It's a little bit like paradise, bright open pavilions and clean cityscape just a little walk away. Everyone is busy, but never too busy to refuse a stop to smell the roses. I am one of three singers who woke up in a bustling second floor of a popular shop, where neither of us were supposed to be. I was already dressed for the day and I sneak out before the other two to find my brown boots I somehow lost the other day. I already have my uggs on, but I'm too attached to my other brown boots because of the horse clinking sound they make on marble tile to lose them. Eventually I find them in another building across town and slip my feet into them with ease, as if my uggs were thin as socks and were used to being squished between my feet and my boots that fit just right. Then I suppose I was off to the center of the open pavilion, stumbling into the other two girls right on time. In the rise of a small breeze, the two girls begin to sing, picking up the melody right away, catching eyes and ears of the busy people. I let everything continue for a little while, as long as I want. Enough to make listeners think that's all there is. Then I wow them. I don't have a high voice, but I have the highest voice of us all. I join the girls without cue and only an idea in mind. People are impressed and gather around us as our wordless melody picks up in natural complexity and raises the listeners' feet off the ground in pleasant dance. I enjoy being the one to give these people reason to open their ears from the daily routine. And I get to try new things with my voice that always adjusts to the other two. We climb to the peak of the song and I carry the suspense just enough, then everyone in the city hears a boom in the artificial sky. Everything stops. It's breaking but we can't see anything.
I'm in a high class hotel, built with decorative deep mahogany wood walls and accents wherever you look. Low chandeliers and low murmuring of guests navigating the wide reception hall sets the dim atmosphere. I had just gotten back from talking with one of the hotel managers that summoned me here. They say there has been a disturbance in the hotel where people have been disappearing to reach great numbers that the news finally reached the papers. The guests here now are fearless but only because the reputation of the hotel is so high. I'm not a big name investigator, but I have a feeling I'll be the one to put this mystery to rest. But I don't doubt the disappearances for a second. I've seen pictures and footage of guests entering the elevators but never emerging on their designated floor. It is a mystery indeed.
As any natural guest, I make my way to the several elevators just beyond the lobby with nothing but a small file folder with a pen attached. Nothing useful, really. I just hate being bare. I ride with the patrons up and down each elevator with little else but a crumb for insight. But that doesn't bother me, I have all day to figure this out. It's only the elevators, not the stairs or the bathrooms or anything else.
"You won't find what you're looking for in here," a booming voice reverberates through my entire body and back again bouncing off the close walls of the mirrorless elevator. I'm alone. The elevator itself opens up like a cardboard box when the tape holding the edges into a cube fails. It's all blackness and purple stars out there. I'm only standing on the square tile floor. It's crumbling.
Even in all this, I don't believe this is the end. I am not done yet, this unseeable evil is the culprit of the elevator disappearances. It doesn't speak yet I can feel its amusement by me. Even if it takes me I will come back. It won't hurt me. I am the only one who can finish this.
The evil opens its stark white dragon teeth mouth and swallows me whole. I don't feel anything.
And then I wake up.
