Kill Me, Kiss Me

EIGHT

THEODORE woke up to the pouding grind within his head. The first thing that danced into his sight was the blurry white of a ceiling and the brightening yellow of the coming day. He shifted in the pooling warmth of his duvet, struggling against the comforting daze of his mind. There was no time to waste, he really needed to get up and prepare for work, and Lily, he needed to drive her to uni, she must have a morning lecture...

His back arched, and he clenched into the sheets, eyes dancing across the space, no longer blurry. This wasn't his room. A chill descended straight through his guts. The walls were the same colour, the furniture too, were the same he'd been using, but something about it all was skewed. The arrangement of the furnishings, the pictures hanging on the walls, the draw of the curtain across the window, everything was... off, there was no neeed for him to even scutinise the detail.

It was clear, everything around him was artificially arrayed in mimic of his haven.

He was still in the game.

Tearing the strangling sheets from his legs, he crashed out of his bedroom into what looked like his sitting room. His heart crashed into a spiral of smoke and debris, and his arms fell slack to his sides. This was an apartment, this was not his house, not his beautiful contemporary home he was still paying the mortgage of.

He was still in the game.

Another ferocious ache quivered through his head, and he bent down, clutching his temple. Yesterday - he had warned Mariah, and he'd received her letter, but she, she—
   
"Fuck, why is she so heavy?"

That couldn't have been her, he shook his head, stumbling across the space towards the kitchen island at the entrance, he could've heard it wrong. But Alexandr, he'd read the note, he'd returned it, and, and what had happened next? He clenched the cold marble of island, squeezing his eyes against the grating pain building up in his sockets.

Drinks, he could vaguely remember that, Alexandr bought him a lot, a lot of drinks, and they had talked. But about what? Theo gritted his teeth. He wasn't particularly loose-mouthed even when drunk but with that much alcohol, capable of blinkering him to this extent, he couldn't guarantee anything.
    "You got yourself a... prey....I wonder how long... last—

Who had said that? It was that Elyas, yes, but what else had they said? Every whisper of their words kept slipping out of his grasp with every insistent grind in his head. He could remember the dark yellow glow of the light, it had dazzled across the edges of his glasses, and those dark, dark eyes, they burnt in the glow as if there had been a fire burning within them. That man's face had been flushed too, but that gaze, it never lost its focus, not when they grazed him, not when they swept over Elyas.

He couldn't remember anything else other than that.

Theo slammed his fist into the hard stone surface of the table, sending a piece of card hurtling over the smooth marble. Rubbing his brow, he reached over and swept it towards him with a flick of his fingers.

Against the creamy whiteness of the card was the forceful swirl of black ink letters that seemed to rise straight up from the paper and pierce through his mind.
   
Take a day off work; there's no need to call in.
Alexandr F Hew

Digging his fingernails into the thick card, Theo razed the apartment with his gaze, a sense of suffocation wrapping around his throat. Did that man think he was stupid? That warning and now this blatant trespassing. How could Alexandr have known the passcode to this apartment?

A ripple of disgust ripped across his skin, and he yanked open the front door, rushing outside into the quiet corridor of the apartment building. 80421, beep, beep, the door clicked open with a happy ting. The passcode was the same as the one he had for his house. His fingers seized, and an emptiness ballooned inside his chest.

He was lost. What should he do now? He didn't know. He didn't know how he could get out of this hellish game. He didn't know who he should talk to. He didn't know where else he could go to. And now this man knew exactly where he lived and how to get in.

He didn't know who he could believe.

Perhaps, he was being paranoid, his mind wasn't thinking clearly, in this situation, everything felt like shadows and open maws, but... that smile had driven a frozen stiffness in his limbs. He hadn't been able to move, it was as if he had been faced with a beast. It had spoken of unavoidable danger.

"Fuck."

He strode back into his apartment, through the living space into his bedroom. A day off work? He threw the wardrobe open and drew a suit out. That man must be joking, he didn't have anytime to waste, he had to start working things out. These games usually end when you capture a game target* don't they? Not that he was planing to do anything like that.

Clenching his fingers, he walked into the bathroom.

Oh, this was already hell.