There’s a door, smooth and white, blending into the walls. Am I in the hospital? Do I have a gap in memory? On wobbly legs, I move over to one of the black seats and then sit, considering my next move. Do I wait? Leave? The bare room doesn’t have a hospital odour which adds to my confusion. I’m wearing the clothes I went to Tom’s party in, but I don’t have my coat. The coat I left my purse and phone in. Great.
I don’t know how long I sit and wait but eventually, I get numb from sitting. I pace a while, looking at the door, at the shiny metal handle, and debate what to do. Irritation mounts because nobody comes to see me and explain, so I try the door. I expected it to be locked, but it isn’t.
The door opens onto a stark, white corridor. A long hallway spreads in either direction, uniform doors lined along each wall, identical strip-lights in spaced along the ceiling.
I’m dreaming. Everything is a dream. I relapsed and I’m in a coma. Alek, Finn, deranged thoughts about being half-dead are all figments of my imagination. I repeat these thoughts while looking at my shoes. Black flats I never owned before the accident. I pull off my cardigan and examine my arms. Scars. Please, let me wake up. I don’t want to be trapped in my subconscious, in a terrifying faceless world with nothing but doors.
“You’re not.” I turn to the voice. A man dressed in a nurse’s uniform smiles kindly at me. “Dreaming, I mean.”
He’s nondescript; the sort of person you’re introduced to but wouldn’t recognise their face next time you see them. Brown hair and eyes, average build, but I get the feeling average isn’t what he is.
“What’s happening?” I ask. “Did I die?”
“No. Can you come with me, please?” He gestures toward the nearest door but I don’t move.
“Am I alive?”
“Again, no.” The man opens the door and I recognise what’s on the other side.
A shadow world of mute greys; a replica of my world, devoid of colour and filled with shadows, exists through the door. This is the place the Shade almost sent me to when she attacked me outside the pub, the night Alek saved me. I back against the wall and taste pineapple as the contents of my stomach attempt to fight their way into my mouth. I’m not dreaming.
“No... where is that?”
“Where you belong. I can give you another option, but I suspect you’ll find this place more palatable.” He smiles in the encouraging, calm way the nurses in the hospital did when I was a patient.
I run.
My shoes squeak on the tiled floor, chest constricting as I travel down the hallway. There’s no end to this corridor; the sterile brightness stretching ahead. I expect to be grabbed and dragged through the door but no footsteps follow. After a few minutes, I slow to a walk and glance back over my shoulder. The hallway extends behind, void of life.
The row of doors stretch to a seeming infinity. Rubbing my hands together, squeezing reality into my fingers, I debate which one to open. The doors must be the only way out. I choose the one opposite. Unlocked. I yank down the handle and pull open the door.
A room identical to the one I woke in. Slamming the door, I move to the next. The same. Door after door holds room after room, each indistinguishable from the next. I slump to the floor and wrap my arms around my head.
I must be dreaming.
I want to wake up.
Chapter 24
ALEK
The TV plays quietly and I doze, fighting images of Rose trapped in the Void - or worse. Something shifts in the energy of the room as if someone else is with me. I pull myself back to full consciousness.
A girl sits in the chair opposite and I’m on alert in case this person attacks me. The room temperature hasn’t changed and she’s not taking advantage of my sleeping state by jamming her hands into my chest, so she can’t be a Shade. Her long, black hair falls across her shoulders, shining against her pale skin. Dressed simply in a black dress and high boots, she has her hands folded in her lap, smiling serenely.
“Is it time yet, Alek?” she asks.
“Time for what? Who are you?”
“To stop hiding.” The girl’s form shimmers the way the TV does when auto-tuning channels, and Lizzie appears. Then she shimmers back again.
I stumble to my feet. “Oh, no... oh, fuck... Lizzie?”
“Raven. Did you really think you were hidden?” The small laugh she gives would annoy me if I wasn’t in shock.
I glance at the door and stumble to my feet.
“I hope you’re not thinking of leaving, Alek. Where can you go? It’s time to keep your part of the bargain.”
“No.”
“What about Rose?”
“What about her?” I attempt nonchalance.
“Oh, come on, Alek, we know how... attached you are. Do you feel like a piece of you is missing?” I widen my eyes. “In a metaphorical sense, of course; she’s not a piece of you. She’s more like that stupid angel than you. I wonder what he’ll do now, this could prove interesting.”
Okay, my head has taken too much for one night. “What angel?”
Raven rolls her eyes. “You’re a lot of things, Alek, with your human failings, but I didn’t think stupidity was one of them. Finn. He’s not an ordinary Reaper.”