Prologue: I Seek

Hannah always jokes that if there's one thing about me she can always depend on, it's my unpredictability. She still loves to tell the story of waking up one morning freshman year to discover me in the other bunk, snoozing away as if I'd always been there. She'll roll her eyes and sigh in exasperation that I've been foisting things on her ever since. She has a point; after all, this whole trip was a spur of the moment idea during a 1am Skype chat.

I maintain that I'm actually the sturdy one. I did the responsible thing after graduation and settled down to a 9-5 lab gig at a faceless tech corporation while she went gallivanting off through eastern Europe. While I monotonously copied design specs for senior engineers, she was locking herself in yet another museum or flirting with yet another foreign guy. The truth was, getting away for a week to sneak just a tiny slice of her everyday life was just too tempting, especially when nearly everyone above me was going to some swanky conference in the Hawaiian Islands.

I check my phone again. For once I'm on time, and she's ten minutes late. I can almost feel my reputation for unpredictability tick away with every second she fails to materialize. I try the coffee again. Cold, and getting even colder, with an added bitterness on my tongue as I near the bottom of the glass. I absentmindedly scroll through my phone, just to have something to do; my fingers aren't happy unless they're constantly tinkering with something. Years of hand exercises to control the anxiety that popped up early in my college career meant amazing dexterity, but it's a wasted effort at the moment. The scrolling does nothing to ease my mounting concern.

I mean, I really amthe unpredictable one. Yet we moved our meeting a day earlier for her, after a sudden and anxious barrage of texts from her this morning. She was adamant we meet as soon as possible, promising she'd explain over coffee. I and coffee are here, but she and the explanation are nowhere to be found. I scan the crowd, craning for a glimpse of her vivid headscarf, just as my phone gives a hopeful little chime.

"Running late," the text from Hannah reads," Come meet me."

I get to my feet and shrug on my backpack, swiping letters as I go. "OK. Where?"

"Up the hill," says the response," Next to cafe."

I take a quick survey around me. The only hill I can spy anywhere near me is through a narrow alley just beside the coffee shop. Cloth lines hung heavy with washing, just above head height, bathe most of the alley in deep shadow, with the sun-draped hill just on the other side.

I step a few inches to my right, trying to peer around the cafe, searching for another way around, when my phone chimes again. "Just walk through," it says.

I blanch down at the screen. Is she kidding? I peer suspiciously back into the alley. I can see most of the shapes in the shadows between the two sunny streets but, still, she must be kidding.

"Nice try," I smirk down at my phone, turning to go. A gloved hand over my mouth is the last thing I recall before the world goes black.