15.

1. The Premium Experience

'So, how have you been?' she said in almost a whisper. Jane Carling was sat in a miserable looking restaurant situated in the base of a four-star hotel. The star rating could fool anyone though. The walls, cracked and crumbling, frowned as if their tired arches were about to collapse and fall into piles of solid sadness. Half of the lights had shrivelled away into an endless hibernation and the other half knew winter was coming. A single dim lit candle sat between her and Richard Alec, her boyfriend of two years. No break ups, no fights. He was playing with his short dark curls with one hand and flipping back and forth through the worn pages of the menu with the other. His bloodshot, green eyes darted around the room like a child at a funeral. An uncontrollable urge for him to feel paranoid at every action she performed drew a small giggle from her lips. Catching himself in a daze, he mechanically turned his head back to Jane but fixated his eyes elsewhere until her voice registered in his brain and finally, his eyes were dragged to meet hers.
'Mmm. Good.' Richard spoke nonchalantly.
'Oh come on rich, it's been a month since we last saw each other, couldn't you at least try to be happy?' Richard forced his lips into a thin smile.
'Sorry, haven't slept in a few days. Insomnia's back again.' he apologised, quickly pulling the menu in front of his face and focussing his vision on it in embarrassment.
'Hey, it's okay. I get it. Just, try to have a good time yeah? I've missed you!' Jane exclaimed, nervously placing her hand over his and allowing the menu to drop from its standing pose. Across the room a sudden gasp followed by applause echoes off the walls. Reflex caused the couple's focus to immediately turn aside and fixate on a short man with a long black beard, on one knee and a girl sat in front of him, hand over mouth, nodding. Jane joined in with the mild applause, smiling. Richard however, began to daydream once more and thought of the prospect of doing what the man had just done. After all, two years was a long time. He'd wait until she took the first sip of her bloody wine and then he'd drop to the floor, fluently pretending to fall off of his chair. As she'd look down, he'd be kneeling at her side. The room would erupt into a raucous of cheering. He continued to think about this for a matter of minutes until it was time to order food. It was never going to happen anyway. He knew it was nothing more than a pipe dream.

Just as the food had been brought out and the two had started to eat, the muted rumble of plastic against the wooden table, violently disturbed the now blossoming atmosphere. Jane, almost too hastily, reached for her phone and held it close to her, reading something. Richard leaned back casually into his chair and gave Jane a glare to tell her she should put the phone down. A sudden gasp of terror escaped her lips and a hand flew to her face in an attempt to disguise it. Richard noticed and his smug grin turned to confusion.
'Excuse me, I'll be right back, I just... I need the toilet.' she muttered under her breath.

Richard sat, perturbed, watching a distant clock, tick round. Somehow he empathised with the timepiece. A deep, delphic, derelict. It's hands moved across a bright, quartz surface encircled by a black then a gold rim. The modern marvel amongst a broken ruin of a building. Something just seemed odd about the entire environment. An uncanny sense that the typical evening of dinner and sex was to turn sinister rang in the air. A quick glance to the toilet door caught the sight of a short blonde woman, entering after Jane. A part of Richard, felt a chord strike in his brain, forcing his legs to stand and telling him to go and see what was going on but after a few seconds of thought, he took his seat and looked around in embarrassment. It seemed so odd to him. Jane had lost all of her family. Her parents had died when she was just twenty years old and her only other family, a sibling, her sister had moved to New Zealand after the funeral of their father and she hadn't heard from her since. Now, at age thirty two, it was unlikely that they would ever have contact again or at least, not any time soon. As for Jane's social groups, she didn't really have any friends. She had just, two months earlier, moved in with Richard, travelling the several hundred miles from Coleman, Texas to the small, Rodeo city of Burwell, Nebraska. She had left all friends and coworkers behind and decided she wanted a clean slate. Almost a month later, she'd been called away on a business trip to Washington for five weeks. They'd decided to celebrate her return, they would take a small trip to Grand Island. It also helped to escape Richard's monotonous patterns in Burwell. He presumed the message was work, obviously, but he could not understand who had been speaking to her as they entered. Maybe it was just a woman, making general chat. He told himself to relax and continued to pick at his food, awaiting his lover's return.