Skeleton Beats the Clock

Chapter 4: Hypnotist's Night

Twenty-year old, Zin Swada swam on the other side of the lake far from Camp Hypnos. The red tint in her long, black hair caught the moon's glow. She wore her hair in a French-Fishtail braid combo hairstyle. She was half-African-Indian. Her dark eyes and dark skin melded with the Hypnotist's Night sky. She gathered her braid with her hand and moved it forward over one of her shoulders. She didn't submerge her whole body in the water only floated in place on its surface. The water reached her torso as she was on the shallow end. She had on a one piece bathing suit. She wore her radio headset headphones, listening to N'Sync.

Ever since she left the Tales of the Miserate Fault Line a few months ago, she didn't remember much about when she was face to face with the Florice. But just like any dream or dream universe there's no guarantee of remembering it, certain parts or dreaming at all. Since her encounter with the Florice, she'd not been able to dream. She hoped by swimming in the lake on the Hypnotist's Night when the full moon held an intensely hypnotic flair, she'd be able to recover those suppressed memories and eventually be able to dream again.

She was staying at her friend's parents' bamboo cottage in the woods that surrounded the camp. She swam towards land to the backpack, she'd left there. She unzipped it and took out a towel and dried off. She turned off her headset and took it off her head. She put it in her backpack. She placed the towel on the ground and sat on it. She rummaged through her bag for her wrap skirt. She stood up and wrapped it around her waist, fastening the button to secure it. She zipped her backpack, put it on, picked up her towel, dusted it off and draped it over her arm. She walked up to the cottage which wasn't far from where she'd been swimming.

The huge two-story luxury bamboo cottage was on hilly land surrounded by a wooden fence and a smaller bamboo fence partial, surrounding the first floor deck.

There was a salty stench in the air when she entered the front door. She put down her backpack and the towel in the corner next to the front door. She smelled her underarms. She didn't smell an odor on her body.

She shrugged and thought. I'll just take a shower anyway.

After her shower, she picked up her backpack and put it in her bedroom closet and the towel in the hamper. Her friend's parents' the Abbys were watching t.v. in the den. They had satellite t.v. that used an analog signal which was shared with the second t.v. in her room. Whatever channel they watched she had to watch since the remote control they had controlled her t.v. channels, too. She turned on the t.v. luckily they were watching a new episode of Highlander: The Series. It was the one show she and the Abbys had in common. After it was over, she turned off the t.v. but as she did so her body felt like the contours of an outline of a drawing. She looked around the room.

The room and everything in it looked like an illustration in sequence like a storyboard. She left her room. Her movements were rigid yet loose and displaced. Everything looked the same as her room did even the Abbys. All void of the usual color with the exception of the translucent marble blue island in the kitchen and the carpet in the living room, which was still its deep blue color. The cupboards were still white and the flooring to match. The walls in the living room were turning to the same material and color as the kitchen island but with yellow flowers on the upper left corners. On the white sofa were two girls, one was a teenage black girl with boxed braids. She couldn't make out the other one since she couldn't see or recall any clear features. They were talking to each other oblivious she was in the room.

The room had returned to normal despite these unusual changes. There were a number of other teens to young adults both male and female of mixed-ethnicities in the living room. She saw a baby carriage in the corridor. A woman with long brown hair picked up the baby inside it. The woman's back was turned toward Zin. And so she couldn't see the woman's face. She walked down the corridor with the child in her arms.