Sleep Magazine (Completed)

The Energy: 2

Upon entering the room, the first thing Celia sensed about the space was its emptiness. 

Though there were about a dozen people seated on the floor, some arranged in small groups while others leaned against the walls, the room was void of any furniture. Its only decoration was a set of three transparent tanks, covered with mesh tops and filled with small leafy plants, set against the wall to the right. 

Atop one of the tanks sat a small, off-brand portable speaker that played a pop-techno mashup at medium volume. 

Second only to the peculiarity of the room's bareness was its lighting; two single light bulbs hung from the ceiling, one red and one blue, spaced about ten feet apart. The two colors mixed together to illuminate one half of the room a maroon-ish red while the farther side of the room looked more violet-toned. 

In the very center of the space sat a device that resembled an amplifier with six long coils of clear plastic tubing coming out of the top and snaking down the sides of the square, black casing to rest on the floor. Brass mouthpieces were fixed to the ends of the skinny tubes, mimicking the design of a hookah. A drawstring pouch, large enough to fit a baseball inside, sat on the carpet next to the device, opened and half full of small, shiny granules. 

The substance looked blackish-blue under the colored lights, but Celia suspected that this wasn't its true color. After taking in the unusual atmosphere in silence, AJ and Celia went to sit against the one wall in the room that did not have any other people seated by it, under the blue light bulb and beside the three tanks. 

They sat close together with their knees bent and arms touching, and glanced around at the older people who sat across from them in groups of three or four, who all held various conversations and paid little attention to anyone outside of their own small parties. 

AJ turned his head to look at Celia who was glancing straight ahead nervously.

"What do you think?" he asked softly.

"I don't know..." she answered. She made brief eye contact with AJ before darting her eyes back to the scene across from her. 

By the opposite wall, two men and two women sat facing one another in a circle with their legs criss-crossed. A door to a small bathroom hung wide open beside them. The teenagers could not hear the group's conversation but it looked intense, the women making exaggerated movements with their arms.

"Who the fuck are these people?" Celia chuckled. She rested her head back against the wall and, taking comfort in her soberness amongst the room of wasted people nearing thirty, began to relax. 

The more she observed them, the less nervous she became, until eventually she pitied for them for acting so ridiculous, especially at their age. She couldn't imagine being so stoned even now, never mind in ten years.

AJ brought his lips to her ear and she felt them curl into a smirk.

"Hippies," he replied in a whisper, making her smile widely.

As he pulled away from her she felt him jolt spastically, and she sat up straight in response, scooting a few inches forward from the wall.

"What?" she asked eagerly, matching his shocked expression.

AJ stared past Celia's shoulder and she sucked in a sharp breath as she turned her head to follow his line of sight behind her. Her eyes immediately fixed on the tank next to her, as her vision slowly sharpened enough in the dim room to make out a slight movement of shapes under the mesh top. 

The moment she registered what they were—a mass of several tarantulas, tangled together and hanging upside down from the mesh lid, encased in a thick web—she shuddered and flung herself over AJ's lap to land at his other side.