A Travel Guide: To My Heart

two

I use my new key card to unlock the door to my room and push it wide open after I hear a little beep. It's empty inside, and dark, but I'm not afraid of that.

Something that couldn't be more opposite about Samantha and I is how we cope in a dark space. She's terrified of the dark, especially the shadows for a reason I can never understand. Maybe it's the way they seem to lie across everything the light can't quite reach.

I roll my two suitcases inside then look to the wall on my left for a light switch. Conveniently it's an arms reach away from the door.

I step forward to flick the first out of the three switches, which turns on the light for the entrance area.

Online, I saw pictures of the dorms and community spaces. There's a kitchen in this flat and four other dorms sharing it.

After arriving at the airport and boarding a train I also looked at a map of the area and surroundings of the building so finding the entrance wouldn't be a search in itself.

Now that I'm here I can spend the night unpacking some of my stuff.

Before doing that I look into the ensuite bathroom and open the wardrobe. It's small, however fortunately I don't have many things.

The actual room is pretty small but not in a suffocating way. The bed is double size and a couple feet from the end is my desk, which stretches the width of the room and sits is under a square window.

"I'll need to make a list tomorrow." I say to myself. More in thought than speaking to anything in particular. Not that there's anything else in here; aside from me, myself and I there's only my luggage and the sound of my own breathing.

Anything I need to buy I can organise tomorrow, as well as food because I brought some snacks.

Sam is probably waiting for me to contact her. I decide I'll do that now then sleep because travelling is tiring.

My flight was only a few hours but it's already night time. With a yawn I take a few steps to reach my backpack on the floor in the entrance and bring it to the bed with me.

The mattress sinks as I sit down and reach down to untie my shoelaces before sliding the shoes off and swinging my legs onto the bed so that I'm lying on my side.

From my backpack I take out my phone, the charger and a partly squished muesli bar. Beside the bed is a wall socket to plug the charger in, which I do then unwrap my late, nutritious meal and take a bite.

I unlock my phone and open messages while still chewing the first mouthful. Mum would approve, I think to myself.

I send her a photo of myself eating it and let her know I've made it to my new home safely. Without becoming a famous victim on Aircrash Investigations as Sam said.

Alive, I survived with the rest of the crew. I text her.

Unsurprisingly, less then half a moment has passed when she responds. Fast responder, she is.

I read her reply, no fun on the emergency water slide then?

No, I write, but I had fun finding the ghosts lurking in the darkness of each corner in my room.

The three moving dots appear as she types once again. I watch them and finish off what's left of my muesli bar. There's no bin in here. The wrapper will have to stay on the bedside table until I buy one.

Sam has stopped typing. Another few seconds pass and the dots return.

I flop onto my back and hold my phone above my head to read the screen and what she's just sent.

I'm not afraid of the dark, she wrote. Which is a lie. But I don't like it, kind of like your irrational fear of lizards.

Ever since one scratched my hand and left it bleeding as a kid? I don't think it's overreacting when those disgusting creatures also carry a million reptile diseases.

They're so gross. I say.

I'll get you one for your birthday. A glass cage too so you can keep it in your dorm.
We can name it Monster for how threateningly cute it'll be.

The demon would end up in her bed and give her a scare in the dark if I ever let it out of it's cage. She'd deserve it, too.

Not cute. And I'm tired so goodnight.

I wait for her to reply. The dots return once more as she writes out a response. It'll probably be something stupid again.

Sleep tight, don't let the bed lizards bite.

I close my eyes and try not to think about those horrible scaley demons as I fall asleep.