UNSEEN: Undone Realms Book 1

Ghost of birthdays past

Nolan expects to have a sense of relief today. After nearly three months away from home, it's official: he is no longer a runaway. At least, not as he sees it. The way he sees it, Nolan's father no longer has the legal right to find him and drag him back to the hellish existence they shared together.

Today is Nolan's eighteenth birthday. Today, Nolan is free.

Freedom is lonelier than Nolan thought it would be.

Last year on Nolan's birthday, he ditched school and went with Marcus to the skate park. Nolan hadn't been there in a long time, but Marcus thought it would be good for him to renew one of his past interests. Recently, Nolan had given up on most of the things he used to care about. Marcus knew this meant Nolan was depressed again. Marcus always knew.

After the skate park, they went to the mall, a place on Nolan's lists of most hateful locations on earth. But the mall had girls. Lots of them. Marcus said that a birthday well spent was a birthday picking up hot girls. Nolan had to agree with him.

There, in the too-bright lights and retail bliss of the mall, Nolan almost forgot how miserable he was.

That was an entire year ago, thinks Nolan. And that thought is enough to kick up the sadness that has been embedded into his existence for as long as he can remember.

Nothing is the same as it was a year ago. Marcus is dead and his father is more hateful than ever. Nolan is better off here at this hotel, where the only one who has spoken to him like an actual human being is most likely a hallucination, and is certainly not human herself.

He should feel better off, relieved, free. But Nolan experiences none of these things.

His birthday starts off with that see-through girl appearing in his room. Now Nolan is working. The manager doesn't acknowledge his birthday. No one does, and Nolan doesn't expect them too. He should be above caring about these things, but he's not. He does care. If he was in a better headspace, he'd admit to himself that he wants someone else to care too.

The day manager greets Nolan with no greeting at all—just a grunt and a look of derision. He slides Nolan the day's list of assignments in the order in which they must be completed. It is an asinine list, like always. Nolan grabs it, sighing.

The manager has hated him since day one.

Nolan started out as a guest at the hotel. He had made his way up from California in the hopes of finding his mother somewhere in British Columbia. That's where she's supposed to be according to his father, but Nolan hasn't heard from her since he was a little boy. Since his father's word can hardly be called reliable, it's safe to say all of the knowledge Nolan has about his mother is clouded with uncertainty. His father says she's probably remarried, and if that's true, Nolan doesn't even know what her name is anymore. Maria Reyes could be Maria Anybody by now.

Nolan's money ran out the day he arrived at the hotel. He had enough cash to pay for the room and buy himself some semi-edible food from the convenience store across the street. He was really counting on that free continental breakfast the next morning, but after that, he wasn't sure what he would do. Once his truck ran out of gas, it would be a worthless hunk of rusting metal.

He shouldn't have stopped at the hotel. Clearly he couldn't afford to, but he was so sick of sleeping in his car, and so tired of running away, he couldn't resist the beckoning call of a soft bed and a hot shower. The gravitational pull of the hotel paid off, quite literally, affording him the only bit of good luck he'd had since, well, since that mall birthday with Marcus so many months ago—the day Nolan arrived at the hotel, the owner was looking to hire.

As Nolan paid the manager for his room, the owner sized him up and asked if he needed a job. A cheerful woman in her fifties, the owner seemed to read Nolan's desperation. She was kind and thoughtful. And her request was legitimate—the hotel really did need the help.

Nolan accepted because he had no other prospects. He liked the owner too. Here Nolan was searching for his mother, and this motherly woman was reaching out to him. It seemed like a sign, a positive omen.

The next day the owner left the hotel to return to her home in Hawaii, and she hasn't come back. The manager is here though, every day, and he's made it clear to Nolan that it was not his idea to hire him. The manager wanted his nephew to get the job, so the owner's favoritism of a complete stranger does not sit well with him. None of this is Nolan's fault, but it doesn't make a difference. The manager hates him and works him as hard as he possibly can. Nolan almost hates him back, but he finds he doesn't care enough for such strong sentiment. He settles for a thorough dislike.

Nolan has to clean the pool today. This job should have been done in the morning before any guests wanted to use it, but instead, the manager made Nolan start the day unclogging toilets and picking through garbage in order to separate out recyclables. Only after he's done with all of that does he tell Nolan to clean the pool, and by then, it's late morning and the pool is in use by a handful of guests. Nolan is forced to tell them to leave the pool, which makes them upset. Inevitably, they will complain to the manager, who will place all of the blame onto Nolan, who will then receive dirty looks from both the guests and the manager for the rest of the day.

Nolan clears the pool and apologizes to each of the dozen or so guests who must abandon their poolside revelry. When the last one has exited the pool, Nolan hauls out his net and begins scooping up debris from the surface. That is when he notices that the pool is not actually empty.

A figure rests at the bottom, unmoving save for a dark tangle of hair weightlessly streaming out in every direction.

Hoping he isn't too late, Nolan jumps into the pool.