CHAPTER ONE:
TWO FOR ONE
"Famed Coffee Shop Owner Dies from His Internal Injuries Hours After Fatal Collision in Atlantic City," the headline read. And the article had survived the longevity of a century, and a score or two gone by. I kept reading the rest of the article, slowly scrolling down the touchscreen of my laptop.
"Last night, on October 21st, 1989, not long after departing the Trump Hotel following the much-anticipated Motley Crue show, Vlad's owner and co-founder, Nikolas Tamarack and his family were killed in a deadly T-bone collision, causing their Mustang to flip three times and end up upside down on the median. Their automobile was demolished, and Tamarack's wife was ejected from the windshield of the car due to not wearing a seatbelt. The car that struck them was a black Cadillac DeVille, and the driver of that car died upon impact. Autopsy reports show that both Tamarack and the other driver were driving under the influence. Although Tamarack wasn't over the limit, the other driver possessed a blood alcohol level over twice the legal amount. When paramedics arrived on scene, they managed to pry a critically wounded Tamarack out from the driver's seat, although he was already suffering major internal bleeding from six broken ribs and a collapsed lung, as well as a concussion. He was in shock from his injuries, and taken to the ICU, where he passed away several hours after his admittance. The rest of his family however, including his wife and two children who were in the backseat of the car, died upon impact. Not much else is known about the other driver and no personal information has been released at this time. It is a sad day for citizens of Atlantic City, as Vlad's was well known for its pumpkin lattes and early morning bistro, as well as hosting its yearly extravagant Halloween bashes. The fate of the café remains unknown, although citizens have already begun to express their mourning. One woman who was a regular says 'The owners were a very warm, young and friendly couple who would donate extra food and coffee to the needy. This became the go-to spot for a lot of office workers for breakfast and lunch. At night, you'd sometimes see local rock bands play here, because they sometimes made it into a bar. Even if the place stays open, it will never be the same.'"
Something was very wrong, for lack of better words. I was literally sleeping beside Niko not even last week, and it is true that he was cold and dead, but not gone. He vanished into nothingness in the bleak of the night. The article I read made sense in justification to the timelines he had given to us, and how the truth surrounding his death was disgustingly corroborated by the media who had been tipped off to lie. The date on his tombstone did not make sense, however. I had to, at once, get in touch with Meredith.
The winds from the imminent thunderstorm howled against my window, ruthless and archaic in their tenebrous tones. A fork of lighting streaked the sky, illuminating through my window brightly enough, to paint my black shadow against the white wall behind me. Crackling thunder was chasing right behind it, and its formidable boom reverberated through the wooden floorboards. Time was a concept so foreign to me now, I didn't even bother to keep track of it. All I knew was when darkness would fall and sweep over the city in its velvety, ebony embrace, and then when dawn's tinges of red that stained the clouds of the horizon, turned that darkness into light. I had wondered if there was time left, and it was confirmed when I happened to unintentionally glance at the stereo that we had mounted against the wall, which also served as a clock, alarm, and light bar. It was 12:51, and I had less than six hours to come up with the decision of whether I was going to end up letting the dawn take my life, or not.
My eyes shut, relishing in the cold hardness of the floor beneath my bare feet, trying to ground myself and make sense of this grief, silently driving me to the brink of insanity. No sooner though was I startled out of my wits when the inadvertent, and abrupt squawking of a raven that had perched itself on the balcony outside of my window, broke my concentration. I cursed under my breath in annoyance and glared at it momentarily, before it flew away. Shaking it off, I put my biker boots back on, that came up just below the knee, over my black leather leggings. Though it would begin to rain soon, I still insisted on wearing a plain black satin camisole meant for layering, but worn alone, my way. For someone who had a dull yearning to die, I thought I looked rather presentable, ironically enough, for my own probable funeral.
Dallas was now a black crystalline megapolis, glistening under the sporadic streaks of lightning, darkly futuristic, and heavily slick with the mysteries of events transpiring before I had awakened from my slumber. Both flying and ground-driving cars were the primary means of transportation, although the ground-driving cars could now rely on magnetism to stay glued to the upside-down looping roads. I rarely used our car, a 2121 BMW 550i that could hover, or drive the magnetic roads, since I had an ability not too many others did, and that was that I could fly. I could jump off high rise buildings and land without breaking a single bone. I could do a lot of things that would kill a human instantly, and yet, I felt so powerless. Flying endowed me with the ability to feel some sense of control again, and down the balcony I went in a dive, with the air gusting against me in descent. It felt so good, that cold, fresh wind running through my blue-black hair, as adrenaline rose from my stomach into my heart. Then I ascended and began my course, reveling in the sensation of borderline euphoria from that dive.
Meredith was Niko's beautiful, talented daughter who had studied without knowing a means to stop, and these efforts propelled her into becoming a doctor. She was tall, athletically built, with cascading red hair and black eyes mirroring that of her late mother's, but with features that made her undeniably resemble Niko. I know she was at her father's funeral after we all presumed him dead. She must have been shaken up with overwhelming grief, because when I called her phone, she wouldn't answer. I knew she wouldn't be going anywhere today, since the funeral had been moments earlier. It was a funeral decided on, after the compelling evidence found on the same balcony I dove off earlier, of a pile of Niko's clothing left atop a pair of boot prints burned into the deck. The boot prints left over were imprinted in what appeared to be charcoal. Niko died in the light of day while I must have still been sleeping. I never once saw, nor even heard him. Perhaps Meredith would think that I was a sick fuck in blatant denial over Niko's death, or that I was too much of an audacious coward for not showing up to his funeral. I needed my answer though, and the yearning for this small truth began to intensify in magnitude, starting to churn my callous insides.
A small cold droplet fell from the furious heaven rolling above me and ran down between my breasts, as I hovered before the seven-hundred-foot apartment building in which she dwelt, a titan made of black glass and steel. For how stately it appeared outside, inside it still possessed the same technologies from last century that were already beginning to fail; a pulley elevator system, and lighting fixtures in desperate need of an upgrade. It was tidy and smelt neutral of cold central air, neither good nor bad, so at least it was kept clean, with no sign of pests but plenty of antiquity. I entered the elevator, which was surprisingly sophisticated on the inside, lined in obsidian marble that caused my own crystal-clear reflection to glare back at me, on my way to the 60th floor. I called Meredith again, but her phone would go straight to voicemail this time, which made me have second guesses on seeing her halfway up to her floor. Then without warning, the warm amber lights and blue LEDs of the elevator buttons went out, and I stood in pitch blackness as the power went out, trapping me inside. As if I couldn't catch any more hints that I shouldn't have been here, I was now trapped inside of a goddamn elevator in the dark, something I hoped would never, and had never happened to me, up until now.
Only my exasperated sigh leaving my lips as a hiss through my teeth, filled the stilling silence in this thick darkness.
"Whyyyyy?" I moaned out loud to myself, kneeling with my knees to my chest. I punched the floor that I couldn't see, but my knuckles felt, so hard I was sure that I had bruised myself. Then the anxiety began to manifest as those familiar tingles that commenced in my brain, and travelled down my arm, to my wrists and fingertips. I quickly snapped out of my episode I was about to have and stood straight up, placing my hands on what felt like exposed metal of the elevator. Slowly, I pushed out a blue stream of current from my hands, and I felt the whole structure move upwards along the pulleys.
"Yessss!" I exclaimed, as I returned my focus back to my own devises. The elevator kept traveling faster and faster until it attained normal momentum, and the power increased the further up I travelled, until the lighting was coming back on dimly. The numbers appeared on the display, and I was astonished that I had reached the 57th floor. 58. 59. 60. That is where I stopped, with my palms on either sliding door, sending another small surge to budge them open, to reveal the lightless hallway in front of me. The power outage was still affecting the rest of the building. It was...
