All our lives

Chapter 6

His mouth was dry, his lips felt painfully chapped, his throat burned and stung all the way down to his stomach, his eyelids were so heavy they seemed glued. He was alive, awake, and a wreck. And not quite ready to face the truths of a new day.

Contrary to how he normally reacted in a crisis situation, on this particular morning he didn't feel like quickly putting in place some masterminded attack plan to resolve the problem. He didn't have a plan and, to be fair, he didn't know exactly what the problem was, if he had any. Maybe last night it had been clearer, but now he was not so sure. How could he be?

If there was a problem indeed, he was caught between two bad options. He had either lost his minds or he had somehow gained the impossible ability to alter reality. But if he had done that, why in the world did he alter it like that? No, he was not ready for a new day. He was not even ready to check if there were any more reasons to question all that he knew. In the end, he could afford some more minutes of comfortable incertitude. Lying in that bed, with his eyes closed, it was easy to believe that the present was not that different from two days ago, that the past was how he had lived it, and that well-guarded object in his left hand had no potential magical and destructive powers.

A muffled sound of a slammed door, followed by some unceremonious footsteps coming towards the bedroom made that dreamy state he so wanted harder to maintain.

"How's the Sleeping Beauty?" Dave chirped like he had no care in the world.

"Ssssht," someone else shushed him.

That was strange. Why were there people in his room? How did they enter? His foggy brain failed to come up on time with a decent answer.

"I've seen them all now," he heard Dave really close to him as the man had leaned over him.

"Lema, for fuck's sake...". That was his brother's voice trying to admonish Dave quietly.

For a second he feared he was not in the hotel anymore. A madhouse instantly became the happy scenario. In a coma, unable to move, unable to open his eyes, aware of what was happening but incapable of communicating in any way somehow became the most plausible one. What if the heaviness of his eyelids was not caused by dried tears and traces of bad sleep? Luckily, his eyes did open before any more crazy thoughts had the chance to invade his mind. Slowly, they listened to his command and, despite the needed focus for a clear view, he was sure he was still in his hotel room. He also noticed his brother was seated on the bed, at the end of it as if not to bother him.

"What? If any of us had been in this situation, he would have made a big fucking scene about it and you know it!"

Dave was clearly in high spirits, however, he did lower his voice a little, not enough to count as quietly.

"Dave," he whispered because that was all his sore throat allowed him to do, "will you shut up already? Liverpool is in three days. We have time," he said and put one of the pillows over his head.

Ten seconds of silence and complete darkness, before the pillow was violently pushed away and he was brought back into the daylight. He had kinda expected that to happen. He had kept them on a short leash for so long, a revenge on the first occasion was not something to be missed.

"Liverpool?!" Dave frowned. "Liverpool?!" he repeated with a much more angered tone. "We should be on our way to Munich right now. What Liverpool?!"

If that city name hadn't been so unexpected, he would have been impressed by Dave's involuntary attempt on impersonating him.

"Munich?" He mumbled and slowly sat up in bed. "It can't be...Munich is in July," he said mostly to himself. "We are not in July yet, right?" He practically begged for a confirmation.