Living a Nightmare

HAUS FÜRSTWALL

We walk into the building and go straight up to the information desk.

"Willkommen, wie kann ich Ihnen helfen?" the lady behind the desk asks us.

"Hallo. Markus Christopher Krause," Jay replies with an extremely British accent, hoping that this answers the question the lady has just asked.

"Oh sorry, I did not know that you were English," the lady explains with a perfect English accent.

"That's okay," Jay smiles. "I am just glad that you can understand us, as none of us are any good at German," he laughs and the lady joins in.

"Are you relatives of Markus? I didn't know he had anyone left, and certainly not from the UK," she continues.

"Oh... ehm.... yeah, very distant relatives though," Jay lies and quickly looks at us, who nod in agreement.

"You are all relatives?" the lady sounds very uncertain now.

"Um... yes. This is my wife and my brother, so all relatives," Jay responds quickly, pulling me close to him to make it look like we are actually a couple.

I cannot help but smile slightly, when I feel his warm arm around my body and his hand resting on my right side, just above my waist. He smells so good up close. And I feel so protected and safe around him that I almost forget that I am in a foreign country, in an old people's home, about to meet someone I have never seen before.

"Well then, he is on the second floor, room 321. If you need anything, just let me know okay. My name is Linda."

"Thank you so much, Linda", Jay answers, then lets go of my side and we head for the lift on the opposite side of the room.

"Your wife, really?" I look at Jay. "That's the best you could come up with?"

"It was the only thing that I could think of in such a short space of time that would sound believable," he explains, unsure if I am angry or not.

The lift stops at the second floor and we get out.

"Hang on a sec. I am busting for a pee," Cedric stops us in front of the men's toilets.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

At first, while we wait for Cedric to return, neither Jay nor I speak, but then he breaks the silence. "Sorry about the wife thing," he looks at me with an apologetic look.

"If that was a pickup line, then it was really crappy," I burst out laughing, causing him to join me.

"Yeah, guess I still need to practice that a little more," he replies, still laughing.

We are interrupted by Cedric coming back out of the men's toilets. "What's going on here? What are you two laughing about?"

"Nothing, mate," Jay quickly replies. "Let's go and find Markus."

We walk down the hallway to room 321. Once we reach the door, we knock carefully and wait for an answer from inside.

"Ja bitte," a deep voice answers from the room behind the door. Slowly we open the door and enter.