UNSPOKEN: Undone Realms Book 3

Ch. 4: Twitchy Teller Scruffy Spy

(299 days after Nolan's crossing)

The man with a scruffy beard spends each afternoon in the shallow end of the pool.  Clara studies him closely.  When he first steps into the water, his eyes dart across its surface.  His fingers twitch in a constant half snap as he walks around the hotel, but here, between those sky blue walls, his muscles relax.  His eyes cease their chaotic dance.  The corners of his mouth smooth out.

Three faded scars, two on his left shoulder, a third on his chest, mar his trim build.  He runs his fingers over them occasionally.  Clara imagines he does this because he can't (or won't) let go of the moment he received those wounds.

A war veteran, perhaps... Clara has read about PTSD.  That would explain the nervous glances and the screams reverberating off the walls of his room at night.  Their room.  The man is staying in the space Clara and Nolan normally occupy.  While they spend their nights on the roof at this time of year, Clara has come down several times to retrieve items from their room, only to find this poor guy writhing under sweat-soaked sheets, playing out some awful scene in his sleep she's fortunate not to have to witnessed firsthand.

She feels pity for him.  Pity and sorrow and something else...

Responsibility—that's it!

God knows why, but Clara feels like she should care for this man as a nurse would.  Or a therapist.  All she can do is hover, though, hover and hope no harm comes to him.

He has been at the hotel for nearly a week.  Clara has no idea why he's staying here at all.  At first she thinks he must be a writer.  He spends much of his non-pool time filling the pages of a notebook.  She glances at it over his shoulder, only to have this illusion destroyed.  It contains a series of numbers mixed with the occasional symbol (maybe a letter?) repeated in patterns Clara cannot understand.

A mathematician then.  A veteran-slash-physicist half-way through his latest nervous break-down....

The man's lips are chapped.  He lowers his head into the water, the tip of his nose the last thing to find its way under the stillness.  Clara follows him down, watches as he holds his breath.  If he wanted to kill himself, he'd wait until night when nobody is around.  He would weigh his swim trunks with rocks or something, right?  Right? 

Clara waits nervously for him to emerge, breathe, fix his eyes on the living world again.  When finally he does, it's almost as though she has gained the ability to breathe too, such is her intense relief. 

He leans against the pool's edge.  There is no one else in the pool aside from the two of them.  A woman and her teenage daughter sunning themselves at the far end of the pool yard avoid looking in his direction. 

The man opens his mouth, then closes it.  He sighs, pauses, opens his mouth again.  When he speaks, it is the low rumble of a train still miles away.

"I have to be careful with my thoughts." 

Clara has never heard him talk to himself before.  Is this a sign that he's grown worse?  She isn't sure.  His words are slow and measured.  He's tumbled them all through his brain a few times before saying them out loud, not that they make any more sense because of it.

"This place is right but wrong at the same time.  I don't know how to cope, Clara."

Clara backs away so suddenly, she hits her shoulder on the pool's ladder.  She must have misheard him.  She must have!

"They say it will happen soon.  Until then, I need you to know—I know you're here."

He scans the pool yard. "Clara."

Clara covers her mouth, her body quaking so violently, she doesn't notice when the man climbs up out of the pool, towels off, and retreats back inside the hotel.

The unsettled feeling has returned, only this time, she knows she isn't imagining it.  Something has changed, for good or bad, she can't even begin to speculate.

A/N: Notifications just started again.  I'm not sure if the notification ever went out for chapter 3, so if you haven't read that one yet, do go back and check it out!

Ever wonder what the hotel looks like?  Check out today's media (courtesy of Robin Kanouse, Flickr Creative Commons). Imagine that this is your entire world.  Can't blame Clara for hoping for more, can you!

I'm really curious to hear your thoughts on this chapter.  Throw some theories at me!  What's with the scruffy man?  How could he possibly know Clara's name?  I'd love to know what you think.

Today's chapter is dedicated to another Wattpadian I met during a Margaret Attwood contest, @HardyMilts. Like Bettina and Kris (the last two chapter's dedicatees), Daryl also competed in November's UNSEEN Flash Fiction Contest and, his wonderful entry won runner-up.  But his competitive spirit doesn't end there.  Daryl is an active participant in @ScienceFiction's challenges.  You can read all of his entries on his profile.  He's such a talented writer, blending technique and emotion into interesting, well-crafted, and engaging stories.  One of these days, he's going to bless us by putting up a longer piece for us all to read (or at least, we can all hope he does)!