It was hot. No, not hot. It was FUCKING hot. A heat wave, signaling the starting of the world-renown Californian summer, had come with a vengeance six days ago and showed no signs of stopping. And all of the residents of Los Angeles could feel the sweltering heat wherever they were or went. In the bedrooms of the homes, on the asphalt of the playgrounds, and, especially, on the skins of the Santa Monica beach dwellers. The heat was everywhere. So there is no need to be surprised that the heat filled the apartment of the young Ms. Yvonne Marie Godillo

"Ahh that's nice" said Yvonne with a dreamy sigh as she stuck in her head in freezer. Resting her peach-colored left cheek against the frozen pack of pork, the red-haired girl fantasized of the snow-kissed mountains somewhere in the beautiful country of Canada, where her cousin Anna and she promised to go visit someday, while they were still young and full of energy. Her daydream was quickly destroyed by the two brown Chihuahuas her mother owned. They were shrieking at whoever was at the front door.

Yvonne, sadly, pulled her head out of the freezer and begin to walk towards the door. "That better not be Jehovah's Witness? I thought I scared them off Wednesday with my satanic chant and seizure" she grumbled. The heat made her mood no better. She halted her steps at the sound of the door opening. Her mother was home, which meant it was six o'clock.

"Ay dogs. Shut up! It's me!" her mother scolded the dogs as she tried to make her way into her own apartment without let them out. Yvonne came to the rescue by picking the little barkers up and locking them in her room.

"How was your day mom?" she asked as she came back into the living room Her mother had sat down in the kitchen.

"Hot!" her mother exclaimed with anger at the weather. "That woman has no air conditioning at her home."

"But… I did get paid today. And I'm in the mood for Chinese food." Yvonne liked the sound of this. The heat had made her forget all about eating for several hours, but now at the mere suggestion of food, her stomach approved.

"Ooo yeah! That sounds good!"

At the moment of her daughters agreement, she grabbed a ten from purse and shoved it into Yvonne's hand.

"Go get it."

Yvonne's hungry and smiling face turned into an annoyed one. "No! Please! Come on! Let's go in the car!" she pleaded. Too bad her mom was too tired to drive.

"Ay! Stop complaining and go get it! You were here all day with video games and your stupid World of Warcraft!" Yvonne gave in to that argument quickly. She had been lounging around all day in her bikini while her mother was at work. She sighed and reasoned to herself.

"Alright, what do you want?" she sighed, grabbing her black tank top and jean shorts.

Yvonne reached Kwon Chinese Palace within 15 minutes of walking from the Chinatown train station. By now, the sun was almost finished setting. The sky displayed a combination of pink, purple, and gold hues which swirled and blended so magnificently well one could not tell exactly where each color began or ended. She took off her favorite pair of aviator sunglasses and wipe her sweaty forehead.

She walked into the restaurant, which smelled of oil and garlic, and order the number 4 grand special. She watch as the Asian women behind the counter scooped sweet and sour pork, chow mein noodles, beef and broccoli, orange chicken, fried rice, kung poa chicken and several pot stickers into two, Styrofoam boxes, slid them into a bag and placed it on the counter. Yvonne paid the man at the register the $8.54, grabbed the bag with a quick 'thank you', grabbed the change, and speed out the door.

As Yvonne began her walk back down to the train station with a a new promises of greasy food, a building she hadn't noticed before caught her eye. 'CHINATOWN LIBRARY' was sprawled across the top of the dull brown building. Yvonne stopped directly in front the library and began to think.

Fuck, should I go in? I don't really want to. Ay, but Anna is always telling me that I should start reading. She wants me to read the Harry Potter books. But I don't see WHY I should read them now, since she spoiled the whole series for me on our last trip to Chinatown.

Yvonne went up to the door and peeked inside. There was no one inside, save for the librarians but the inside looked cool and well-maintained. Cool. She remembered. Cool as in air conditioned. Without a second thought, she stepped right in.

Yvonne let out a relieved sigh as the cold air of the building hit her sweating face. 'Damn that feels good. I love libraries.' was her only thought for a minute, as she stood under the air conditioning vent and allowed the air to blow over her body. When she felt her skin cooling down, Yvonne took off her sunglasses, placed them into the chinese food bag, and began to walk around. She made her way over the librarian, who looked busy filing away papers.

Well, I'm here. I might as well see the book Anna has been ranting about.

Yvonne pulled up to the main desk and tried to get the womans attention,

"Excuse me." the old Chinese woman turned around and look at her in angry. Unsurprised by the glare, Yvonne kept talking.

"Do you know where I can find the Harry Potter books?"

The angry asian just pointed to her left.

"Ova' there. In fishion." she said and then quickly went back to filing. Normally, someone who had been treated like this would have gotten angry and demanded respect, but not Yvonne. She simply turned around and walked towards the fiction shelves.

'Guess I gotta do it myself. She's probably not having a good day. Whatever. I 'm not in a rush.

Slowly she scanned all the books, hoping not to miss the ones she was seeking. So intent was her gaze on the books at her eye level, she was completely oblivious to the book at her feet. That is, she was oblivious, until she nearly tripped on it. 'The hell? Dammit man. Libraries are dangerous. Trying to kill me.

She picked up the book from the dark green carpet and looked it over. The book had a chocolate brown hardback cover with the tips of its pages tinged with gold, the type often seen on bibles or expensive journals.

No title on the front. Must be inside. She opened the book, only to find there was no words showing the title. In fact, there wasn't a single word within the entire book!

Ok what the fuck? Now I know I don't read very often, but even I know there is supposed to be words here! Yvonne grabbed the book's spine with her left hand and flipped through all the pages with her right.

'Not a word in here. Is this a journal or… wait.' she told herself. A small cluster of pages at the book's back had been glued together. She opened the pages only to have her mouth drop.

In the center of the glued pages someone had cut a hole. But that wasn't the mouth-dropping part. No, the mouth-dropping occurred when Yvonne saw the beautiful ring the pages contained. Yvonne plucked the ring out of the book and held it up in the air.

Son of a bitch, it's gorgeous!

Indeed it was an amazing ring. The band was of pure, shining silver, so shiny she could clearly see the different colors of green in her eyes in it. Inside the band there was gold words engraved along it, though she could not read the language. But the most breathtaking part was the large red ruby sitting atop the band. The jewel gleamed arrogantly, as if it knew it was beautiful and worth a fortune. Yvonne stared at the ring for several minutes before she got the feeling she was being watched. She turned around to see the same librarian she had spoken to, looking at her angrily. She quickly hid the ring in her pocket.

"We close now. You want book?" the asian woman stated, pointing to the book in Yvonne's hand. "Y-yeah." she stuttered, trying to get her thoughts together. The librarian grabbed the book out of Yvonne's hand and look at it.

"Not ours." Yvonne looked at her puzzled.

"What?"

"Dis book no belong to library. No code tag. See?" the woman shoved the book back into Yvonne's hands and began to shoo her out. "Don't want it. Take it and go."

Before Yvonne could say anything, she found herself outside the library and (sadly) into the night heat, with the book in one hand and the bag of now cold Chinese food in the other.

Shaking her in disbelief, she placed the book into the bag and felt her pocket. Oh hell yeah! This ring is mine now! She told herself. When this thought crossed her mind, she felt the ring shift in her pocket, almost as if it was nodding. She placed the wordless book into the food bag and set off towards the station once again, going at a light jogging pace. Every part of her wanted to see the ring again, but she knew better that to pull out giant ruby rings in plain sight. Besides, she would be home in fifteen minutes anyway.

She reached the station just as the train pulled up. She broke into a sprint and literally jumped into the car. She settled herself on a seat near a window and looked around. The train was completely packed. An old black man around his 60's sat down next to her and smiled when their eyes met.

"Hey man, good evening" Yvonne greeted, always one for start conversations on trains and buses.

"Good evening. Hot aint it?

"Yeah, it's like a furnace! So where are you coming from?" The train's doors closed and it began to ride the tracks.

"I'm just get off work, as is most of these people. I drive buses."

"Oh cool. Is it frustrating?

"The driving? No. The People? Yes!" He laughed and she joined in.

"Ah, I can only imagine.

"And You? What's in the bag?"

"Oh it's just cold Chinese food for me and my mom."

"Mmm sounds good! I'm on my way to wife's cooking. But I think she may be trying to kill me with salt!" He chuckled and began to say something else when his phone rang.

"Oh excuse me" he took out his phone from his front pocket. "it's the missus. Hello dear. I'm on my way back now-.

Yvonne turned away to look at the window. It was so dark outside. She must have taken longer than she thought inside the library. She searched her person for her cell, but couldn't find it. Yvonne grumbled angrily. It's never here when I need it! She turned back to the black man next to her.

"Excuse me, what time is-" her voice trailed off as she saw that there was no man next to her. She spun her head quickly to find him, but then realization hit her. There was no one on the train with her; it had become completely empty.

'Just where in the hell is everyone?.' She stood up and looked around. 'What the hell? I'm completely alone. Yvonne took three steps down the car when she figured out something else. The train wasn't moving. She no longer felt the movement of the train along the tracks or the sway of the wind pushing against the car. She quickly went back to the window and looked out with a gasp. It wasn't just dark outside. It was completely pitch black outside, as if nothing existed out the car. No city, no tracks, no sky. Nothing.

"What the fuck is going on?" she yelled, and, as if on cue, the car lights went out. Yvonne quickly sucked in her breath and looked around frantically. She found that she could see nothing. There was no light anywhere. The same darkness which lived outside had made it's way inside her car, and if she hadn't been feeling the metal seat against her leg, she would have doubted she was still in the train. She fumbled around in the darkness, panic-stricken.

"OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT!" She made her way back to the middle of the car and begin to use the seats as her guide. Slowly, she tried to make her way towards the front of the car, and hopefully, to the conductor. She made her way down half the car when she took another steep, and found that there was no longer any ground beneath her.

She screamed.

Faster and faster she fell heading towards the bottom of whatever this darkness was, screaming all the while. Yvonne felt as though something was pulling her down, instead of gravity making her fall. She could feel the tug on every inch of her body, threatening to rip the skin and hair off her person if it pulled any harder. She could only imagine her family and friends as she plummeted to what she was certain to be her death.

Then, as if to make matters worse, she begin to drown.

Though she couldn't see it, she felt freezing liquid fill her mouth and lungs, stopping her screams. Yvonne thrashed violently and tried to cough it up. But with every dropped she coughed out, ten more took it's place. The water threaten to burst her lungs before she could drown in it. Her eyes filled with tears at the pain she felt her face growing red and hot. Yvonne began to thrash even more violently, but found limbs hard to move. The water hard surrounded her and now she was swimming and being dragged down at the same time. Opening her eyes, the drowning girl saw the smallest glimmer of light. 'Oh shit I'm dead.' was the only thought she could squeeze out before the force dragged herself down so quickly Yvonne was enveloped by light.

Yvonne felt the pulling force release her and begin to push her up. She felt the top of her head break the surface of the water. Quickly she gave a mighty push with her legs and hands. Immediately, she felt the air on her face and began to cough violently, trying to suck in air and expel water from her lungs at the same time. She could feel solid ground beneath her feet, for she stood up. The water came halfway up to her breasts, which wasn't very high since she was 5'2.

Yvonne relaxed her coughing when she could breath normally and rubbed her face, wiping away sight-impairing water from her eyes. She took a last deep breath through her mouth and opened her eyes. Although her sight was blurry, she could see she was in a beautifully decorated white room, with shelves holding vials of many colors and shapes and a golden abstract design on the ceiling. But the water did not belong to a pool, but to a bath. A bath that was currently occupied. Yvonne turned her head to see what looked like an extremely frightened mother clutching her child. "Ummm" she started.

"GUARDS!"

Son of a bitch.