***
I did not want to wake up. I did not want to confront the situation in which I knew I would find myself. I was not given the luxury of being able to believe that everything that had occurred had been a dream. The memories were too vivid, too nightmarishly grotesque to be ignored or downplayed. So when my eyes snapped open, I prepared myself for another fight. I prepared to find myself in an unfamiliar setting, accompanied by the strange man I had met.
I was right about the former but wrong about the latter. When I awoke in an unfamiliar bedroom, I was alone. I sat up abruptly, drawing in one gasp before panting as the terror from the night before seized me. Outside, the first blue light of dawn was breaking on the horizon. I looked at the alarm clock on the nightstand to confirm that it was six-thirty AM. I had been passed out for only three hours. Beside the alarm clock was my canister of pepper spray and cellphone. A note was lying beside them written in a hurried scrawl:
Had to run out. I figured you would want these back.
I rolled my eyes and took the can and phone in my hands. I held the phone in front of my face to find that I had only one missed call from Maura, whom we will call my “nanny” for the time being. I couldn't quite discern why she would be calling me between the hours of two and five AM, and I didn't have time to ponder it, as I heard the front door open and close.
Despite the throbbing in my head, I began to prepare myself for a fight. I turned, holding the pepper spray up in front of my face, and steadied my hand. I would spray every last bit of the can's contents at the beastly so-and-so the moment he came through the door.
“Brynna, I just want to talk to you. Put it down.”
Either I'm predictable or the beastly so-and-so could see through doors. While I was a fan of fantasy novels and films, I was not naïve. I stayed grounded in the real world at all times. As a result of that, I opted to believe the former.
“If you come in here, I will spray all of it into your eyes.” I warned him, just to be fair.
“Then I guess it would be prudent for me to stay out here and talk to you, wouldn't it?”
“Just move out of the way and let me leave. I don't want to hear anything you have to say.” I gathered all of my nerve to say what I said next. “I am opening the door and coming out.”
What bravery it took for me to say that was nothing compared to the brash stupidity it took to actually do it. My fear silently reached its piercing crescendo and yet I threw open the door, still holding the canister up. I maneuvered my way out into a narrow hallway.
“I am not looking at you. I barely remember what you look like. After last night, after...” I trailed off, keeping my head down as I continued to walk with his form visible only in my upper peripheral vision and nowhere else. “I don't know what you look like.”
“Am I really so forgettable?” He asked, and I grimaced at his lame attempt to make a joke. He was trying to gain my trust. He was trying to charm me into letting my guard down but he didn't quite know with whom he was dealing. I had read extensively on psychopathology and considered myself a bit of an expert on the matter. I knew how terrible people worked.
I turned so that I was walking backwards, keeping my eyes to the floor while still being able to see his outline.
“Your head looks terrible. You need to let me take a look at it. I'll even give you a knife to hold, if it will make you feel better about things.”
What in the world? His sarcasm was not meant to irritate. It was meant to entertain. I could not help but shake my head at just how strange he was.
“I will go to the hospital.” I muttered hurriedly. “I will go and have it taken care of, thank you so much. But I won't go to the police. You have my word on that. I promise. I swear to God, I won't go to the police.”
“Good. They wouldn't help you, anyway.”
“Okay.” I agreed blindly just to pacify him. “You're right.”
I had come to the door of his apartment. I reached backwards and opened it before darting away without looking back. The pepper spray was still firmly grasped in my hand but I would not stop to use it. I threw open the door to the staircase and hurried down the steps, barely watching where my feet landed. Once or twice, I lost my footing and stumbled forward, but my trembling legs managed to catch me before I went tumbling painfully to the landing.
When I burst out onto the street, I was greeted by the sound of early morning traffic and a burst of fresh air that awoke every sense my body possessed. My breath billowed out in front of me, reminiscent of cigarette smoke; I yearned for a charge of nicotine in my blood. I would only be calmed by the jolt it provided in each sacred puff.
Shaking that thought from my head, I started to walk briskly, looking over my shoulder with almost every step I took. It was a relief not to have my purse, I realized. All I had was my pepper spray and my cellphone. Anything else would have slowed me down.
I looked around for any familiar landmarks to tell me where I was. I had never been skilled at memorizing street names and intersections. I always used places to mark where I was in the city. But apparently, I had never ventured as far out as I was then. Not a single building or business helped determine my exact whereabouts.
It was ridiculous and ineffably stupid but I just couldn't bring myself to call Maura. I couldn't stand the idea of having to describe what had happened the night before. I was not capable of churning out some fantastical story to explain what I was doing in an unfamiliar section of town at six-thirty AM. I walked a little further, urging myself not to allow the quiet fear that I felt bubbling inside of me to boil over into a frenzied panic. I had been able to escape which made me luckier than most women. I had to put distance between myself and the man who had taken me.
Only a handful of people walked past me. I could have asked any one of them for directions, I knew. But as I turned and watched the fourth person I had passed keep walking, I suddenly realized that if I were to speak to anyone in the state of anxiety I was in, I would end up spilling the events of the previous night to them. A crazed albeit well-dressed (and now severely bruised) drunk on the street...
“Alright.” His voice said behind me, and I jumped, shock throbbing through my body like an electrical current. I needed to act defensively; after whipping around, I emptied my can of pepper spray blindly in the direction from which I had heard his unwelcome voice.
When I opened my eyes that had been squeezed shut throughout the duration of my attack, I didn't see him writhing on the ground in agony, howling about how I, a crazy female dog, had just burnt his eyes out. Maybe, like when I had kicked him the night before, he just wasn't verbally announcing to me and any passerby that he was in pain. Maybe that just wasn't how he operated. Strange...
“If I were a rapist,” He walked out from behind the wall, and I threw the can of pepper spray at him in frustration and above all else, in resignation. Easily, he moved sideways slightly so it could fly right past his head. He raised his eyes to look into mine, “would I have let you walk out like that?”
“You didn't let me do anything!” I half-yelled, pointing at him with a shaking finger. “I ran away! I escaped!”
He nodded.
“Okay. Yeah, sure, you escaped.”
“Shut up!” Now I was shouting and covering my ears for a minute of solace. “You... you... Go away!”
“Brynna, you're going to scare people.”
“I don't care! What is wrong with you?!” I turned and continued to huff up the street. He strode forward to catch up to me. “Just go away, you crazy, evil...”
“Evil? Is that why I saved your life last night?”
“Oh, are you being poetic? Are you being ironic?” I snapped at him as we turned onto a particularly busy street. “Did you date-raping me last night 'save my life'?”
“You think I date-raped you?” He asked me, and I could hear a note of anger in his voice. I noticed that as he said those words, two of the people on the street gave him hilariously quizzical and disgusted looks
. “What, dare I ask, gave you that impression? What do you remember about last night?”
“I don't want to remember anything about last night. So, shut up and go away!”
“You didn't answer my question. If I were a rapist, would I be letting you walk out amongst people? Would I let you keep going?”
“Maybe you're going to blackmail me. Maybe you want money or something. How the hell am I supposed to know exactly what goes on in the mind of a crazy person? I thought I had a pretty good idea, but you will be pleased to know I have officially recognized that I have absolutely no idea!”
“Let's go somewhere and get something to eat.”
“I don't know you!” I stopped walking and turned to him, infuriated now. “I don't want to know you! I don't care who you are, what your motives are, or about any scenario that doesn't involve me getting home!”
“Those things are still outside of your apartment, Brynna.”
Hearing that made me stop my indignant trek and turn to him again.
“You thought you had imagined them?” He asked, raising his eyebrows. “That's sweet that you're allowing yourself to be so naïve.”
“I know that I imagined them.” I hissed at him dangerously. “They were projections. They were physical manifestations of the uncomfortable feeling that you provoked in me. They were brought into sight by an elevated heart rate and an adrenaline rush. Thank you for that, by the way.”
“Please, just come with me, and we'll talk. I'll explain everything to you. I know you're afraid.” He reached out and grasped my arm gently but I shook him off.
“Do not touch me! Just...” I closed my eyes and put my hand on my head, the dull throbbing I had felt since I awoke morphing suddenly into a full-fledged, knee-buckling pain and world-twirling dizziness.
“Okay...” He put both hands on my arms now and turned me so we could keep walking in the direction I had been going. “There's a diner up the street here. We'll go in there. I'll buy. See? I am a nice guy.”
“Please just go away...” I muttered to him, and for the first time, I felt the threat of impending tears. He must have heard the crackling in my voice as well because as he steered me along, he rubbed my arm comfortingly.
“I promise, I'll explain everything as soon as we're sitting down.”
It was against my better judgment, but I followed him into the diner and sat down across from him at a small booth in the corner, away from the prying eyes and ceaselessly listening ears of the other patrons. I kept my face in my hands and muttered, “If I believed in God, I would be praying right now...”
“Look at me.”
It wasn't an order. It was merely a gentle suggestion. I raised my eyes to look at him, and he spoke again.
“I know that this is asking a lot. Believe me, I do. But I need you to trust me, Brynna.”
“I don't know you.” I implored him, feeling desperation more strongly than I was comfortable with. “I have no idea why I woke up in your bedroom this morning. Well, I do have an idea, but I wish I didn't. You have to know that I come from money, and my family will pay you whatever you want. This is a strange way to go about assaulting someone, but whatever, I don't want to think about that, either. I won't over-analyze you for fear of losing my mind.”
“Alright. My turn to talk.” He told me lightly as he slid my pack of cigarettes across the table to me. “That's my peace offering. Is it working?”
“You,” I tapped my head against my open palms, “are...” I did it again, “so...” And again, “strange!”
“I need you to understand and accept this as being true: I did not hurt you in any way last night.”
“You slammed my head up against a brick wall. That hurt me severely.”
“I didn't mean to do that as hard as I did. But I had no choice. Those things were coming, and I had to get you to stop making noise.”
“Those things weren't real! Why are you telling me that they were?”
The waitress came over and he ordered a coffee with no cream or sugar. The woman gnashed her teeth into a huge wad of gum as she asked me what I wanted. My head jerking from side to side was the only answer I offered to her question.
“She has a bit of a migraine. A coffee will help, I think.” The man ordered for me. My fingers were pressed to my temples. I scowled up at him.
“Caffeine.” The waitress nodded in agreement. “Best thing for them, sweetie.”
I jerked my head up and down, still trying to wrap my head around what was happening.
“Ask Dr. Oz what the best thing is for a pesky, delusional assailant when she comes back with the coffee.” I muttered to him, but then I shook my head slightly and closed my eyes. “That was rude. She is just trying to help.”
“It was rude. It was also thought of quickly, which must mean that you're returning to normal. Or whatever is normal for you, I should say.”
“Why are you acting like you know me? You don't know anything about me!”
“I don’t? Well, let’s see…” He breathed in deeply, looking up at the ceiling, pretending to be thinking deeply. “Your name is Brynna Olivier. Your mother is a senator and your father runs a popular news organization. The channel, the newspaper, the website, it’s all his. I know that you currently reside in a one bedroom apartment, alone, because you have never quite mastered real human contact. You joke frequently about being a 'non-human.' You call yourself a genius who doesn't worry herself with petty human attachment in public but in private, you wonder if perhaps there's something seriously wrong with you. You think you might be a robot, a cyborg, that sort of thing.” He lit up one of my cigarettes and inhaled deeply.
“Are you here to tell me I'm a cyborg?” He handed me another cigarette that he had just lit up. I took it gratefully.
“No.” He shook his head.
“Are you here to tell me I am a sociopath? I hear that quite frequently.”
“I'm here to tell you that you're special.”
“Special...” I muttered doubtfully as the coffee arrived at our table. “I think this really will help. Thank you so much.” I smiled up at the waitress who seemed genuinely shocked by my gratitude. I hoped that my sudden change of tone towards her would greatly improve her day.
The scowl returned once I had looked back at the man across from me.
“Do I have super powers, too?” I asked quite sardonically.
He chose to ignore my snide remark and continue talking, but I could have sworn, and I still can swear, that there was the hint of a knowing smile on his face. After I blinked and saw that the smile was gone in that moment, however, I convinced myself that I had imagined it.
“I also know that you are genuinely distrustful of men. You don't care for them. You don't enjoy their company, especially if they are your own age.” He eyed me cautiously for a moment before plowing ahead. “But really, at any age, you don't want them anywhere near you. All of that is a direct result of the fact...”
I slammed my hand on the table, shocking him, myself, and the rest of the people in the restaurant with my outburst.
After a long moment of silence between us, he responded to my explosion of rage airily.
“You apparently have a temper, too. I didn't know that, actually.”
“I get it. You know a lot about me. All of those things could be learned with a Google search or assumed through fanciful speculation. What? Do you want to know about my parents? Are you a reporter? Do you want an inside scoop on my mother? She is up for re-election. Are you trying to skewer her?”
“I know that you'd be more than willing to skewer her, but no.”
“I want to know, right now, what exactly it is that you want. If you don't tell me, I am going to walk out of here. Then, I am going to go straight to the police and tell them that there is a crazy, debonair man in a designer suit who lives on the street over from the...” I looked at the menu that was stuck jauntily behind the napkin container, “Gary's Diner who plays ridiculous mind games on unsuspectin
g young girls!”
“I told you, the police won't help you.”
“What? Are you funding them? Do you have money to buy them off so that you can play said ridiculous mind games on unsuspecting young girls?”
“No. But I do appreciate the fact that you think I'm debonair. My suit is designer, also, and I thank you for noticing that, as well.”
“You are so strange.” I muttered again as I shook my head slightly. “You defy all specific designations of mental illness. You are truly in a class of your own. You can take that as a compliment, I suppose.”
“I watched you last night in the bar because those two morons in the corner drinking themselves into a stupor were not what you think. They weren't, how did you describe them? Two horny, drunken college frat boys.”
“Then what were they?” I asked, exasperated.
“They were the same two things that came walking down the alley looking for you. They appeared to you as something that would make you comfortable at first. Well, they thought it would make you comfortable. Little did they know, you're a strange duck when it comes to interacting with people your own age.”
I actually began to laugh, quietly at first, but as I attempted to suppress it, I only grew more hysterical. Once, I actually snorted and had to cover my mouth and hurriedly apologize for the obnoxious sound through my giggles.
“What is this?” I asked, a renegade laugh escaping me again. “They were those two things that I saw? The two drunken college boys were actually monstrous beasts? What is that, a metaphor? Oh, I think it is! It is a really bad one, too.”
“Brynna, this world is going to end.”
I stopped laughing, realizing suddenly that I was poking fun at someone who clearly had mental deficiencies or a severe drug problem.
“There is a rehabilitation center close to my house.” I told him, actually squeezing his hand in mine for a quick second. “Since you know where I live, it will not be hard for you to find. Just walk up the street a piece from my house, turn left on Monroe, walk for about five minutes or eight, depending on your pace. Look on your left. You can't miss it.”
I stood up to go, but he reached out and grabbed my upper arm firmly in his hand.
“Let go of me, or I will start screaming.” I warned him dangerously.
But just then, a torrent of images whizzed vividly through my mind; a harsh flash of light, people falling to the ground, screaming in agony and covering their ears; a strange, deep silence and then, a deafening explosion that radiated to the farthest reaches of what we knew laid far beyond our earth. I pulled my hand away, my heart pounding again, a cold sweat starting to seep from every pore in my body. It had always been my worst fear. I had always pictured the day the world I knew would cease to exist. I had always known, somehow, that it would occur in my lifetime. I had seen it in my darkest dreams too many times to count.
I slid back into my chair and put my face on the table before reaching up and grasping the cup of coffee. Turning my head so my chin was rested on my arm, I brought the cup to my lips and took one shaky sip, hoping that the sudden heat would snap me out of that terrifyingly real dream.
“I know it's shocking.” His eyes took on a quiet fear I had not yet seen in him. “I know it's horrifying. Believe me, I reacted a lot worse than you when I realized it. Those things you saw are Reapers. They're hunting people. We don't know why they're here or where they're from, originally. I know it sounds crazy. Believe me, I do...”
I shook my head and looked up at him.
“No. I've...” I trailed off and unconsciously reached for my cigarettes. “I've always known it.” My eyes rose to meet his. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“What is your name?”
I know that he must have tried to fight it, but he did smile at the simplicity of the question before he answered it.
“James. James Maxwell.”
“Well, James Maxwell...” I exhaled smoke from my newly lit cigarette, drunk on the serenity brought to the surface by the gentle stream of nicotine that went coursing through my veins. “What are we supposed to do?”
“We, Brynna Olivier, are going to gather as many people as we can and leave here.”
“Leave the earth?” I asked softly in utter disbelief. It was impossible. Even if we successfully exited the atmosphere before our planet was consumed in a fiery blast, we would have nowhere to go. We would drift through the darkness of space, survivors of a dead race left to meet their end at a later date than the rest of our kind.
“Indeed. It's too much to explain now. But I'm sure you've heard about the other planet they've discovered. I'm sure that you've seen it on the news.”
The night before in the bar, I had seen that display on the television. I read the headline only halfway before losing interest. It had read, “Super-Earth ready for...” The rest would remain a mystery, and I would not have cared.
“Yes.” I nodded. “What does that have to do with this?”
“That's our destination. They've known about it for years. They've known about all of this for years.”
“Who is 'they'?”
“They are the people that we common folk so rarely get to see wearing their true faces.”
I nodded again.
“You sounded a little like Yoda when you said that, but I think I know to whom you are referring. I need a moment to process this.”
How strange to be sitting in a diner in the middle of the bustling city, sipping coffee and contemplating the impending end of the world. But after learning such a harrowing new reality, how could one possibly do anything else?
“Is it processed?” He asked me after a long, thoughtful silence.
“Not really. How do we choose who to take? What else do we take with us? How do you even know about this?”
“I discovered that this was coming. Then, a whole mess of strange things started to happen to me. That's a story for another time. Are you particularly hungry?”
“Not now. My God, how could I possibly be thinking about food?”
“Then, come with me. I want to show you something.”