Part One: Daniel
It took me a few moments to recognize the taste in my mouth. It was sweet, yet stale, intoxicating. Blood. My Blood. How long it had been there I wasn’t sure. I spat a mass of reddish brown phlegm onto the floor, but the taste still lingered.
It was cold. Why was it so cold? I lifted my arms to pull my jacket tighter around me. I wasn’t wearing my jacket.
What day was it? Thursday? No, it couldn’t be Thursday. I always took out the trash on Thursday. I hadn’t taken out the trash. It might have been Saturday. There was a pounding in my head that was characteristic to Saturday mornings. Saturday mornings came from Friday nights. Friday nights came from the long week that had preceded them and Happy Hour down at Charlie’s. Charlie was good to me. He helped me forget about work and Tim and Karen. Charlie never told me I’d had too much. Charlie never took my glass away.
But no, it couldn’t be Saturday morning either. My shirt didn’t smell like vomit, and I wasn’t passed out the wrong way across my bed with the covers in a bundle between my legs. I wasn’t in my bed. Jesus, where was I? I looked around the room. It wasn’t very big. About the size of a jail cell, or maybe two jail cells jammed together. Christ, I don’t know. I’ve never been to jail.
The sea green paint that covered the walls had begun to peel away, revealing the blotchy grey concrete that lay beneath it. Was that mildew? It smelled like mildew.
There was a window on one wall, if you could call it a window. It was about eight feet from the floor, half a foot from the ceiling. Age had turned the glass a dirty yellowish brown color that faded into black at the corners. It didn’t let in much light. Most of the light in the room came from two fluorescent lights overhead. The one on the left was flickering. I could make out the silhouettes of dead moths that had gotten stuck behind the glass, seduced by the bluish glow of the light bulbs that promised warmth. But these lights had no warmth to give.
My company in to room was a rather dejected crew. An old wooden desk that had been shoved against the wall across from me, a brown metal folding chair with bits of yellow foam protruding from holes in the flesh of the tan leather seat. There was a black gooseneck lamp on the desk, and the neck had been bent so that I could see inside the rim. The broken stub of a light bulb was still screwed into it.
In the far corner of the wall to my right there was a door. It was grey. The sort of dark grey that lets you know it’s made of something heavy. I was slumped against a wall. The window was above me to my left. I looked down at the dark brown speckles on the concrete floor and wiped the blood from my bottom lip. Had I been in a fight? There was a brown stain down the front of my shirt. My good shirt. The white shirt that I always wore with the blue and yellow striped tie, only I wasn’t wearing the tie. Shit. I liked this shirt.
I decided to try the door. My legs weren’t much help to me. It hurt to stand on them, and I had to struggle to get across the room. The steel handle was cold. Colder than the stale air in the room. It didn’t turn; it didn’t budge. I pushed. The door didn’t open. I couldn’t hold myself up any longer, and my legs gave out.
The ground on this side of the room was like ice. It hadn’t had a chance to absorb my body heat. I was too tired to stand up, too tired to move, too tired to sleep. But I slept anyway. It was all I could do.
It was nighttime when I woke up, or at least I assumed it was. The little bit of light that had been coming in through the yellowed window had ceased. My head didn’t hurt as bad now, and I could think clearer. I sat up and rubbed my temples. I wasn’t panicking. I wasn’t thinking quite that clear.
I was thirsty. There was water. I took three gulps from the glass before dropping it onto the concrete floor and listening to it shatter. My body jolted backwards as my hands grappled for something to hold onto.
“Who the hell are you?” It was the first time since I’d woken up that I’d heard the sound of my voice. It sounded strange…raspy…panicked. I was staring at the hand that had been holding the water glass. I tried to focus on the green flicker.
A ring. The emerald stone in the middle was glowing like hellfire.
“What the fuck is going on here?”
I worked to stand up. Under the circumstances the fact that I’d regained control of my legs didn’t excite me too much. The man was still stooping down, and I could see his face now. He had chestnut brown hair and dark eyebrows that hovered above hazel green eyes. His pink lips were drawn up in a half smirk. This annoyed me.
He raised one eyebrow at me and brought himself up to my level.
“What am I doing here,” I murmured, unaware of the fact that I was walking backwards. My back hit a wall, “Who the fuck are you?”
He advanced towards me, all the time continuing to smile that smile that might have made you like him if it didn’t make you want to punch his lights out.
“As far as you’re concerned,” he said as he reached over, casually plucked a hair off my shoulder and twisted it between his fingers before letting it fall to the floor, “I’m God.”
