Book.

Part One; Chapter Five

I wanted them to say I was crazy. I hoped against hope that this would happen. That Marat would laugh and say my theories were ridiculous, and that this was all just a thorough hoax, or an unfortunate misunderstanding. That hope dwindled like helium out of a punctured balloon--all too quickly and leaving me completely empty. Any of my former notions concerning reality were rendered inexplicably worthless in less than an hour.

I don’t remember saying much, but I must have said a lot. Not talking wasn’t really my forte in any situation. When I was six, I had lamented theatrically over my hollow stomach in the midst of the open-casket ceremony for my great aunt Lillian--God rest her soul--to the demise of enjoyable future meals everywhere, because my mother would do nothing but remind me of my folly every time I sat down to eat.

So, no, I was not one to shut my mouth easily. Then why do I recall no conversation between Marat, Peter, and I as we were herded past the doors with the rest of the crowd?

My head finally spun to a halt in acceptance of what was going on as I sat in one of the many waiting rooms the masses were swept into. I looked around, hoping to see a familiar face. An elderly, wispy-haired woman sat in the corner, shaking from wrinkled head to even more wrinkled toe as she flicked through a frayed edition of Cat Fancy. A younger woman, maybe thirty or so, paced impatiently about the small, confined room. Her strict brown ponytail whipped around her gaunt face whenever she turned sharply to walk in the other direction. Swinging his short legs, a little boy was seated two plastic waiting room chairs away from me. Several other people were cushioned into the enclosed space, but they didn’t catch my attention nearly as much. They were ordinary, uninspired.

I shuddered. This was exactly the reason they were here. They were cliched, old hat, dated. My stomach flipflopped as I realized I was no better than them. I was a walking, talking cliche, and they were going to try and change me.

Marat and Peter were no where to be seen. In those odd moments when I wasn’t talking or understanding much, I’d lost them in the masses. Marat had said that he wasn’t new, though, so maybe he didn’t have to go through all this.

Soon enough, they called my name--my fake name--and I stood, walked over to the door as instructed, and was met with yet another glaring nurse. She led me silently down intricate hallways, into spacious elevators, and up, up, up until I thought that we were surely above cloud-level.

The metallic elevator doors reeled back, unveiling what the lit up interior buttons showed was the 279th floor. It looked alike to the rest of the halls, and yet again I was struck by how enormous this building was.

“You’ve got Poppy.”

I had half expected the nurse to remain silent throughout the entire outing, and nearly had to do a double-take to make sure she had actually been speaking to me.

“Huh?” My classic, trusty, ever-intelligent response was immediately at my side.

We had stopped at a door identical to every other one: white with a set of numbers on it. The combination on it--344--matched the second half of the numbers on my bracelet from earlier. Then something clicked; the first three were the same as the floor we were on.

The woman turned to me, her sharp lips kinked into a smirk. “Good luck.”

She opened the door and all but pushed me inside. The door closed with a heavy clack.

For a hostel, the room was surprisingly large. The floors were made of a dark wood, which was comforting after so much unbearable white. There was a door directly to my right, which I guessed was a bathroom. A dainty dining set sat in one corner, the table covered with maps, pencils, and a ragged atlas, cracked open to a vibrantly colored page somewhere in the middle. A couple of barred windows ruined the whole feeling of openness.