Coextensive

Part 1

My head was spinning. My eyes felt like they were on the verge of falling out of my head. An earthquake rattled in my head, and as I got up from the ground, it ached and pounded relentlessly. It felt as though there were two ton weights dangling by a string from my limbs and every tiny movement was a battle on its own.

I couldn't remember how I got here. The ground was solid, it wasn't grass. Somehow, I remember grass. But it wasn't. The floor was that of hard cement, the walls were rough and I couldn't see anything. Wherever I was, it had no windows.

But there had to be one. As I ran my hand across the wall, which felt of rough stone, I could feel a light, warm breeze on my face.

Which was when a door swung open, filling the room with its blindingly effulgent illuminance. After a minute or two of letting my eyes readjust to the sudden brightness with a hand shielding my eyes, I walked through the door. No one was there. No one opened the door for me. A yellow arrow was painted on the ground, leading me to a corner shaped like the number seven. Before I knew it, I was standing in the middle of a hallway with a chandelier hanging above me. There were also other people. People who were lost like me. At least nine of us.

"Who the *fuck* are you?" A brutish white man called out at me, his voice strained, angered, filtered through gritted teeth.

"John, stop it!" This was a woman this time, a brunette. Her eyes were fierce, obviously upset by the way the brutish man was acting. Her hand was on his right shoulder, holding him back.

"He could be the one, Abbie!" He yelled pointing at me as though I'm some criminal to be sneered at. The rest looked at me. An Asian man, not passed twenty with thick dark glasses covering his eyes shook his head.

Abbie sighed as she ran a hand through her long hair. "Look, we can't go assuming every person who walks out a room is *him*, alright? He could be one of us." She turned to look at me. Her dark green eyes burrowed deep into mine as she stared at me. "It's not *him*." She said nodding.

"How can you f-" John tried to yell again but Abbie placed her hand on his shoulder again.

"Look at him. He's weak, ragged, and he stinks. Just like the rest of us. His eyes are red too." She nods again as she turned to meet me in the eyes. "If it was *him*, he wouldn't be in such a bad shape. He's one of us."

"Fine. Just, be careful." He gave me one final look, and stormed off up the stairs.

"Hey, name's Abbie." She said as she let out her hand to shake mine. I shook it and looked around me. The hallway was a rather large opening, with two doors behind us. A single, grand, wooden staircase, lead up to where more rooms were littered across a very narrow walkway. The lighting was horrible. The chandelier hardly illuminated the room, the rest of us standing there, or Abbie's determined expression clearly plastered on her ebony face.

"Wes." I introduced myself.

"Good to know. Some of us couldn't remember our names for a while after we woke up." She replied.

"What's this about red eyes?" I asked her, intrigued.

"The drug they use," the Asian man answered. "It's pretty heavy hitting stuff. It makes your eyes red."

"Yes, exactly what Dennis said. You're lucky you didn't end up like some of us." She jerked her head to the side. But I didn't understand what she meant.

"Where are we? And why did that guy-"

"We don't know. We just woke up here. Leave him, John just needs time to cool off." She said as she pointed to three other men standing by the corner. One wore a red hoodie, and the other two were in plain shirts, one colored blue, and the other white.