5 YEARS EARLIER
I always told myself it would never end like that. I pretended that I would never be the person that would go that far, make that dive. Yet, there I was, standing in the face of what I had always doubted in denial. Mother thought that I was just going out to grab a few items from the shop, so I would have some spare time to make it out. I had brought nothing and I had saved nothing. All I had were two people that I knew could share this journey with me, one named Paul Monoray, and another was a girl that would only refer herself to Paul and I as Jani.
Finally I reached Paul's house, a seemingly vacant space surrounded by nothing but bare ground. The gray sky gave it a hue of anguish. I reached out to ring his doorbell, but the second that I stepped up to the door I realized he had been waiting by the window, and he began to open the door before I could even begin. I do not recall how quickly we left, but the next thing I knew we were both running in the pounding rain.
Jani was sitting by the front gates of the town waiting for us just as we had planned. By then the rain was falling as hard as hail, and she appeared to be in immense pain. Because of the weather I could not tell if she was crying or not, but there was no time to find out, either. We could only run. The only thing we were sure of was our destination: a secluded city on the outskirts of Vander without a name.
It was lit entirely by oil lamps as we approached it, and there were about a hundred or so people standing outside staring at us. By now the rain had shrank down to a drizzle.
“New visitors!” a man yelled.
A Soldier dressed in a camouflage uniform walked up to the three of us and led us to a small shack nestled underneath the branches of a large tree. The people crowded in the circle continued to share comments between each other, occasionally looking back at us.
“Wha – What’s the big commotion?” Jani asked.
“Oh don’t mind them, they just haven't seen a new visitor in ages. It's a small town, you know.”
We walked in and were seated. The room was a tad stuffy, but not overbearingly so. The chairs were comfortable enough, and the beds across the hall looked nice as well. These were the only 2 rooms. Along with the rain, the outside chatter had died down to nearly nothing. As I looked over I noticed that Jani was staring off into the distance strangely.
“Jani, is there something wrong?” I asked.
“Oh nothing, nothing...” she said, blushing at the Solider in the other room.
The Soldier came back after a minute with some cups of tea and handed them to us. He looked at me first.
“Whats your name, boy?”
“My name's Nate Velroy, and why do you care?”
“Why it's just a question, boy.”
“I don't like being questioned, sir.”
I could tell he was holding back his anger.
“Fair enough, but please, Nate tell me what brings you all to a place like this. Not even on the map anymore last time I checked, and that was pretty long ago...” the Solider said.
“Exactly. That's why we're here. All three of us” I replied. I looked at the others for a moment then back at the Soldier.
“What's going on?”
“You wouldn't understand.”
“What's that supposed to mean, Nate?”
“What do you think?”
“Now hey, if you get smart with me again I'll kick you right back where you came, you hear me?” the Soldier replied angrily.
“He doesn't like talking about it, I'll just explain.” Paul said. I gave Paul a scornful look. He ignored it and took a sip of tea.
“Well come on, now speak up. It's getting late already.” said the Soldier.
“Alright, alright.” said Paul. “It all began when I met Jani. She told me everything. Every day in school she'd tell me about this war, this terrifying, horrible war on the outskirts of Vander. Supposedly it was in a little suburb that everyone had forgotten about. We wondered why the local news networks would never report on it, but all we got for answers were lies and denial. I talked to my friend Nate here about it and he said that he had heard gunshots in the night that no one else had heard, yet no one believed him. Jani and I began hearing them as well, and in the process of investigating this whole thing we three became great friends. However, the evidence eventually stopped and led back to the authority of Vander, whom as I said before were totally silent about the whole thing. We had to take an extra step to find out the truth, and that path led us here.”
“I see.” replied the Soldier. “But how did you find this place?”
“My mother used to live out here, so I know my way fairly well.”
“Even in this darkness?”
“Yep, doesn't phase me.”
“Wow, I actually had a - “
All of a sudden a harsh knocking at the front door silenced us.
“Who is it?” the Soldier asked.
“Time to lock up and get to bed, already. Those kids were the ones that woke us up in the first place.”
“Okay, I'll be right out!” the Soldier yelled at the door. He looked back at the three of us.
“Listen, I'll explain everything tomorrow. For now just get some shut eye, alright?”
The three of us nodded. The Soldier led us to our beds, which were army-style cots, and said goodnight.
“By the way guys, you can just call me Dave.”
“Really?” Jani replied. “I was taught it wasn't polite to call an adult by their first name...”
“Not to me it isn't. Don't worry about it. I call you by your first name, and you call me by mine. That's the way I see things, at least.”
“If you insist, goodnight Dave.” said Jani. She smiled at him.
He shut the door behind him. An hour went by. Paul was the only one who wasn't asleep, kept awake by the man's name.
“Dave...” he whispered to himself. “Dave....I know I've seen him before...” Paul couldn't sleep for hours, and after the 3rd hour he was jolted out of bed by heavy breathing. His eyes darted around the room, but all he could see was pitch black darkness. The breathing grew heavier and heaver, until Paul rushed out of bed.
“You monster!” he screamed. “You monster!”
I woke up in a daze, confused by Paul's yelling.
“Paul we're trying to sleep here, what are you wailing about?” I asked.
“That man,” he began. “That man is in here. He never left, never.”
“What in the world do you mean he never left?”
“I hear him breathing.”
“Get outta here. Go back to bed, buddy. You're always hearing things.” I curled myself back to bed slightly before Paul screamed once more and jolted me back up.
“No no, just listen to me. It's for real this time, I'm serious.”
“Prove it, then.”
“How about this, Nate? Stop your blabbering for 10 seconds and just listen.”
We quit arguing for a moment and I listened hard, very hard, and heard nothing. I began to count to 10. 1, 2, 3, 4, nothing. Only the wind. 5, 6, 7, Paul is just being a lunatic again as always...8, 9...and then we heard it. What shocked us was not only what we heard, but also what we saw, or didn't see rather. A girl screaming, loud across the field. Looking over to Jani's bed, we saw an empty mattress with no sheets.
