what the worst thing about Human Resources in a cosmic IKEA is? I don’t have any resources. I just have a town full of compellingly aggressive humans.”

So… I’m not the only one who feels that way?

“I’m only here for people to know I exist,” He continued. “The power of having someone to complain to is like… monumental. Even when your problem isn’t getting solved, it’s better than talking to a wall.”

That sounded much too emotionally ethical for someone that seemed to not care about your feelings.

“Yeah but,” I said. “Elijah said people don’t like talking to you-“

“-thanks for keeping that between us,” Elijah quickly said.

“What’s up with that?” I said, ignoring Elijah.

Tecca giggled a little, picking up a pen and twirling it between his fingers.

“You’ve met me,” He said. “Now imagine you’ve known me for years. Gets old, huh?”

That was fast. I mean, it’s intimidating right now, but I couldn’t imagine Tecca’s dry humor growing unbearable rather than lovable. Is that really an exhaustion too major to handle?

“Also though,” He continued. “It could obviously be the homophobia, but I like to imagine we’re past that in this new world. Maybe that’s a naive daydream.”

I had kind of known, but didn’t want to assign it to him without someone telling me. Some men these days are just really well in touch with their feminine side. I hadn’t known with Chandler until we were like sixteen. Assumption should only be used for snakes and mushrooms.

“Doesn’t seem like enough to have kept Elijah away,” I said. “Interesting, no?”

“Dude,” Elijah said. “What?”

Tecca’s smile spread wide as he sat forward excitedly.

“This guy’s pretty funny,” He said to Elijah. “You should ask Natalie if you can keep him past the free-trial.”

Holy shit that was such a bar.

“I know you walked in on a lax time,” He continued. “But I am actually pretty busy today. I’ve gotten just about a million and one people telling me about the broken mirror in the bathroom. I really don’t know why that’s anyone’s concern, and if it is, they’re spending their time on the wrong things in there. Meaning, for anyone who said something about it today, I’m pretty tempted to start ignoring any concern they bring to me about those bathrooms as a whole. Unless it’s like, the person before them keeps missing the bowl.”

“That seems like a pretty forgiving bar of exception,” I said. “You don’t sound very confident about cutting them off.”

“I use the same bathroom they do, I don’t want it to be gross in there. There’s a priority-it just depends on what they tell me. If someone were to keep overdosing heroin on the toilet or something, then I would probably wait until somebody else handled it. As long it’s not the person right before me… and before you ask, we don’t have any heroin to offer you. That was a joke.”

The sensitive HR department, everyone.

“What are you making that face for?” Elijah said to me.

“Huh? Was I making a face?”

“Just a little judgmental one,” Tecca said. “Shit, I don’t blame you, but stoicism is important for me. I use it to do my job, not because I don’t care… but it does definitely help that I don’t care.”

That’s probably why he’s great at doing this job.

“You know, you guys have that in common,” Elijah said to him. “Maybe Cody can shadow you one day.”

“Pfff, he’s fuckin’… shadowing me now-short ass.”

Elijah immediately continued cackling. I stood there embarrassed and angry, because I sadly thought it was pretty funny.

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Elijah walked by a small building without saying anything.

I slowed and eventually stopped, looking at the large padlock that held the front door handle closed to a post.

“Hey,” I said. “What is this?”

Elijah stopped and turned around slowly, bouncing a little on his toes. He was clearly shoving his body language in my face, praying I would speak on it.

“What?” I said. “Not for me?”

“This…” He said as he approached me. “This isn’t mostly for anyone except The Omen… but you should pretend you didn’t see this. I know that’s not possible because it’s you, but it being you is the reason I would like to ignore this. Your curiosity and this building would not… mix well.”

I stared at him silently. Elijah’s honesty today had been pleasingly unusual for our relationship. It had been nice to have a day of not hating the person I hate. That statement he just made was much closer to what I usually expected from him. That warning was a hook with a worm. For some reason, Elijah greatly desired for me to have a rebellious interest in whatever was inside that building.

Of course he did.

“Okay,” I said promptly. “I was just wondering, whatever.”

He raised his eyebrows and smiled.

“Cool, thank you for your acquiescence.”

He slowly began to walk away as I had a split second staring contest with the padlock. Cliche as it obviously would be for me to fall for it, it did sound really fun.

But not right now.

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Elijah walked me to the front door of The Pantry.

“That’s all you need for now.” He said. “There’s obviously more, but we’ll wait until you’re trusted to hold a pair of scissors to let you worry about it.”

“You don’t wanna see all the sharp things I snuck into my pocket today?”

“I’m okay. Margo’s in there, she’ll take you for the next couple hours. I’ll meet up with you later, so be a good boy and walk in there without wandering off.”

He began walking away before I thought of a good way to yell at him for that.

“Can I ask what you’re busy going to do?”

He turned around and smiled.

“Play along here… can I answer that question with a question?”

I shook my head to say whatever.

“Is Elijah going to tell you what he’s going to do?” He asked happily.

Wow.

“… errr,” I buzzed tragically.

He snapped finger pistols at me as he winked and strode away. Elijah’s choice of when to be belligerently cutesy was beginning to make me distrust the water content in this place. Maybe his staving me off it had previously been a blessing in disguise.

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I saw the man, Allen, that had been there yesterday to be back again. I passed by him what was about to be silently.

“How ya doin?” He said absently without looking up from his book.

I stumbled, awkwardly pausing my step and turning around to what was already the back of him.

“… fine,” I said shakily. “… how about you?”

He stayed silently distracted for a moment before responding.

“Can’t complain.”

I stared at him for so long that the turning of his page was what shocked me back to life. I slinked away back to where I was headed. I… guess I just wasn’t used to being greeted so politely here. Somehow a redundant passing greeting had become an alien shock to me. I tried to move past it as I walked around the serving counter, which I smelled to be full again.

I moved into the entrance of the kitchen, standing on the threshold as I looked inside. All of the counters were littered with trays and Tupperware full of food. The same smell wafted over me from this room as it did from the banquet behind me. In the middle of it all, I saw the back of Margo standing at the marble island, wearing an apron with her hair tied up in a bun. She was barely moving her arms, and I could see the tension in her elbows aiding the meticulousness of her fingers unseen. I heard a gentle vibration of melody coming from somewhere in her chest. It was warm. It… reminded me of mom.

I jumped as a hand slapped off the side of my shoulder.

“I’ll get his arms, you do the hitting?” Nikko called to Margo as he walked by me into the kitchen.

He smiled to me before taking a different apron off of a hook to toss over his neck. Margo turned around to see me.

“Oh shit!” She yelled as she smiled at me. “Check out the voyager! Circaaaaa-I don’t know what year it is.”

“It’s 203-…” I started. “4… no… has it been-…”

November… what was it that day? November something, 2034. I didn’t even realize I had skipped Thanksgiving like it was nothing. Twenty-nine days. Well, kinda. I’ve changed a few bodies of time… wait, okay. Warehouse thing, and I started counting the first morning, but what if I-

“Dude,” Nikko said. “Who cares?”

He tied up his apron and took a handful of stainless serving spoons out of a drawer.

“Time’s man-made. We somehow managed to squeeze the most annoying relationship out of it,” He said as he passed behind margo. “Five-day work-week, daylight savings, months with different numbers of days. Jesus Christ what the fuck is a leap-year for?!”

“Hey, you know we skip a leap-year every fourth leap year?” Margo said as she turned back to whatever she was working on. “And every hundredth leap-year, we skip the fourth leap-year skipping of a leap-year.”

“Like why don’t they just go all the way and get a rib removed,” He replied. “To be fair though, it would have been sick to be a Roman discovering the moon.”

“Can you imagine if Roman discovered the moon?” Margo joked. “Probably would’ve evolved us into a race of werewolves, having shirt-ripping contests.”

“I don’t-…” I finally interjected. “I don’t think they exactly discovered the moon. It was kind of ‘discovered’ the second a fish first looked at it.”

Margo and Nikko smiled at each other before going back to what they were doing.

“Actually, it was kind of discovered when…” Margo mocked in a nasally tone.

Fun.

I walked further into the kitchen as Nikko stuck a spoon into every one of the five trays that were lined up on the far side of the kitchen. Margo turned to me, still smiling.

“Are you a part of The Queen's Guard?” She said to me. “Sit down, you weirdo.”

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

She motioned to a stool on the left edge of the island. I awkwardly slid over to it, slowly sitting down. I had a momentary glimpse where I imagined Eddie sitting next to me. I shook it away as I looked at what Margo was doing up close. A plate was in front of her with two heart-shaped waffles, as she delicately filled each square with a tiny little scoop of quinoa.

“That looks… so fucking gross,” I said to her.

“It’s not bad,” She replied. “It’s definitely not good, but I can see why somebody would eat this.”

Her finger delicately tapped the drop of the spoon, as she managed to not leave a single bead in the bowl each time. Never flicking or scooping.

“Who exactly is eating that?” I asked.

“That would be Allen,” Nikko said behind her, as he carried one of the trays out of the kitchen.

“Allen is our buffer to make sure that nobody is getting out here early to snatch anything,” Margo said. “It’s nice in the hour or so that we’re working, but he mostly just applied because he liked the atmosphere of the Café, and wanted to hang out outside of meal hours. You met Allen, right?”

“Uh, yeah I…”

I actually think we’re even on good terms… Allen and I. Lord knows why.

“I met him yesterday. Even though we… didn’t talk. We greeted each other today, though.”

“Hey,” She said. “Did you see the book he was reading today? Was it The Da Vinci Code or was it Calypso?”

“Ummm, I didn’t notice today but… it was definitely Calypso yesterday… why, do you think he has more than one? Elijah told me how unholy that is…”

Nikko entered back in.

“Well, not by the library’s records,” She said. “I’m sure he convinced someone who doesn’t read much to reserve The Da Vinci Code and let him read it.”

“He doesn’t wanna admit to us that he doesn’t understand Calypso,” Nikko said as he passed with another tray. “I think he got bored with it days ago, but wants to pretend he’s engrossed.”

Who’s lying about media-literacy in a place where all you do is read?

“Has he lied about that before?” I asked.

“Nah,” She said. “We’re just making fun of him. I’m pretty stuck up about a lot of the books we have too, so I really just pester people about where their heads are at with them, no matter how far through they are.”

“Can’t imagine why that would make him not be honest with you about disliking a book.”

She shot me an annoyed smirk, before filling the last hole of the second waffle.

“I don’t blame him,” She said. “I just like hearing people’s reactions to ones I like. I actually have been trying to work up the courage to… form a book club here, or at least convince someone with better leadership to do it for me. I can’t believe we don’t already have one.”

Could be because everyone seems to hate each other.

She grabbed what looked like a BLT wrap and shook all of its contents out onto another plate, placing the now empty wrap flat next to the waffles. She grabbed a Tupperware container of Lingonberry Jam, and began softly painting the bread with a knife full of it.

“Do you make everybody’s weird ass lunch like this?”

“I do Allen’s. Mine. Elijah’s. Nikko’s if he doesn’t choose to make his own. About fifteen others. Yours. I guess you’ll be fending for yourself now, though.”

My mind flipped through a montage of the art collage meals that I’d been eating for lunch over my time here. They were all pretty weird, but all weirdly… pretty. Margo reached for a container of bacon, and began breaking up pieces to lay into the wrap. I watched her carefulness in a lull, speaking without realizing I was doing so.

“Thank you,” I said lowly. “… for… feeding me.”

She stopped and looked at me.

“Yeah, dude,” She said. “Of course. You can thank me without sounding that creepy though.”

Nikko laughed as he walked behind.

“So what do you do besides this?” I said to her. “Like what are you and Nikko assigned to do?”

“Just serving mostly, but with pizzazz. It’s sometimes more that we’re just bodyguards for our food. Obviously you’ve been told about… the rationing. I do these stupid detailed meals for the people that secretly agreed to not be fed as often… like um… making it with love to make up for what they’re missing out on.”

Nikko smiled softly at the back of her head as he passed with another tray.

“It’s just something I like doing,” She added softly.

I stared at Margo as she began chopping up some bits of chicken tenders with the lingonberry knife. This was my second time being in a calm space with her, but she seemed like a side of this world I hadn’t particularly seen before.

“Anyway, love only goes so far,” She said in my silence. “I try to make these unique, but I guess you know there’s a limit to our inventory that, truthfully, gets old extremely fast. You kind of have to just appreciate that we have food at all, and not wish that we were trapped inside of an infinite Whole Foods instead.”

She began chopping up some plant balls, mixing in the pieces with the chicken fingers. I’m sure I was facially expressing disagreement after seeing that, as she was quick to follow up to her previous statement.

“You’ll get used to it. You have to, it’s not really an option. You know, unless you want to lose your mind within your first year.”

The phrase “first year” had never been used around me, and as calm as I currently was, I almost lost my mind hearing her say it. To ground myself, I finally spoke.

“What was yours like?”

“Huh?” She replied.

“Your…. first year.”

“Oh, right. Umm….. not fantastic. Nobody’s really is though, and most people’s first year ends on their first day, so mine was a lot better than that.”

I couldn’t disagree with that surprisingly morbid statement.

“Elijah wasn’t here for my first two years and… I think seven months or something so…. I was pretty isolated for what felt like a large percentage of that time.”

Nikko walked by again, looking like he wanted to say something to me, but chose not to based on something Margo had just said.

“Tim and Carolette were always nice to me when they were training me for combat,” She continued. “But I didn’t feel like I was or wanted to be of any interest to anyone that didn’t need something from me. No one ever did until this guy that handled the mess hall before Nikko or me, Gavin I think it was, offed himself.”

No one here should ever be surprised by anything I say with the way they casually drop the most dismal thing you’ve ever heard every five minutes.

“Natalie practically begged me to take over when there was this stupid fucking mass hysteria that anyone who took his role would somehow end up in the same mental position. Maybe if those idiots knew how to see the signs of someone on the brink, that wouldn’t have ever been a problem, but what the hell ever… even without having any friends, I had to talk to people a lot more once I picked up here. I was terrible at it for a while. I certainly wasn’t doing stuff like this.”

She sprinkled the mix of diced ingredients onto the wrap. She began rolling it back up as Nikko passed again.

“Thinking about food was a creative outlet before this all, but it was hard to be creative or even passionate with, you know, limited resources. I learned to find it relaxing, like something I just did for fun even though it was my ‘job’. I felt prideful about it too… felt like I was helping people here.”

She stuck two toothpicks on each side of the wrap before effortlessly sawing it clean into two.

“That was basically the only good thing about it though,” She said a lot less softly than she’d been speaking for the past two minutes. “I was very you-coded for the entirety of that year. I wasn’t exactly as vitriolic, but I hated it here. And I mean… I’m glad to know the people I have around me in this place, but I still hate it here. That doesn’t really go away… not totally.”

“Maybe not if you suck,” Nikko finally said, passing with the last tray. “I love it here. No taxes. Outside of the emotional ones.”

“Ha! Your bum-ass probably wasn’t paying taxes anyway,” Margo jabbed without turning around to him.

Margo slightly shifted the contents of the plate to make room for the last touch. She plucked three Swedish meatballs out of the tray and tucked them into the corner of the meal. She saw my face wrinkle.

“You part of the ‘hell no’ camp for these?” She said with a giggle.

“Is there a ‘hell yes’ camp?” I asked.

“Totally, and I am a proud member. I always called them the Swedish cash crop.”

She laughed at herself a little, beginning to put lids back onto containers and gather up the utensils.

Swedish cash crop… why is that funny? I didn’t want to laugh out loud, but I just thought it sounded clever.

I thought about Allen again, and I began to realize that for the past ten minutes, as well as the rest of my time anywhere remotely close to Margo… I had been more than a little bit confused.

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“Hey…” I began. “I know this is a rude question but… why are you being so nice to me?”

She looked back at me, her smile wavering, but not really going away.

“Don’t you like… hate me?” I asked.

She thought for a moment and then looked away, speaking without looking back.

“I don’t hate you,” She said. “Why, because I look like I hate everyone?”

“… iiiehhh… partially.”

I considered backing off and saying that that was basically the entire reason. I should’ve said that she looked like the kind of girl that would usually cringe every time they looked at me, which to be fair, she did.

“Well, I hate to be a romantic sheep but… if Elijah likes you… I don’t see why I can’t find a reason to,” She said.

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Really? That’s the reason? That’s it? Does Elijah even like me?

“What… just because of Elijah?”

“Yeah, basically.”

“… you’ve never disliked anyone he has? You guys have never had an argument at the dinner table about, ‘I don’t like you spending so much time around X Y Z, I don’t like how you act after seeing them’?”

I can’t imagine that Elijah hasn’t done that at least once.

She giggled a little.

“Nope, not really,” She said. “Although, he doesn’t really like Robert, and I don’t see anything particularly wrong with him. Outside of being unbearably old.”

Um…

“How old is he?”

“Fifty-eight.”

Yeah, they seem perfect for each other.

Well… besides…

“Does Elijah freak out a lot?”

Her smile finally faded as she stopped and turned to me. The corner of the island that separated us seemed like a sudden meridian of disparity. I wished I hadn’t said that to her. If she didn’t hate me before…

She swished her lips a little, but didn’t start to look angry or troubled, just serious.

“He’s got bipolar.”

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I really, really, really wished I hadn’t asked her that.

“I’m sorry… I… I shouldn’t ha-“

“-no, you’re fine,” She interrupted. “I get it, because… I see it. I know what he’s like sometimes when I’m not in front of him. It’s only Cyclothymia-and I’m not-… you know, undermining the seriousness of that it’s just… he could be worse, and I’m happy everyday that he’s not. I’m happy that I have any version of Elijah that’s happy.”

It didn’t matter if she tried to make it seem okay, I had fucked up. I should’ve already known, first of all, but even if I didn’t, where is it my place to ask his significant other that I barely know… that kind of significant question. I felt so gross…

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… until she smiled.

“You know…” She said. “They say people with mental illness are usually better in bed-“

“-Jesus dude I don’t wanna hear that shit, gross!”

She burst out laughing as I cringed.

“Ayo!” Nikko called from the other room as Margo swung around.

She looked back to me.

“Hey, come on, it’s lunch time!” She said, before grabbing the decorative plate and sticking a fork in it.

She softly swept out of the kitchen, as I slowly stood to follow her. I moved back to the entrance, as I saw her skirting around the serving line to walk the plate out to Allen. She placed it delicately in front of him, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Thanks, Margee,” I heard him mumble without looking at her.

A giant smile crept over her face. She glanced over to Nikko, who was standing in front of me on the serving line.

“Yeah,” She said. “Noooo problem, dear-you FIBBER!”

She snatched the book out of Allen’s hands and waved it up for Nikko and I to see the cover.

“Hey come on!-” He yelled as he reeled around to us.

“-he’s not even following his own list-he’s reading The House On Mango Street!-are you kidding me?!-“

“-Alright alright alright, it’s not a sin is it?!-I don’t get on your case about your light reads-“

“-Should I check-out the goddamn Hungry Hungry Caterpillar for you next?! Where’s your shame-is this even under someone else’s name? I didn’t even think to ask Sam if Calypso was available again-“

“-I HATE AUTOBIOGRAPHIES-and I don’t care how semi it is! If it was about someone who conceptualized The Printing Press or did quantum computing it might be nice but it’s just about an author buying a beach house-“

“-DID YOU EVEN REA-Oh my God we don’t have time-you missed it-you missed the whole story-congratulations!”

She handed him back the book as he took it begrudgingly, but I saw them both smiling at each other. Margo walked to the entrance of the Café and stuck her head out.

“Alright, come on!” She yelled before dipping back inside and jogging over to us.

As Allen put down his book and began eating, the entrance slowly gave birth to group after group after group of residents filing into the space. Some sat down at a table immediately, while most grabbed a tray and plate before moving to the edge of the line.

“Deacooonnn,” Nikko bellowed to the first man in the line. “What’s filling it?”

“Hey Nikko, let me just get some Caesar and some potatoes… couple fries I guess.”

“Absolutely lifeless as usual-coming right up,” He replied as the man handed him his tray through the opening.

Margo took her place further down the line as another man walked up to her.

“What happened to the tie-dye idea?” He said to her.

“She’s working on it,” Margo replied with a laugh. “She said there’s a stain in her carpet the size of Massachusetts right now, so I’ll have it on tomorrow. What’s up today?”

“Garlic Lemon Cod, Macaroni & Cheese,” He replied. “Is that weird?

“So weird! I love it.”

She mumble-sang “Corn, corn on the Cod” to herself to the tune of “Home on the Range”.

“Hey Nikko,” A flirty girl about Margo’s age said on Nikko’s side.

“Hey yourself-you’re still not allowed in here right now.”

“And I tried my best to stay away too-“

“-alright, chill out-what am I feedi-… what are you eating for lunch?”

A forty-something woman walked up to Margo looking kind of unhappy.

“Well?” Margo said quickly.

“I repeated every word almost verbatim... and… you know-“

“-Good ‘you know’ or bad ‘you know’?”

The woman slowly smiled.

“… you know-” She said slyly.

“-Bitch if you don’t fu-“

Margo hopped up, shadow punched the air and threw her hand under the opening to dap-up the woman excitedly.

“Word equals bond. You need some energy now, right?” Margo said happily.

I refrained from inserting myself into the scene as I leaned against the side of the kitchen entrance, watching the two of them smile as they spoke to the people that lived like this everyday. As people went to sit, they spoke with whoever was at their table, but let their conversations reach to the groups beside them. It was a shattering polar-opposite to the jagged awkwardness that had seemed to separate every human life I’d come across here. I was definitely under the impression that the camaraderie probably disappeared quite immediately after leaving this room, but standing here, this place was different. Let me not convince you that it was like the real world, as simply the aesthetic reminder of the building was enough of a backdrop to make it a strange contentment, but for what was only a moment, it was that. Contentment.

Contentment isn’t a good word, home is better.

Home isn’t perfect, home is never perfect. It can still be home. Somehow.

Is The Library really the most sacred building? I think it might be something else…

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“Cody,” I heard Margo say.

I turned to her as she was shimmying Cauliflower rice next to scrambled eggs. The woman that had taken Elizabeth from me at the gate (uh… Amelia, I think Roman said) was standing across from her. I assumed she had said something to Margo when she recognized me standing there.

“Go grab something for yourself,” She said, flicking up her head towards the kitchen.

“You mean like… a spray bottle?” I said.

“No, genius. Some lunch. Elijah told me you didn’t have dinner last night. Go eat something.”

She turned back to what she was doing as I wavered for a moment. Margo had probably realized it wasn’t a good idea to have me so out in the open, but used it as an opportunity to be kind. I kind of would’ve preferred if she had told me to get my ugly ass away from these people’s line of sight. It all didn’t feel right. I almost didn’t like it. It was too much and too fast for my tide to be turning, I needed more time for that. I was fine with calling this a good enough start, but let’s leave it there for today.

I slowly turned to return to the kitchen.

I walked to the island to see what was there. The container Margo had taken a BLT wrap from had another full one still sitting in it. I opened the top and immediately sank my teeth into the only substantial thing I’d eaten since the run yesterday. I sighed in beautiful relief as my eyes slid closed. I continued in delight.

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“You makin’ yourself at home?”

I immediately choked on the bite as I spun around with the rest of it in my mouth.

Natalie was standing there with her arms crossed.

“You’re priceless,” She whispered again as I stood there like a dumbass.

It made a lot more sense that Margo had seen Natalie walking into the Café, and didn’t want her to see me standing there like it was nothing.

“Errwerjer-…” I garbled before taking a second to swallow what was in my mouth. “I was just… finishing.”

“So I’m not interrupting you? You need me to turn around so you’re not shy?”

That’s the Return & Exchange I love.

“Margo told me I could.”

I wasn’t really trying to throw Margo under the bus if this was something Natalie was genuinely mad about, and not just gaslighting me. However, I was really just saying it to push back.

“Whatever,” She said. “You’re done now. Come on, I wanna talk to you.”

She turned around to begin walking.

“Why can’t we talk in he-“

“-no,” She said as she spun around. “We talk where I say we talk. Put that shit down.”

She kept walking as I sighed and followed, sadly dropping my “lunch”. I trailed her out and around the counter. I made awkward eye-contact with Margo, as she made a regretful face to me. I smiled weakly, as we weaved through everyone who pretended to be happily ignorant of what I assumed were currently the two most divisive people in this community.

Wait, I forgot. Not assuming stuff anymore.

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Natalie leaned back against the wall of a random, two-story house she had walked me to. She had guided me into the somewhat darkened alleyway between it and the one beside it.

“You see Slips before you left the bathroom the other day?” She asked me as she whipped her bang away from her eyes.

“Bug-eyed kid?”

She hardened her already apparent glare, but looked away.

“Yeah. Him… he broke that bathroom mirror yesterday, the one you told me about.”

“What, really?” I said, kind of smiling. “Did he like excitedly trip into it face-first or something?”

She looked back to me seriously as I stopped smiling immediately.

“He punched it.”

I should really stop talking to women here.

“He has these… manic episodes every once in a while,” She continued. “… he’s okay now but… something set him off yesterday.”

“I had no idea…”

She raised an eyebrow.

“You… what? Yeah, fucking duh. Why would you know that? I was just telling you for the sake of it, I wasn’t blaming you for an incident completely unrelated to you. Even though you are a totally insensitive asshole.”

I already had that talk with myself today, so I don’t need to hear it from the person that pretended Elizabeth had died to get a rise out of me.

“Sorry,” I said somewhat insincerely.

She sighed slightly and looked away again.

“It happened here,” She said as if she was still mad at me.

“Here like… IKEA here?”

“Yeah… he watched the Café restock one night… don’t do that by the way, if you haven’t already been told. Same thing for the soap in the bathroom, we have a slot that doesn’t move for when it seems to happen.”

“What… what is it? I thought the food just refilled instantly? What even happens?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t seen it. Slips doesn’t even know. He said it felt like having a seizure and then he just… woke up later… it just does something to people. We had someone else that was way worse because of it.”

From something Margo had mentioned earlier, I think I knew who that was…

“What happened to them?” I said, already knowing.

She kept staring away into the empty distance as her eyes slightly squinted.

“I need you to get a new mirror the next time you go out,” She said, trying to ignore my question. “You could’ve done it that day you mentioned it… thanks for asking about it.”

Did she just… thank me? Genuinely? She still wasn’t looking at me, did she even know she said it to me? She does that a lot. Kind of similar to-

“And you’ll go tomorrow,” She said after a pause. “You can do it every other day.”

“You sure?” I said. “I can do like Monday through Friday or something. I’m fine as long as nothing happens out there.”

“That’s too much.”

“I mean, I’m alright for it. I feel a lot better, really. And it’s only gonna-

“-You will do every other day. I misspoke, it’s not your choice. I’m saying it, so you’re doing it.”

She really likes to do that. I would’ve dropped it with a simple “No, just do it every other”. We stood in silence for a moment. She seemed like she was thinking of the right way to say something, so I gave her some time by interrupting her.

“Hey,” I said. “Can I ask if I’m allowed to know something?”

She didn’t roll her eyes, just tapped the heel of her foot slightly.

“What?”

I took my own time to decide if I should actually ask. That was something I was having a lot of trouble gauging today.

“Did you choose for Margo’s new buddy to be Nikko?”

That did make her roll her eyes.

“Did Elijah complain to you about that behind my back?”

“Nnnnoooo, we actually didn’t talk about it at all, and I didn’t want to… I was honestly asking because… I could see why that would make him unhappy.”

“If you think about it like a middle schooler maybe, which is what he’s doing. Margo and Nikko are together more often than Margo is with anyone from the Gate Formation. It’s logistical, and even if it wasn’t, it’s about you and Elijah, not just Elijah, and certainly not just Margo. That’s what he doesn’t want to understand.”

I understood, but as someone who’s had a troubled… romantic past (God, sorry, give me a minute), I also understood Elijah. That doesn’t mean I didn’t agree that he might be overreacting, it just means that I’ve felt what I know goes on in Elijah’s head when he sees those two together.

Just to say it, Nikko is a very attractive man. Yeah, I was there, but that’s as good as the two of them being alone together. I saw the way him and Margo are first-hand. I saw how he made her laugh, and vice versa.

I saw the way he looked at her, it wasn’t predatory. It was soft.

“You shouldn’t have said that to him yesterday,” I said.

She sneered.

“I’ll let you know when I’m taking your advice on what I should or shouldn’t say to people.”

Hypocrite’s bottomless pit…

“Do me a favor too,” She continued. “Make this conversation the last time you talk to anyone about that shit.”

Don’t gotta tell me twice, I didn’t like thinking about it. I mean, I kinda did but… I didn’t like that I liked it, ya follow me?

“Can I-“

“-I was…”

We both went awkwardly quiet again as we accidentally spoke at the same time.

Did she finish thinking about what she was saying?

“You can-“ I began before she purposely spoke over me.

“-Just hurry the hell up. Say it.”

It was better than being told to shut up, I think.

“Do you… have my phone still?” I asked.

“Yeah,” She quickly replied.

Um…

“Can I… like… have it?”

“Not right now, are you done?”

Done what? Hoping? I guess so, dude.

“Yeah,” I said shortly.

She pushed up from the wall to stand, unfolding her arms.

“Listen,” She said. “… you’re gonna live with me from now on.”

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My nervous heart-flutter immediately reappeared as that statement destroyed my equilibrium.

“… what?” I said.

“Not tonight, you’ll still-“

“-I Don-… what do you mean?”

“I don’t want you in that cell anymore. You’re gonna live in my house.”

My heart was going insane.

“Why-… we wouldn’t be-…”

She tilted her head in confusion, before going red with her mouth agape.

“IN A SEPARATE ROOM YOU FUCKING IDIOT!”

I had never heard her scream in desperation. “Idiot” was undershooting. I deserved that.

“I was… I was just joking-“

“-No you goddamn weren’t-you’ve said shit to me in that room that I should kick your ass a second time for!”

The saliva thing, please tell me that was it. I can’t even remember…

“Christ-…” She kept yelling before cutting herself off and walking up the alleyway a ways.

She stretched herself back, running her hands down her scalp until they rested around her neck. As she caught her breath and turned around, I fought to not look down at the part of her body that position was accentuating.

“Vernon is making a lock for the door of that room,” She said.

I clung onto the hope of reversing her anger.

“Oh, I thought he was just masturbating…”

She stared at me emptily.

“Be so honest with me,” She said. “On a scale of one to ten, how funny do you think that was?”

“I just… Elijah said it earlier-“

“-Okay, let me tell you something here. You telling me that something you do is inspired by somebody else is not making it any harder for me to get mad at you, so stop doing it.”

I shouldn’t even keep responding. Trying to smooth over a conversation with Natalie is like putting a deadbolt on a wide open door.

But speaking of locked doors…

“Why do you want me out of the cell?” I said. “You don’t seem like you’re on your way to trusting me.”

She crossed her arms again.

“I’m not, but if you’re going to be in a house, I don’t want it to be anyone else’s. I don’t want you to have the ability to get to someone in their sleep-“

“-Well then why are you taking me out of the cell at all-just leave me in there-“

“-Do you want to be in there?-“

“-of course not, but when did what I want become something you’re concerned about-“

“-if you’re-… if you’re gonna be here, you can’t always be a snake in a box.”

“I’m not a-… are you avoiding saying the words ‘rat in a cage’?”

She rubbed her head furiously and began walking away.

“Go back to the Café or I will track you down and skin you to goddamn ribbons-“

“-who have you ever heard say ‘snake in a box’?!”

She flipped me the middle as she disappeared around the corner. I breathed in fully for the first time since she had appeared in the kitchen. Everything is such a fucking game. Getting apprehensive about Margo’s friendliness must have set off Natalie’s spider-sense of not being the most irritatingly confusing human in my life for two isolated seconds. Now she’s run to the rescue of her number one spot. I don’t even wanna sit here going in a mental circle of what every single stupid word she had said meant.

I mean, I do, because I really like thinking about her…

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I’m gonna punch a fucking wall.

I began storming out of the alleyway, stopping for only a minute to look back at what I thought was possibly revealing itself behind me now that Natalie was gone. That’s not what I’m worried about right now, I’m worried about some accountability.

I practically ran to catch the back of her head far in front of me.

“HEY!” I screamed to her as she stopped without turning around. “WOULD YOU JUST FUCKING TALK TO ME?!”

She stood motionless.

“This is ridiculous-if I’m gonna ‘be here’, then stop speaking to me like it’s killing you!” I added.

She swiftly turned around, rubbing her jaw as she strode back up to me. I wasn’t blind, I could tell that she didn’t look happy. So be it, it’s the only way to make her listen.

“You gonna punch me now? Put a gun up to my-“

She reached me, grabbed me by the collar with both hands and threw me into the front of the house we had previously been in the alleyway of.

“Get in,” She said way too calmly as she pointed to the front door. “Now.”

She didn’t even look mad up close anymore, she just looked tired. I looked between her and the door a small enough amount of times to not make her ask again, and then I carefully turned to it.

“Who’s house is-…”

I stopped my idiotic question. I took the doorknob in my hand and slowly opened the house. I stepped inside to see what looked like a coke dealer’s house if it was made by people on coke. It looked like they had made Natalie’s living room out of a kitchen display, but implied it was a living room by putting a couch on the left wall. The entire back half was just a beige tile kitchen. A square pillar of wood stood in the center of the room, with the staircase beside it. ‘Natural’ light flooded in from a window on each wall of the room.

I felt hands on my back push me inside, as I had been standing in the doorway for way too long.

“Alright alright-

“-go upstairs.”

I slowly obliged.

“This is… this is nice.”

“Shut up.”

Maybe ‘shut up’ was what I actually preferred. It’s better than the mystery. Like, am I going upstairs so my blood stains can’t be seen by anyone else who’s visiting or walking by the windows? Only one way to find out.

I climbed a staircase for the second abnormal time that day, until I reached a hallway that was about one body long on the left of the landing. With a door on one side, a window in the middle, and a door on the other side, both doors opening all the way would definitely result in them scraping against the other. I turned around to her.

“Which door here is the one that won’t make you wanna kill me when I open it?”

“Too late. Right.”

I nervously walked up to the door. It opened to a room smaller than the cell, but that seemed a little nicer. There was a bed, an honest to God bed, in the center of the far wall. A window was over it, a six-drawer dresser was to the left of it, and… that was… just about it.

“Is there a lock on that?” I said to her. “If I wanted to escape, could I hurtle my bloody body out of the window like Bruce Willis?”

“The window doesn’t open. Are you asking if there’s a lock on glass?”

I would guess the window in the opposite room had a nice view of town, because this window had a legendary view of the R&E wall and nothing else. It was okay though, because it didn’t feel like a prison. Just the normal blanket of uncanniness that tucked in everywhere else here. What felt weirder to me was the knowledge of what this meant.

I turned around VERY slowly to her.

“So… you sleep right there?” I asked as I pointed to the other door across the sad excuse for a hall.

She nodded without speaking.

“And… where does Elijah sleep?” I added.

“Not here.”

“… so… what’s logistical about Elijah being my new partner if you chose to put me here?”

“Elijah and Margo live together, I’m not trying to make you his husband-“

“-Yeah I-ugh. I know. I’m saying… out of every place you could have put me in a locked room, why is it across from you?”

“I’ll show you.”

She pushed past me into the room. She walked to the backboard of the bed, right next to the window and looked back at me. I slowly walked over before she could ask me what I was waiting for.

As I stood before her, she pointed to the small sliver of space between the bed and the window. Warily and awkwardly, I stepped between her and the area she was referring to. On the wall right below the window, there was a small, strangely ominous hole. It wasn’t flooding with light like I would expect it to be for being just inches away from the outside of the house. It’s as if there was a tube or tunnel to something outside the house that I hadn’t seen.

I turned around.

“What… what is that?”

“That’s the alarm.”

“… for… me to wake up in the mornings so I don’t oversleep?”

“That would be me. You don’t need an alarm for that.”

Would’ve guessed that myself if I never found out the hard way.

“So… alarm for what then?” I said.

It was like her expression darkened without anything physically changing on her face.

“For when someone’s at the gate.”

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“I don’t know what you mean,” I said.

“You don’t need to say that every time, I can read it on you,” She said.

“I-… wait is-“

“-Patrick is dead.”

I stepped back instinctively. Her bluntness had scared me, but let me be clear, I was fucking pissed. I don’t care what Elijah says, I do blame myself, but I am so damn tired of hearing that name.

“Okay, what are we talking about here? Do you want a fucking apology for that? How about two hand tattoos that say ‘Patrick’s Blood’ so I never have the ability to live it down.”

She stayed silent.

“Is that what this is about?” I added. “Is that what you and me are about? Fuck that fight, fuck whatever that-… fuckin’ childish ass ‘interview’ shit was. Is that why you hate me so much? Because of Patrick?”

“Is this your awakening moment? Had you somehow not thought of that before?-“

“-It’s fucking all I think about! I don’t even remember what his face looks like and it’s all I think about when I see how you people look at me! The way you look at me! The way you speak to me. What would you like me to do?”

No answer.

“Look, I am so goddamn sorry-Jesus Christ-that word is such a useless little third-rate excuse for what it is that I am and I don’t even need to know what he meant to you becau-“

“-it’s not about him. It’s about Jen… you hurt Jen.”

I took the turn of silence.

“You have no idea what you did to her-“

“-I do-“

“-the fuck you do-

“-Elijah told me. She’s depressed-

“-That word is what’s really useless. She’s not depressed, she’s eradicated.”

There was a very serious drop in my stomach as I heard a layer of emotion in her voice that I had never heard before.

“I don’t even know where she is when I look in her eyes,” She continued. “I don’t care what you think you know from that room. Do you know what it’s like to look at your best friend like that? Do you know what it’s like to see someone that you love being sucked out of themselves in a place you can’t cut the power off from?”

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No. In short. Not from anyone I’ve truly loved. Not even anyone I thought I loved. Definitely not someone I would call my best friend.

She stepped closer to me.

“Your little ‘sorry’, is practically a joke. So stop fucking saying it, and give me the time to get over it myself. If you want to prove that you’re ‘sorry’, stop making it worse by constantly being the most confrontationally unconcerned little bastard I have ever met in my horrible life. Acting like everybody else owes you an apology for something clearly unrelated that you’ve been carrying around like a reverse kick-me sign. When you get your miserable ass the fuck over that, I’ll start wholeheartedly working on getting over this. Until then, that’s what you and I are about.”

Welcome home, Cody.

“Okay,” I said shortly.

She took a moment, before beginning to walk away to the door.

“You’re replacing him in the formation,” She said before stopping at the doorway and turning back around to me. “Tim and Carolette will teach you how to fight, you’ll start watching the wall, and when someone comes to it while you’re not there, an alarm will come out of that hole loud enough to break that glass before you throw yourself through it. We’ll talk about this more later. Go back to the Café.”

She walked out of the room without waiting for me.

Is that what passes as a reasonable excuse for the way she bomb-dropped that? I guess I had done the same with Nikko earlier, not knowing how close he was to Patrick, but I was basically just saying the guy’s name. She had said that with the express purpose of angering me. Her admission to a buried willingness to better our relationship was nice to hear, but I’ll be honest, with the way Natalie uses my emotions against me, I don’t think I want a better relationship with her. I’ve had and still am having a lot of bad moments with a pretty big list of people here, but none of them are based on the same kind of genuine rage that I somehow end up feeling after every interaction with this girl. If not rage, then fear. I dislike a lot of R&E because of myself…

I… I kind of hate Natalie. I hate Natalie because of her. To call the kettle black… I think she is simply a bad person. I don’t want the two of us to get better, no matter how much lack of concern that requires of me.

I took a moment to look around before making my way to the door. The second I made the turn to reach the stairs, I jumped out of my skin to see her standing there menacingly.

“Just to be clear,” She said. “I’ve been fantasizing about killing you. A lot. Not playfully. Perversely. I even started dreaming about it a couple nights ago. Some days it’s the only thing I think about. Sometimes fast, sometimes slow. It’s not really about your pain, it’s about my assurance that the life in your body is made as worthless as the rest of you.”

We stared at each other for a moment before she made her way down the stairs and calmly out the front door.

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Cody Camargo: Thirty Days In.

This is going to be my last entry for a while. I’ve realized that I’ve just about run out of space in this notebook, and I’m going to have to find another one to continue in. I will, by the way.

I will continue.

That being said, I’ll keep the events of this day as brief as I comfortably can.

———————

I woke up hearing it before Natalie even started banging on the door of the cell. Kanata had been barking her head off in the distance for what must have been over an hour.

Natalie opened the door hastily as I groggily stood.

“Get it out of here before I decide I’m an experienced taxidermist-“

“-Wha-I don’t even know what she’s barking abo-it’s a she, stop calling her ‘it’-“

“-Cody, I’m going to either kill that dog myself, or it’s getting put back outside to never come back in-

“-This is the first time she’s done this, right? Don’t go full send over it-I’m sure she’s gonna calm down-“

“-Amelia didn’t sign up for taking care of a dog, and Lizzie lets that thing run fucking rampant. It’s not just the barking it’s the shitting and the gnawing and the hiding-it keeps slipping out of their door and hiding places to scare the shit out of people that keep forgetting there’s a fucking dog here. I’m done-“

“-Okay okay okay, let me take her out with me today. It’ll get her some kinda fresh air and she can just get some energy out. I’ll feel safer with her anyway-“

“-Now. She needs to go now-“

“-Alright, now it is. Take me to her-“

“-No, go to the gate, I’ll bring her to you.”

“Sure… thanks for calling her ‘She’-“

“-shut up, Cody.”

She stormed back out of the room.

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I waited at the gate with Elijah for about ten empty minutes. After he had returned the backpack to me, we had talked slightly about my time with Margo. I tried to avoid even mentioning Nikko’s name.

“Tell me about Evelyn today,” I eventually said to him.

“Uhhhh, Evelyn is fine but… she’s got a very ‘citation needed’ kind of summary. She showed up with Roman, that’s why he acts like her adopted grandson. Apparently he had found her out there in the halls on the day he got lost. They had been walking slowly to R&E together after seeing it on the horizon, and the lights went out when they were a twenty minute walk away. Roman had apparently carried her fireman-style as he ran the rest of the way with all the staff behind them. I obviously wasn’t here to see it, but I heard it was just about the most majestic thing you’ve ever-“

“-whole lot of Roman in my Evelyn story right now-“

“-Sorry sorry okay. She’s a ripe eighty-one-“

“-don’t ever say that disgusting ass word about a human again please-“

“-but she got here at seventy-one. She was actually still a teaching assistant back then, never got the chance to retire. She even helps with the schoolhouse every once in a while, but she has some days where she isn’t a big people person.”

Sounds like a natural pillar of the community.

“She never married from what she’s said. She likes to ambiguously refer to some guy called Fletcher, but who knows if that was her honey pie or a mailman she had a crush on. I don’t like to think about it either way.”

“Okay, what’s ‘citation needed’ about that?”

“Well she um… she claims to be a Gulf War vet.”

“No shit…”

“Shit… you know, ostensibly. Auxiliary Corps. She says she wood stake-out traffic points to help them move into Kuwait. Not exactly front lines, but she talked about it like it was some pretty serious shit. Again, this is whispered down the lane, because she doesn’t talk nearly as much as she used to, about anything really, but especially not that. I wouldn’t say her mind is going anywhere, I think she’s just tired. This place would do that to anyone, let alone a veteran. I’d expect to be high-strung enough just from being here at all, and… well, there are some other things you should ask her about for yourself anyway, but with how much hysterically untenable shit has been going on here this past-…”

Elijah trailed off as we began to hear a heavy panting approaching us from town.

“Goddammit!” I heard Natalie screaming far in the distance.

“Uh oh,” I said. “That’s probably gonna be bad for me.”

Out of the blue, Kanata burst into the courtyard as she galloped up and planted herself at distinguished attention before us.

“Hey girl,” I said nervously. “What have you-“

I had noticed that Kanata had two chicken fingers in her mouth in the same instant that she darted backwards the way she came. Before she disappeared again, she looked back at me, expecting me to follow her. I had wondered where she was going at the same time as I wondered why she had stolen food and not immediately devoured it.

My two questions answered each other as I made the connection.

“Heh, what is he doing?” Elijah said with a chuckle.

“It’s a she…” I mumbled.

“What’d you say?” He asked.

“I said-“

“-Fucking grab her!” Natalie screamed as both her and Kanata re-entered the courtyard.

Kanata ran up to me and hid behind my legs, before beginning to bark up a storm towards Natalie. I felt like Kanata should have been smart enough to recognize that I was not a proper line of defense against the monster that had just been chasing her.

“Shhhh,” I shushed as I turned around to pet her. “Come on, stop that-“

“-She’s done,” Natalie said as she panted behind me. “I swear to God, she’s gone. Get her out, right now-“

“-wait wait wait,” I said as I stood and walked to Natalie. “I’ll tire her out, she’s been used to living out there in the emptiness. She probably did nothing but run around all day-“

“-Say whatever you want, but bring her back at your own risk. Because if she pulls any more ridiculous shit like that, I will make Elizabeth watch me toss her and you over the top of the gate.”

She began storming away.

“AND FIND A FUCKING LEASH!”

Not the healthiest morning of conversation for what Natalie and I were defined to be.

I watched her in a daze for a while before turning around to Elijah. He was knelt down on the ground, petting Kanata as she panted happily.

“She’s probably just a cat person,” He said without turning to me.

He stuck his tongue out and shook his face as he did the same to hers. Their resemblance was uncanny.

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Kanata walked beside me, suddenly completely calm in this environment we both shared a much harsher memory of. Every once in a while, the wheels of the cart would move in a strange way that seemed to startle her, but she mostly stayed silent and alert.

I kind of wished she hadn’t. I had anticipated that Kanata would keep me distracted, and without the frantic behavior she had woken R&E with this morning, I was alone with my thoughts.

I thought about Evelyn spending the final act of her life gracefully wilting in Return And Exchange. I tried to imagine her younger face, dressed in a baggy green-camo jumper, somewhere in a desert of the Middle East. My mind’s eye tried to tear up with sonder, and imagine the colorful life she was living before being locked in this repetitious nothingness. That sounded like such an anticlimactic downgrade.

I’ve been referring to it in my head like that a lot recently. Nothingness, emptiness, barrenness. Despite how filled to the brim with detail the ever-unique layout of it is, this world has begun to feel very vacant to me. I suppose there wasn’t much stopping it from feeling that way before, besides from the sore thumb full of intolerant drama-queens. I think I was just bored.

Maybe I'm just tired? That’s what everybody says here, right?

I was generally becoming very unhappy. It seems way too late to be using the word “becoming”, but I’m not depressed or sad. Though the past two days had heavily tempted it, I’m not even really angry. It’s just that I couldn’t feel happy. Everything that was presenting itself as a clear hook to some kind of euphoria was never catching in my cheek. In brutally honest reality, I had experienced more things to be happy about in the past week alone than I had in the entire rest of the “month” I’d been here.

It wasn’t adding up though. I felt like there was just something blocking that synapse from firing. I kept trying to work out what that was, but every time I dug around back there, I kept getting jump-scared by Natalie’s face, plastered over every emotion I was still capable of feeling.

She seems to have successfully stolen me from myself. Apparently that feeling was some-kind of mutual. I’m definitely not thinking about murdering her everyday, but I think about her a lot. What truly tied us together in that regard, is that I’m sure it’s against both of our wills. It’s clear that we’ve sort of become the bane of each other’s existence, to a point where the fixation on the other is not so much a choice as it is a symptom of our proximity.

Maybe her mind just works faster than mine. I could possibly begin having the murder fantasies quite soon.

Well…

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I obviously can’t lie to you and say that I don’t have times where I enjoy thinking about Natalie…

But in my head, it’s never the Natalie I know in real life.

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We arrived at the Café, as Kanata trotted into the fold in a still complete silence. I tried to scope out the area quite thoroughly before feeling comfortable, using Kanata’s silence to audibly sniff for wet footsteps. After I heard nothing for a couple minutes, I also realized that Kanata would most definitely hear a disturbance long before I ever would.

I leaned against the serving line as I looked at her. She had taken up a spot on the floor, sitting up and watching me.

“You umm… you hungry?”

She didn’t yip, and didn’t move. Out of not only fear of The Staff, but the reunion with my outdoor buddy, Ted Bundy, I had been scared to speak to Kanata as we walked. We hadn’t really seen each other since that last night out here, and I remember us having a little bit of a better connection. Even after…

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She stared at me as I began feeling incredibly awkward. Look, I know I’m talking to a dog, and she doesn’t really understand me, but I felt like we both understood that there was an unspoken tension between us that I hadn’t had the chance to address, let alone resolve. I can still remember that horrible sound she made when I had kicked her, and it made me sick.

I slowly approached her.

“Hey, listen I’m-… I’m sorry.”

She stayed silent as I kneeled down to her. I ran my hand over her head and down the crest of her neck.

“I know you understand why I did it because… you helped me even after I did it, and I love you for that. I’m an idiot, and I don’t know how to think critically, so I just… did something ridiculous to feel like I was doing something meaningful, because that felt like what it took to be that unrealistic hero for her.”

She stared into my head blankly.

“You didn’t deserve that… I wish I had done it to myself… I definitely wouldn’t have been able to get away like you did.”

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Kanata was unresponsive. She refused to nuzzle herself into my petting.

“Kanata?”

I ran my finger down her nose, and was about to boop it, when I began hearing the low growl that was rumbling in her.

I should’ve known to take the hint and just get the fuck away from her, no matter what our history of shared experience was. I should’ve understood that the concept of personal space should go double for someone with teeth like Kanata’s, and especially for someone that clearly did not want to accept my apology for something pretty heinous.

But of course, I continued my trend of having absolutely zero social cues whatsoever, and proceeded to make my worst physical mistake since getting in Natalie’s face in the cell.

I booped Kanata’s nose.

“Boop,” I audibly said.

Kanata’s teeth showed for only a moment of final warning, before she lunged to the side, and sank her entire mouth of fangs into my right arm.

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I guess she could smell that Natalie had already marked her territory on my left.

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I fell backwards screaming, as Kanata stayed completely lodged into my forearm, snarling viciously. I tried to rip my arm away, even tried to pry her head off with my other hand, but I could feel the tip of her canines scraping against my bone. There was no getting her out unless she wanted out.

Or unless I wanted to start trying to hit her. I considered that, I did…

“KANATA! STOP!”

… but the same moment I started to consider it…

“KANATA!… Kanata!”

… was the same moment I realized that I didn’t really want her to stop.

My eyes welled up as I had a very surreal reality check. I deserved this. I had no idea how far she would go. When she was done with my arm, would she move to my face? I didn’t know, but I did know that I had already made this affirmation to myself. I had agreed with myself that I wouldn’t self-harm, and wouldn’t interfere with whatever plan I was being abusively used for in this place, but if my death was to come about naturally at the hands of something or someone else, I wasn’t going to oppose it.

I thought about The Staff, and then I thought about every single human I’d met in my time here. As I went through the list, I quite genuinely could not think of a single soul I would be happier to be executed by than Kanata.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” I cried as I tried to relax.

Kanata kept clenching tighter and tighter. I began to feel like I was having a hard time properly controlling the fingers of my right hand. I looked deep into her eyes the entire time.

I did this. This is okay. This is good.

My blood was beginning to drip more steadily from her chin as I felt myself on the verge of possible unconsciousness.

Good girl.

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Her snarling stopped. My arm remained in her mouth, but her mouth relaxed and went limp around her teeth. As I looked into her eyes with confusion, she began to whimper. I felt a different pressure as she began trying to dislodge her teeth from my arm. I winced heavily.

“Wait wait wait!”

I grabbed her jaw as I sat up. She steadied herself, planting her legs firmly for stability. I growled in anguish as I ripped her bottom teeth from my arm. They had clearly dug a lot more shallow than her top row.

“Okay, on three…”

I held Kanata’s head as she looked at me with focus. I wish Kanata was a zombie-dog, and my only option was to cut this arm off completely. Just give up on the thing and get rid of it.

“… one… two…”

I held her head steady as I ripped my arm away from it. A giant piece of skin flicked away into the air as her teeth jaggedly caught it on their way out.

“ARGHHH!”

I gripped at my wrist as I rocked back and forth.

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck… goddammit fuck…”

The bleeding wasn’t profuse, but the holes she had left made it almost feel like her teeth were still digging into my arm. I closed my eyes as I breathed in and out as deeply as I could, where I was previously hyperventilating.

No coughs.

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I suddenly jumped as I felt a rough tongue swipe across my wound. I opened my eyes to see Kanata licking the mark she had left.

She stopped for a moment and looked up at me with sad eyes. She went back to licking before I stopped her.

“Hey… don’t do that…”

I held my arm away from her before she could swallow anymore blood.

“You’re gonna get sick…”

She whimpered slightly. Kanata hadn’t wanted to do what she just did, but she had been angry. I couldn’t blame her for that anger at all. If I was in her position, I would’ve started at the throat. Yet here she was, feeling sorry for hurting me when it was much less than what I should’ve received.

“Hey, it’s okay. I’ll deal with it… it’s more than deserved…”

I brushed my hand over her head.

“We okay?”

Kanata yipped happily as she curled herself into my lap. I massaged her scalp the way I knew she loved. That was a spasmodic sixty seconds. I tried to remove myself from it as I hung on the floor with Kanata.

Eventually though, I felt my arm throbbing. I looked at it after not seeing it for just two minutes, and almost pissed myself. I remember thinking how bad Natalie’s bite had looked almost a week and a half after its occurrence. This was bad. I know a dog’s mouth is “cleaner”, and Kanata doesn’t have access to the outdoors like most dogs do, but this had easy infection written all over it.

I ruffled Kanata as I began to stand up with her. I needed to cover this up. Yes, for the bleeding, but there was something even more important. This was not Kanata, it was a horrible intrusive thought that I had created in her. She would not do this again if it wasn’t deserved. She had just been letting me know that I was a dumbass. However, I knew that if Natalie were to see this…

It would be over. I couldn’t let that happen.

“How the hell am I supposed to hide this…”

I began walking away from the Café as Kanata followed me. I found a white, thermal window curtain of a bathroom display and ripped it off its rack. I ripped it in half and tied it around my arm as tightly as possible. I felt it pulsing like crazy as I cringed to imagine what was going on inside of it. It hurt to make a fist.

I pet her again, letting her know that my stance hadn’t changed.

“I’m glad you’re on my side, because you are fucking brutal.”

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I poured a water bottle onto a pillowcase and cleaned the blood off Kanata’s chin. I fed her some chicken and cod as I ate an entire plate of Macaroni & Cheese. I finished my two pieces of chocolate cake, promised myself I would start practicing salad from now on, and downed two bottles of water before packing up the Café.

My screaming hadn’t attracted any friendly strangers, so I ensured I had everything I had entered the Café with, and began our trek back to R&E.

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Kanata and I began walking back, as friends this time.

I realized the stupidity of covering the wound with a previously white window curtain, and how obvious it would be that something had happened. I decided to treat myself to some new clothes now, and went to quickly find a long sleeve shirt that would cover this bandage. As I began rummaging through a bedroom display, I first found a mirror that would somewhat nicely fit the men’s bathroom back home…

Whatever, I already wrote the word before. The seal has been broken.

The mirror had a somewhat gaudy gold lining that was a little too posh for that room, but maybe it would fit nicer if we implemented a restroom attendant. I dug through the dresser drawers to find them all empty. That kind of made sense. I went to another display’s walk-in closet to find a rack of really nice jackets. Surely it would get padded down if I walked up with one on. If even the possibility of taking it off existed, it wouldn’t work. I spotted a white fleece with brown arms. I tried it on, and it was way too big for me. Perfect. No pockets, you could clearly see I’d taken off my other shirt beneath it, and the somewhat bulky mass of the “bandage” was completely unnoticeable below the bulk of the sleeves.

Plus, it was really goddamn cozy.

I grabbed the mirror, and was about to go back to the cart, when Kanata began whimpering beside me. I walked up to her and placed down the mirror. I knelt to her and began brushing her head again.

“Hey, you’re not still worked up about it, are you?”

I rubbed her scalp and ears, patting the sides of her belly. She was looking in a different direction, and she just wouldn’t calm down.

“What’s up, girl?”

Kanata finally looked at me, and then looked back in the direction she was previously looking. I stood up cautiously. I looked around the room for the heaviest thing I could find. The candlestick lamp was probably good. I grabbed it before realizing it was plugged into the wall, and quickly decided it wasn’t worth the try.

“Will you come with me?” I whispered to her sheepishly.

She stuck out her tongue.

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I walked in the direction for about a minute, about to give up and assume Kanata had seen a ghost, before smelling the scent that she had probably been smelling for miles. I considered urging her away and getting back on track, but something about being with Kanata put a dumb sense of confidence behind me.

I weaved through the displays as the smell of death slowly grew stronger and stronger.

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I jumped in my skin as a final corner revealed the leg of the corpse. I slowly willed myself around it to reveal the entire body.

Chest-first on the ground in front of me lay a dead woman, whose back was a completely flayed mess of dark red viscera. Her skin had been long on its way to a greenish-black, and I absolutely refused to move her head, as her mess of hair had graciously fallen in a way that kept her face hidden from view.

Kanata’s whimpering began again. For a dog that was obviously tough as nails, she enjoyed a good whine. But I wasn’t holding this one against her. I felt like crying too.

This was… the first time I had seen a body in such a state of decomposition. As I continued to look at her, images of Wyatt’s corpse began to resurface and flash in my mind. I slammed shut my eyes and fought to keep down my stomach.

I breathed deep as it settled. I opened my eyes to see a purse sitting on the ground next to the body. Though it felt extremely inappropriate, I retrieved it and began rummaging through. It looked like a normal messy purse. Opening her wallet showed an I.D. for one “Cora Perry Millard”. She looked so beautiful in her driver’s license photo. It reinforced my thanks that I couldn’t see her face now. The biggest thing in the purse was a book.

OSHA Safety Training Handbook: 8th Edition.

Why would she have this in her purse? Was she trying to learn for law school? Maybe she was already an attorney, and was trying to find a snag in some stipulation? From what I could tell of what remained, she seemed to be dressed in business attire. What had she been doing with herself before being trapped here.

I placed down her purse and stepped back, Kanata rubbing against my leg. I turned away to look towards the direction of R&E. When did this happen? She was so close to us. It was a fifteen minute walk at the most. The Staff had to have done this, right? Why hadn’t someone heard her screaming?

Had they?

Did whoever was on the wall that night just accept that there was nothing they could do? This body looked like it must have been more than a couple days old. Of course with the environment it was in, there were no flies buzzing around it, but I could tell it wasn’t fresh. That means… I walked past this the last time I was out here. I walked past this twice that day without even knowing, probably while I was thinking about some trivial shit like how I wanted to get a clever last word into a hypothetical argument with Elijah.

If I had started coming out here a week earlier, maybe I could’ve been there the day she was in trouble. Maybe I could’ve helped her…

Another whimper from Kanata brought me out of a daze. I stumbled slightly backwards.

“Come on, let’s go.”

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Kanata and I approached the gate as I brought the cart to a stop, reaching to grab the mirror before it toppled over and fell. The scene of me standing over a broken mirror as they opened the gate would have definitely been comedically gratifying, but I had the educated suspicion that this intact mirror was the only thing between me and Natalie’s fist today.

I stepped away from the cart and put my arms out wide and high (a little lower once I realized the sleeves were almost falling down my forearm).

Kanata tilted her head at me as if to ask what the fuck my silly ass was doing.

“Hey, it’s become very clear to me that I need to be on my best behavior for a while,” I said to her. “Can you try to go in half on that with me?”

Her head returned to an upright position as she wagged her tail. She walked up and rubbed herself against my leg.

“Thanks.”

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I considered telling her to stop feeding him… but I wasn’t about to assume that position, and she was probably much better at doing it discreetly than I could ever hope to be. If anything, I would just hope that pretending Kanata could fully understand what I was saying meant that she would lump that activity in with the behavior she needed to discontinue.

The reality of the situation is that I needed to tell someone. I couldn’t be the only one who knew. But who am I supposed to tell?

Elijah?

God?

I don’t know.

Because hell, It would be better to kill him myself than to tell Natalie…

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This needs to wrap up pretty fast, so here’s the status for now, and I’ll talk to you again in a little while.

I’m in an IKEA now. It’s my home, whether I enjoy calling it that or not. Trust me, I don’t, and I will never be so comfortable to call it that for more than whatever day it currently is. If I wake up the next day, it’s my home that day. If I wake up the day after that, it’s my home again. That’s a good place to start, and a much kinder fate than so many others have met here. I would like to start remembering that every day that I do wake up. No affirmations, and certainly no thanks, just friendly reminders to where I could be instead if fate had seen fit.

I feel disappointed that I didn’t get the chance to fix my old self, but I think I can make this new one at least passably mediocre.

Just imagine what I could’ve done in the old world with the tenacity that this place has forced into my hands.

Well, hang on, because I don’t want to pat myself on the back too much. I’ve been incredibly lucky, and honestly, gained the support of so many people I don’t deserve the support of. I’ve broken through some personal barriers, but let it be clear, I did it kicking and screaming all the way. I’ve been wanting to give up since my days were in the single digits. Living is like a chore, and I should have realized it was always that way before even showing up here. This is obviously a lot more dangerous of a chore than “normal life”, but I honestly have a lot less to think about. I’ve spent so much time here just lost in my head. I didn’t have much time for that in the old world. There were always so many plates spinning that I simply didn’t have the schedule opening to realize that my self-hatred was not obligatory.

I’m not really living because of some kind of tenacity anymore. Yes, this world creates a life nothing like I’ve ever seen, but I’ve just never been forced to think the way I think in here. Whilst not abandoning any emotional responsibility, I feel like I really am just someone else, for better or worse.

I’m kinda just living because I… I really just wanna find out what happens next for them.

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And mind you…

Living isn’t a good word, surviving is better.

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The sound of the opening gate began, as I looked down at Kanata, who looked politely back up to me.

“You should probably put your hands up too…”

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(Part nine coming soon!)