The Black Doors Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Destiny

The glass window felt cool as he leaned his head against it, gazing out at the bay where it bent back behind him. There was a soft jolt as the train collided with the water’s surface. The train began to pick up speed. Faster and faster it plummeted downwards, the water slowly becoming dark and empty as it reached the bottom of the bay.

He thought he could make out shapes moving in the darkness.

He was trying to focus, but he couldn’t. He could see her face again; that face his mind would sometimes conjure up in moments like this. An exhausted face with hollow eyes. A face of someone who was hurting.

The train had made it to the other side of the bay. Slowly it resurfaced, and he could see the light blue sky above. He exited at the first stop, feeling disconnected from the noise around him, and above him. The streets were packed as always. Cars honking. Children laughing. Street performers shouting. Red balloons were floating in the air, and people were standing on their balconies. Trumpets were playing along with drums, and a procession was passing slowly down the street parallel to him.

He stopped at an empty bus stop on the corner of Y Street. The sketch book he’d been carrying fell open in his lap. He took up one of his pencils and began to draw. He was drawing her again, the face he had seen on the train. He’d drawn her many times, but no matter how many times he had, there always seemed to be something missing in her white face and blue eyes.

“Who’s that?” a small voice asked. A boy was leaning over his shoulder.

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

“She’s pretty,” the boy said.

“Thank you,” he said, “I think so too.”

A woman shouted at the boy from somewhere up the street and the boy took off. He watched as the boy caught up with his mother and took her hand. The bus pulled up. He stood instead of sitting all the way to M street, bracing himself with one hand as the bus rolled down slopes, and up hills. He signaled for the driver to stop, and climbed down the steps onto the sidewalk. It was quieter there than it had been downtown. A breeze passed along the street from the ocean, and played through the trees. He realized how cold it was, and pulled his jacket a little tighter around him.

His house was located passed M street, where the street turned alongside the beach, and ended up at a spot where a few tall trees grew.

In the morning, when he would wake, he imagined he could smell the sea from his open window.

He turned the key in the lock of the front door. His dog was there waiting for him, stretching his paws, and sniffing the air through his excessive panting. There was silence inside, besides the sound of his scurrying feet, and his brother playing softly on the grand piano in the entry room hall.

He went straight upstairs, his eyes lingering on the door to his studio for a moment before he entered his room. He threw his jacket over the back of his desk chair, and fell back into his bed, letting the sketchbook he’d been carrying slip from his hands, and fall open onto the floor.

last thing he was conscience of was the soft light that came passing in through his window before he slipped away into dreams.

* * *

The city rose up out of the darkness. She watched the tall towers through the glass in amazement, noticing the way mist seemed to be hanging around them, illuminated by the cascading lights all around. They felt distant. Or maybe, she felt distant. She was simply a traveler, passing through on a long ride home.

For a moment, she could forget everything that was going on. She could sit there in the darkness, almost sleepy, almost dreaming, as lights passed dimly out the window. Moments like that where things are so utterly still don’t always have to end. Though days pass so quickly by afterwards, though her life might feel like a train speeding along out of control, moments like that could last forever in her mind. She could look back on them later, that memory precisely, and see again the tall towers looming up out of the mist. Feel lulled into sleep by the car’s rhythmic passage over the asphalt freeway.

“They say she lost her passion for life,” someone was saying. Kisses flashed across her mind. Desires that had wrenched at her heart she could still feel now. Longings and dreams, hopes and fears. The lights that cascaded through the windows flashed across her face, but still everything was distant. Like those towers she had seen out the window. Every feeling felt like it belonged to someone else. She felt more like a character in a story than someone fully self-possessed. Someone staring into the interiors of their own soul, wondering what it is they were seeing. What it was that they were feeling, and if somehow the two things coincided.

“Spread your wings and you’ll fly,” a voice said. A voice that was too much. The thought was as poignant as the memory playing across her skin. A hand brushing her gently, telling her this was what life was all about. Love made life.

The story starts at the beginning. At least where her beginning was. But lives are so much more than pages of a book. They sprawl out through infinity. They drop like pebbles in a pool, sending ripples across the surface.

This one has a beginning. It starts with a girl named Destiny walking down a familiar street. She could see clouds in the distance. She could feel tears wanting to make their way down from her eyelids. They felt like they could pour for almost any reason, like her emotions were a loaded gun, waiting to go off. Then it started to rain. It was pouring by the time she reached a familiar, old looking bus stop. Wanting a way out of the rain, she sat under its slanted roof for cover, contemplating what to do next. It can be a terrible feeling when all the roads seem cut out for you by someone else. Even worse when none of them are ones you like.

That’s when the bus pulled up.

She had no real reason to board it. And, sitting there beneath the downpour, she didn’t even know if it was a good idea. But she did, and the doors closed behind her, and they were away. The railings felt cool as she gripped them for support. The bus driver was not welcoming in any way as she slid a dollar into the ticket machine and tore off her ticket. The other passengers on the bus weren’t any better. One, an elderly man, was engrossed in a newspaper he was reading. He looked like he was on his way home from vacation. His travel bags rested beside his feet on the floor of the bus, and he was wearing a button up, Hawaiian shirt that stretched over his broad belly. To top it off was a fisherman’s hat that hung low over his face, exposing little else besides his big nose, and furry beard.

A girl around Destiny’s age was staring worriedly out through the glass window. The rain was still pouring hard against the glass. Destiny would have thought rain was always pouring from the expression on the young girl’s face.

A boy was sitting with an old, ‘twenty’s derby resting on his head and suspenders holding up a pair of slacks over his shoulders. He didn’t seem worried. More just like he was waiting; like he had been waiting for a long time, but that didn’t matter to him. At least that was what she gathered from the innocent expression on his face.

To say something felt off would be an understatement. As it so happened, Destiny was not in the mood for panicking. She took up a seat near the back of the bus, and sat there quite still, wondering why all the other passengers seemed not to have noticed her. Not to have noticed anything, for that matter. Not that anything much had happened. But they looked so blank.

There was one who didn’t look so lost. He was a young man with a pleasant face and overly long, dark bangs. Unlike the others, his eyes were now darting towards the back of the bus every now and then. He seemed like he was making an attempt at being subtle, but Destiny saw through it. He was looking at her, and she knew now that she should be scared. Not that there was anything particularly scary about the boy’s face. There wasn’t. Actually, there was something inviting even about him. But Destiny didn’t care. She had had enough.

Eerily, she stood up to pull the cord that lined the top of the windows, signaling the bus to stop. Destiny was used to the buses in the heart of the city that would light up on a screen overhead saying “Stop request made.” But this bus was evidently much older, as the bus stop had been, and there was no screen, and no sound was made. When it became clear the bus was not going to stop, Destiny went to the front and stood behind the driver.

“I would like to stop here,” she said, not unkindly. The bus driver made no reply. He didn’t even fidget at hearing her voice, “Excuse me,” Destiny began again, her tone getting edgier, “I said I would like to get off here...” but the driver didn’t answer. He just sat there.

Feeling defeated and slightly horrified thinking about all the possibilities something like this happening could pose, Destiny made her way back to a vacant seat and sat down. “The bus driver won’t stop,” the less oblivious boy was suddenly saying, “For those who don’t know where they are going.”

Destiny looked at him, a total stranger, wondering at how he could speak with so much familiarity in his voice, as if he and Destiny had been classmates for years who merely never spoke much together while at school. “I don’t understand,” she said dully.

The boy shook his head slightly to the side, “I’m guessing you don’t know where you are going?” he asked, “That’s alright you know. Everyone has those times in life where they just don’t know what to do next. It’s nothing to be upset about.”

“I’m not upset,” Destiny said, feeling all of a sudden ridiculous for answering him back with the same familiarity he had spoken to her with. Truthfully, by this point, a part of her mind was telling her that she should be deathly afraid. The boy stood up and walked over to the back of the bus.

He was grinning in a way that was too innocently amused to be malicious, as if he knew exactly what Destiny’s fears were, “Well you have to be worried,” he said, sitting next to her. Destiny ignored him, her pulse quickening as she stared out the empty glass window. She no longer recognized the part of town they were driving through, which scared her even more.

She could scream. That might do some good. The other passenger’s couldn’t be in on this, too, could they? This couldn’t be some kind of sick joke they were all playing on her, could it?

“Relax,” the boy said, “You can get off with me, just up the road a little ways, “I’m Adriel by the way.”

At last, the bus stopped, and the doors slid open. The boy named Adriel stood up and walked down the bus in long strides, leaving Destiny to wonder if he always walked like that, or if this particular moment was just for show.

Still the passengers hadn’t looked up. She ran for the door, hoping her pent up scream might be of more use outside should someone choose to molest her than it would have been in the bus. But it didn’t really look like anyone was around as Destiny stumbled out onto a silent and dark city street.

Adriel was a few yards away from her, down the sidewalk. He was looking back at her almost expectantly. Destiny didn’t pay attention to him for another moment. She was on her feet, walking quickly the opposite way she had come, checking carefully over her shoulder often to make sure he wasn’t following her.

Needless to say, she was scared. No one seemed to be out, and wherever she was had to be the darkest place in the city. Then, someone was there. He was watching her down the street a ways. At first, Destiny thought that the man in the shadows was Adriel from the bus, but as they drew within speaking distance, it became clear it wasn’t him. This man was far darker than Adriel had been, and he wore a tall hat over long dreadlocks that hung from his head.

“Lost, Ma'am?” he asked, “Maybe I can find you a place to stay.” The stranger was smiling a rotten old smile, and he reached out a hand to take Destiny’s wrist. Destiny screamed, and started running.

Fright gave everything a strange tint. But others seemed to be chasing her now. Shadows flashed beneath the street lights as she ran. When at last she reached a dead end, and she feared she could run no more, she turned to see the shadows flickering under the moonlight. She readied herself to fight, but suddenly, the shadows halted in their place. Destiny’s heart was beating too fast. She was scared beyond her wits, but she stood there, ready.

Then they all began to disappear.

Adriel stood in the middle of the street, gazing down into the alleyway, “Would you like to come with me now?” he asked loudly.

“Why should I trust you?” Destiny asked. Her voice was terrified. Her horror brought a sad, painful look to Adriel’s face.

“You don’t need to trust me,” Adriel said, “But you’re safe with me. I promise you are.”

Slowly, feeling incredibly dumb and afraid, Destiny approached Adriel, “Where the hell am I?” she asked.

Adriel was staring at her with a puzzled look on his face.“The City of Lost Dreams,” he answered her.

“I don’t understand,” Destiny said.

“Come with me,” Adriel said, and he turned away from her.

Destiny followed him through the dark streets where not a single thing moved. Not a single light was lit. Not a single noise was made. Then they came out into a better looking part of town. If Destiny had not been so frightened, she would have even thought it looked charming.

“You want to go home, right?” Adriel asked her. He was glaring at her, his eyes intense, as if he were seeing something she couldn’t.

“I want to go home.” Destiny affirmed him.

Adriel took her up to a place where Destiny could see the tallest towers of the city looming above her in the mist, and the ocean stretching out away from her. He took her to a station, just a short way away from a silent bridge, and stood with her before a man that looked much the same as the driver on the bus had.

“Can you honestly look this man in the face, and tell him from the bottom of your heart where it is you want to go?” Adriel asked her, his voice serious, and edgy.

“Yes!” Destiny said, “I want to go home!”

But the man just stood there. He didn’t say a thing; just stared blankly out across the platform.

“I didn’t think so,” Adriel said. He turned, and began walking away from the station.

“Wait a minute!” Destiny yelled after him, “Just hold on!”

Adriel looked back at her, “What?” he asked.

“I. Want. To. Go. HOME!” Destiny said each word between panicked breaths, “Why doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“Believe me; it does,” Adriel said, and for a moment, Destiny thought a tear was shining in his eye. Then it was gone, “Nothing in the world means more to me than that statement. But you have to accept that you’re somewhere else now. You’re here, in the place where lost dreams go. Lost people. Lost souls like you and me. And unless you have someone to help you, you will stay lost.  Come with me, and I will keep you safe. Try to find your way back on your own, and good luck.”

Destiny glared at him, “Look, Mister,” she began, “I don’t know why no one else seems to be able to hear a word I say, or why you’re the only one that can, but this is really, really freaking me out, and I don’t trust strangers I meet on the bus to take me home with them.”

“Are we really strangers?” Adriel asked with that same familiarity. Then he seemed to think better of what he just said, and shook his head, “Do what you want,” he said, “I saved you already. Don’t trust me, or trust me. You’re dumb to do either one.”

And, with that, he was walking away from her.

Destiny stood where she was. It had started to rain while she and Adriel were talking. She watched him walk through the downpour, and signal a taxi on the street corner.

He looked back over his shoulder, just once as he opened the door to let himself in. A small voice inside Destiny’s head was telling her to go. Telling her to trust him. No, maybe not a voice, but a feeling. A knowing that somehow she knew this boy, and that he really was the only way for her to be safe tonight.

T

he taxi ride was silent except for the downpour outside. Out of the corner of her eye, Destiny saw Adriel sitting still next to her, looking troubled, “Do you really not know where you are?” a voice inside her head was asking. She listened to it, and realized what it meant. She’d been here, in this city, before. In a way, she’d been here for a while now, or was headed this way.

“And where is it you want to go?” her voice asked her. Slowly, she slipped into dreams, and tears stung her eyes as she tried to find the answer to that question.