“Soraya…who is Ahvi?” Jesmine’s voice repeated from afar.

Soraya’s gaze drifted around the dark room. On the far side stood a four-poster bed with a bare mattress and a set of drawers tucked underneath it. The only other object in the room was a desk sitting beneath the sole window on her left, its blinds half-drawn. Yellow streetlight spilled across the desk and carpet, stretching halfway up the wall, making the room feel smaller.

It was as if no one truly had been living there for the entire summer…but she knew better.

However, Ahvi was…

Gone.

Walking into the room in a daze, Soraya opened the drawers one after another, only to find that every one was indeed…empty. Spinning around, leaving the drawers open, she turned to the desk, checking to see if Ahvi had left a note behind to explain her strange disappearance.

There was nothing.

She opened the desk drawer and found the same thing. Vacant. Barren. Empty.

“Soraya,” Jesmine’s voice called from the doorway. “No one has lived in this room the entire time we’ve been in here. It’s just been me and you.”

Soraya’s heart hammered against her ribcage. An electric buzz shot up and down her arms, and she felt her body humming with the same question her mind was asking.

Am I going insane?

“Hey, hey,” Jesmine said in a soothing voice—one Soraya didn’t hear often. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll get you figured out. How about you come back out here to the living room and sit on the couch and veg out to some shows? I’ll get the snacks.”

Soraya looked over at Jesmine, who nodded at her encouragingly. She…was she on something? Had not realized it until now? Was it the black mold—can black mold cause intense hallucinations?

Ears ringing, she was about to take a step toward her friend when she steeled herself.

No!

She was not going crazy. She knew the truth, even though she could feel it rapidly fading from her mind. She clung to it, hardened herself around it, and a headache instantly flared behind her right eye. But she held fast.

If she was the only one who was, in fact, sane between the two of them, then she needed to convince Jesmine to leave the apartment. Maybe she can tell her she was going to have a panic attack unless they left for the night. Once she got Jesmine out of there, she could plan the next step and figure out what happened to Ahvi. She had disappeared, and there wasn’t a trace of her left. All Soraya could do at that very moment was desperately hope she was safe.

She also knew that what was happening to her, to them—it was bad. Really, really bad. Was it collective poisoning from lead pipes? Carbon monoxide? Was someone pumping gas into their apartment to collectively kill them all for being too loud, causing mass hallucinations until they met their untimely end?

There were real psychos out there. Either way, they needed to leave the apartment.

Briefly, Soraya wondered if the past couple of hours had happened. Alkimos, the street fight, Makoto, the white glittering rooms, and the tsunami—she could still hear the faint rumble in her ears.

Soraya clapped her hands together to snap herself out of it. “Alright,” she said, looking up at Jesmine, who had pursed her lips. “We need to pack and…what’s that in your pocket?” Soraya’s eyes darted to a familiar lump in Jesmine’s jacket.

Jesmine pulled something out of her right pocket, “Just my phone.”

“Your other pocket,” Soraya whispered, chills breaking out across her skin.

Confused, Jesmine patted her left pocket and realized that something was indeed in there. She reached in and pulled out—

“That’s my gun,” Soraya stated. Her gaze locked onto Jesmine as she watched her friend frown down at the weapon in her hand.

Jesmine opened her mouth, closed it, pondered for a moment, then opened it again and asked, “Why do I have your gun?”

Because Jesmine was on that street with Soraya. Because Soraya had brought the gun when she was tracking down Jesmine, who had called her in distress. Because it must have fallen out of her waistband when she was spirited away by Makoto.

“You tell me,” Soraya said, hoping against hope that Jesmine remembered something. “I brought that gun with me because you called me for help. Remember? We met at the intersection up the street. You hit a monster with a car.”

Jesmine continued to stare at the gun. “I—“ she began before abruptly cutting herself off.

Faster than Soraya could react, Jesmine’s whole body stiffened, as if she had come into contact with a live wire. Her head jerked backwards, and the gun fell from her hand as she dropped to the floor and started to convulse.

“Jesmine!” Soraya shouted. She ran to her friend and dropped to her knees beside her, quickly realizing Jesmine was having a seizure.

Pulling out her phone, Soraya dialed the emergency line while turning Jesmine onto her side. Her mind went blank as she sat by her friend, unaware of how much time had passed until the first responders arrived in their apartment and strapped Jesmine to a gurney. Soraya blinked, and suddenly she was riding in the back of the ambulance, watching as they intubated her friend.

She blinked again and found herself sitting in a waiting room. Generic paintings hung on bland walls, and the cold, sterile air was like a blanket to her warm, numb skin. Soraya didn’t know how long she waited before the doctor came in and told her that they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with Jesmine. They wanted to keep her overnight for observation.

Soraya thanked the doctor and gave him her phone number in case there were any more updates before leaving the hospital in a trance.

When she came to, she realized she was sitting on Ahvi’s mattress. The only thought she could muster was that Ahvi was safe for now—away from the apartment. At least, she hoped so.

The gun was sitting beside her on the bed. She didn’t know how or why it was there, but she knew it was coming with her once she packed and headed out. The question was: where would she go?

The shopkeeper from I’dolen Hollows—Laura—crossed her mind. Maybe she can help, Soraya thought desperately. Delilah crossed her mind as well, but she had no way of getting in touch with her oldest friend and she needed to move now. She decided she would send an email to let Delilah know they were on the move.

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Then there was the matter of Ahvi.

Once more, Soraya looked around her empty room. It was true that she never stepped foot inside of Ahvi’s room until now. But she could have sworn she had peeked a glance or two when Ahvi was coming in or out, and she had seen her belongings.

Hadn’t I?

That was the most puzzling part of the night. Looking down at her phone, she stared at the unanswered text she had sent Ahvi. She clicked out of the text messages and pulled up Ahvi’s contact info. Her finger hovered over the call button. It wasn’t the first time she had tried to call Ahvi that night, but she secretly hoped that the outcome would be different this time.

She hit call.

The phone’s dial tone went through, but it was abruptly met with an odd chime before an automated voice informed her, “We’re sorry. The phone number you dialed is out of service—“

Soraya hung up and pocketed her phone.

“Who is Ahvi?” Jesmine’s voice echoed in her ears. Over and over again. It didn’t make any sense. How in the world could Jesmine forget about Ahvi? They have been roommates for…a couple of months now. All of them had become fast friends and—

Soraya’s eyes widened as a ringing began in her ears. She could feel fog rolling through her mind, seeping into the very folds of her brain. She slammed her eyes shut, forcing the fog to stop its advance. She wasn’t sure how or why, but for the past couple of hours, whenever she heard the ringing and felt the fog, she knew it was coming for her memories.

She repeated to herself, “Frog monsters, white rooms, tsunami, Makoto and Alkimos.”

She repeated it over and over again until the headache disappeared. The episodes were coming faster now, and she didn’t know how long she could keep them at bay, or if she was even succeeding. What had she forgotten? How would she know if she was missing memories?

Panicked, she jumped up from Ahvi’s bed and ran out of the room. She didn’t stop when she flung the front door open, continuing her mad dash back to the intersection where her night had gone from bad to worse.

Feet pounding down the pavement, she chased after her memories until she arrived at the corner where she had initially stopped with Alkimos at her back a couple of hours earlier.

It was completely empty. No car. No monsters. Not even any debris.

She scanned the intersection for evidence of the earlier fight, even checking the school’s gate where the monster had dented the metal when it was flung against it. Soraya still wasn’t sure how it was sent flying at the gate, just as she wasn’t sure how she’d seen two men flying, with wings on their backs.

When her eyes landed on the gate, she took off sprinting to it to get a closer look. Out of breath, her eyes darted around the perfectly pristine iron bars. There was no visible damage anywhere.

Maybe, I should have checked myself into the hospital, Soraya thought. With shaky legs, she took a step back from the gate.

The gate had been damaged. She had seen it get damaged. How was this possible? How was any of this possible?

She was losing her mind. There was no way around it. How long had she been losing her mind? A day? Two? The entire past week? Her whole life?

What was the age range for schizophrenia? Was memory loss a symptom of schizophrenia?

What else had she imagined?

Breathing harder than usual, she could feel the panic building inside her when her stomach gave a violent lurch. It was like an unleashing. Hunger pangs, more intense than she’d ever known, attacked her stomach, almost making her double over from the pain.

Clutching her belly, her stomach howled with want. At first, she tried to ignore it—she was in the middle of a meltdown, for god’s sake—but her stomach felt like it was beginning to tear itself apart.

Grunting, she hunched over in pain as the ringing entered her ears. She was defenseless to stop the hazy fog creeping into her mind. Weakly, she began to walk aimlessly into the deserted street, one hand on her stomach, the other clutching the side of her head.

Frog monsters. White rooms. Tsunami. Alkimos and Makoto.

Frog monsters. Tsunami. Alkimos and Makoto.

Frog Monsters, Alkimos and Makoto.

Frog Monsters, and, and—

Hunger.

She was so hungry.

When the headache subsided, Soraya stood shaking on the opposite street corner. She was on the side of the Village, a collection of student dorms sitting atop shops and restaurants.

Why was she there in the middle of the night?

A gentle breeze blew past her, and she could faintly smell the comforting notes of lavender and sea salt.

Her stomach gargled like a dying animal.

That was right. She had gone out to look for food when Jesmine had given her a call. When she returned to the apartment, she found Jesmine passed out on their living room floor. Jesmine had been admitted into the hospital, and Soraya had gone home when she got hungry again.

Looking at the empty Village, she knew everything was closed at this hour, but she must have forgotten…

Sighing, she felt unsettled. What had happened to Jesmine must have really shaken her up. Crossing her arms over her chest, she began to walk around the corner to head back down the street toward her apartment when a delicious aroma of food wafted through the air.

Stopping in her tracks, she breathed in the scent deeply and snapped her head up like a bloodhound on the hunt. Practically running around the corner, she sniffed the air and found an eatery still open. It smelled incredible.

Her stomach growled again.

Stepping closer, she noticed a faint light glowing around the edges of the drawn blinds. She couldn’t see or hear anything coming from inside the small shop, and she didn’t question why such a place was open at this time of night. She was only glad it was opened at all.

What she assumed was the shop's name was chipped and faded on an aged, heavy wooden door, making it impossible to decipher. This was odd because all the shops and apartments in the Village were brand new; they had only been open for about two years.

It must have been part of the aesthetic the shop owner was going for. Rustic.

Soraya didn’t care. The aroma of something savory and freshly baked called to her from the other side of the door. She grabbed the scratched brass handle, and a little electric shock zapped up her arm, but it didn’t stop her from yanking the heavy door open.

Stepping inside, a strange sensation of energy trickled over her skin as she entered fully into the room. It sluiced off her a second later, but she paid no mind to it as she looked around for where to place an order.

She was relieved to see other customers inside. At a quick glance, people sat around sturdy wooden tables, their hooded heads bent toward one another or over steaming plates of tasty looking food. The tables had lit lanterns at their centers, and a few lights hung on the wooden walls around the room. Rustic indeed.

Hushed murmurs and the clinking of metal utensils against plates drew her further inside. Finally, spotted the bar at the far side of the room. People stood around the U-shaped counter, and it was clearly standing room only.

Making her way across the floor, she spotted a slight opening between two figures wearing black cloaks, their hoods covering their heads.

The people here must have been from a local theater group. She remembered some classmates mentioning that when their theater group finishes with a late show, they often go to a restaurant to celebrate. She vowed to buy a ticket to their show as a token of appreciation for having the restaurant open at this hour.

She could feel her baser instincts take over as she stumbled to the counter, squeezing between the black-cloaked figures. Hunger consumed her completely the moment she spotted a complimentary breadbasket. Without hesitation, she reached for a golden roll and stuffed it into her watering mouth.

She polished it off in seconds and reached for another, shoving it directly into her face. By her third roll, her tastebuds finally registered the subtle sweetness mixed with the fluffy goodness of freshly baked bread—she was in starch-filled heaven.

“Is anyone going to stop her from eating all our bread?” a male voice questioned.

Their bread? The fucking audacity of men to assume they own every goddamn thing. Soraya would have rolled her eyes, but just as she reached for a fourth roll, a hand snatched the basket out of her reach—or tried too.

With agility she didn’t know she possessed, her hand shot out and gripped the other side of the woven basket. An inhuman snarl erupted from deep within her chest.

“Holy Gods!” The male voice yelped as the hand let go of the basket. “She nearly took my hand off!”

Soraya ignored the heathen as she pulled the basket to her chest and took out another bread roll. The bastard would just have to wait for the waiter to bring a fresh basket—and she might let him have one if she wasn’t still so hungry.

A deep, raspy chuckle came from her right. “You shouldn’t have touched her breadbasket, Nokoa.”

“Her breadbasket? We paid for it,” Nokoa grumbled.

Soraya didn’t catch that last part as she chewed on her fifth piece of bread.

“Poor little thing is starving. I can understand that, and so can all of you,” the raspy voice replied.

Soraya threw her loose hair over her shoulder as it was beginning to fall into the breadbasket. The man to her right stiffened and inhaled sharply.

“You good, Raz?”

As Soraya reached for her sixth piece of bread, a cloaked arm wrapped around her shoulders, enveloping her in warmth and…

Soraya moaned around the bite of food in her mouth as she turned into the chest of the man and breathed in another delicious scent.

“So this is how we meet, hungry little mate,” the raspy voice chuckled good-naturally.

Soraya reached for her seventh—and sadly, the last—piece of bread.