Dark Places

14 | i know you're there

❝well, i feel just like a stranger;
i don't sleep at all anymore.❞

☽

ANXIETY GNAWS THE WEEK DOWN, whittling it to whispers within the walls of MECA. I feel like I'm sleepwalking, restlessly, through dreary waves of fog, sheets of rain, lingering moments of shadowy silence. Portland goes monochrome, a colorless city, stripped to shades of grey, fleeting flickers of orange brushstrokes across a wet canvas: leaves fluttering from trembling branches to slick sidewalks, and slivers of charcoal, crushed to dust on newsprint skies, and spaces emptying out into streets, and light becoming... darkness.

It happens so seamlessly that I fall into it, dragging through classes on Wednesday, barely existing in those smoky strokes of charcoal, but as the quiet, inevitable threat looms over the skyline, counting down hours, minutes, seconds, it consumes every waking thought.

Fitful bursts of sleep come and go, in and out, filled with an inky ocean, churning in a midnight storm. I can't concentrate, plagued by nightmares of drowning, pale skin, blue lips and charcoal lips, sputtering, gasping, choking for air.

I wake in a sheen of sweat, surrounded by nothingness.

The faint thrum of noise, a beat, soft voices, from Drake's room.

Drake doesn't speak to me.

Jonah tries, but I... I don't know what to say to him about anything, so I avoid him.

I trudge downstairs, into the hollow morning, before sunrise, still saturated with misty, murky undertones. I bring a sketchbook, and I sit in the cold, desperate to draw, but I'm distracted, digging the thin wisp of paper from between the pages to stare at those numbers, those words, those lines, trying to decode something, something, something, in the messy handwriting, the frayed material, the faded ink.

MECA is stifling.

By Thursday morning, I've already claimed it, with piles of discarded drawings in the trashcans of empty classrooms, as a graveyard of shitty art. This is the downfall, the death, of a starving artist. I can't create anything; I can only chase those quiet conversations, lingering under dim lights, in clouds of smoke, and muffled between walls.

MECA is a vault of secrets, begging to break.

People talk.

They whisper, whisper, whisper, under their breath, in between long, deep drags, day and night, chainsmoking in the shadow of MECA, and I find myself staying soft and still, hidden in the dark, listening to them gossip in those low, raspy voices about Sophany. Her struggle with addiction. Her death. Her overdose.

"I saw it coming."

"Oh, no, addiction is a genetic disease."

"It's so sad, but I mean, she didn't... look for help."

"Well, it runs in the family."

Hesitantly, I mull over their sentiments, that last sentence, until I find myself on the porch, waiting beneath a starless sky, lost in the deafening darkness.

Thursday night. 23:54.

If you're interested, Nikki said, as if it was something I could choose to find.

Jess would chase it to the edge of the city, waste sleepless nights searching for the secret, in hopes that it was an underground venue, a hidden speakeasy in the back of a bodega, a pop-up, a sex party, something wild and exclusive, an invite, coded or encrypted, given to only those who know the right people.

I inhale deeply, lungs clenching within the grips of a smoky assault as I brush my thumb along the faint ink. Succinct. Sharp. Secret. 207-761-1990. It must be a line to receive an address, or if they're really sophisticated, coordinates, latitude and longitude, that can bring me closer to knowing whatever Drake knows about Sophany.

The paper feels worn between my fingers, textured soft, folded a million times, and I can't help but wonder who else has held it, then passed it on, letting it lose meaning and tangibility with every single stranger, in denim pockets, within pages of sketchbooks, between ashy fingertips. It doesn't make sense, and I don't know what to expect.

I just know I'm... not meant to do this.

Well, mami, you never have been very cautious, Jess would say. It's part of why I love you.

Jessica Montero loves flaws, and I hate them. It's the fatal fault of an artist, doomed to spend an eternity searching for perfection in imperfect places. I can't get rid of that incessant part of me. I can't forget it, when I see shapes, colors, and lines, techniques and theories, in everything that exists.

23:56.

I blink, blink, blink, and then it's 23:57 and I'm still hovering over her number. Jess, with a big, brash heart beside her name. Her picture, a beautifully vibrant smile, dizzy eyes and flushed cheeks. Her number, just below my thumb.

23:58.

It doesn't matter because it's almost midnight, and Jess won't answer my calls.

Sighing, I force her contact away and shift my phone to tap the screen. Teclado. Numbers, floating atop a black ocean. I stare at them, and suddenly, I'm nervous, unsure of what I'm digging into, fighting off the urge to find a drink, or... or Drake. The weathered, fraying strip of paper, between my knuckles, cutting through the twisting tendrils of smoke, lit by a slow-burning cigarette, ink and newsprint, light and dark.

23:59.

I touch each number delicately.

Dread churns low in my throat.

I wait, wait, wait, and when those numbers at the top of the screen flicker, I don't hesitate.

00:00.

It rings in my ear, once, twice, three times, and then there's silence, a flat, hollow silence, emptiness, seizing me in an icy chokehold. It's cold and quiet, and I can't quite shake the feeling that I'm alone, that there is... no one on the other side.

"Hello?" I clear my throat as I stand, tossing my cigarette to the sidewalk. "Hello?"

Nothing.

Dead. Silence.

What am I supposed to say?

It's all about connection, Jess would say. It's not about what you know; it's about who you know.

I don't know anything, but I know someone.

"I got this number from a girl named Nikki," I say, and immediately, I taste blood, a heartbeat throbbing in my throat, pounding in my pulse, hammering in my head. Fuck. I don't know... if... "I'm just looking for a... a location... or..."

Suddenly. Sharply.

Static.

The faint trace of breathing, rife with hesitation.

Soft, labored, caught and crushed, strangled.

"I know..." I pause, fingers tightening and knuckles whitening. I don't know anything. "I know you're there."

"I know..." It lulls, like me, a warped perversion, a cocktail of gravel and metal and salt water, a distorted echo of my shaky voice against a cacophony of choking. "I know you're there."

My blood runs cold.

Guttural sounds of stolen air, quickening and quietening, in weak, breathless flutters, and then, slowing, slowing, slowing... into silence.

Abruptly, it clicks, cutting out, and I'm left alone again in the cold, dark night.

☽

—Okay, so this one was short, but AHHHHHHHHH. I didn't intend to go in a 'horror' direction, so to say, but this story is definitely getting darker. I'm excited. I'm more excited than I should be. 😂