Unwritten

Ida Jean Gallagher's Receipts

Dreary as it was, Ida Jean measured her present with the days that had come before it.

The quality of life she knew now was poor, but with passion unable to guide her, she found herself turning elsewhere to navigate her personal trials. To clarify her path, Ida Jean needed a frame of reference, a guide to the consequences of her actions. What better guide could Ida Jean have than her own memory? Who could teach her more effectively than her own record of success and failure? Of course, her present choices would not make her any happier, but avoiding total devastation was a nice incentive.

Unfortunately, none of this applied when the skies over Ariston's Resort turned blood-red. Ida Jean possessed zero frame of reference—not only was this a situation missing from her own memory, it was also missing from the shared memory of mankind.

For the first time, Ida Jean was out of options.

She stood there on the beach, almost dazed. The ferry was gone, the visitors had vanished, and now the sky was darkening overhead. Before, the weather had been beautiful—warm, delicate breeze, crystal blue above and before her, palm trees swaying gently. Now the world had grown stiller, staler. The air carried no warm breeze; instead, it seemed to have gone empty, bearing nothing but a tepidness that suffused into Ida Jean's skin. The water reflected the reddening shade of the sky, so that Ida Jean appeared to be staring at a lake of blood. The palm trees themselves had frozen, fronds bent jaggedly in space like ghostly fingers.

Upon arriving at the beach, Ida Jean had felt panic. The ferry had been missing; people had disappeared; the seagulls' cries had been absent. But the red-world brought something else.

Ida Jean felt peace.

Something was truly wrong, she could not deny it. Perhaps this was why she felt so calm, staring into a bloody chasm, teetering on the precipice of destruction. This was the true paranormal. It was not what she had searched for—Ida Jean had wanted a different paranormal, the kind that drove you to unveil its secrets, urging you to continue to live if only for that thrill. Instead, what had crawled out from underneath the island was the deadly paranormal. It was evil, ravenous; it meant the end of the line for Ida Jean. Considering all other guests had vanished, the fact that she now saw what she saw indicated that her time had come. Nothing more could be done.

There's a certain solace, knowing you're out of options. There's a contentment that fills you when no more battles can be won or lost. All your battles end when you do. Ida Jean had not desired that end in a long time, but now that it had arrived, she almost welcomed it.

"Ida Jean Gallagher."

The voice startled her. She shuddered, turning her head without moving away from the shoreline. Her first observation was that the sand had gained a reddish, burnt hue; her second was that Charles Ariston was standing on the boardwalk, his hands behind his back.

Ida Jean remembered Charles Ariston from the website. The promotional materials had featured his story and face prominently, solemn eyes buried in folds of skin, a nose too shapely to forget. Now he hovered at the borders of the beach in a white button-down and khaki shorts. He was barefoot, but he didn't seem to care; his gaze was fixed only on Ida Jean.

"Hi, Mr. Ariston," said Ida Jean, expression flat. "Some stuff's been happening—you should probably check it out." A moment of silence passed under the bright red sky.

"I'm not Mr. Ariston." His voice was aged, cracked. Ida Jean examined him again, but no clear differences arose between the man before her and the website's Charles Ariston. The thinning hair was the same, the near-portly stature was the same, the distinctive ears were the same. Perhaps the only change was in expression. While the website had shown a grim, resolved Charles Ariston, with narrowed eyes and a frown, this man's eyes were open and alert, and one side of his mouth quirked up.