Through Darkest Unknown

By: SneakAttack29


Chapter 3: Don't Be Afraid To Be Confused


"Don't be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused. Anything is possible. Stay open, forever, so open it hurts, and then open up some more, until the day you die, world without end, amen."

-George Saunders


She feels ridiculous that night cautiously crawling into bed wearing slippers.

The notion of it is insane, and Emily fights with herself several times, warring the skeptic against the caution. The idea of being somewhere else in her dreams, physically there in some manner? She doesn't want to believe it. Nothing she knows of can explain it. Nothing concrete gives her any answers, and while the experiences themselves have thus far proven to be quite tangible, the reasons have stubbornly been anything but. Emily Huntington does not like not knowing. To say the past few nights have been driving her crazy is a vast understatement of epic proportions.

Still, the image of swirling silver-grey eyes and jagged red scars dance behind her lids every time she tries to forget that the past two nights ever happened. No, that boy was quite real. The weird sphere thing—Timcanpy, did he call it?—had a weight when it landed on her. Her goddamn foot stings. It's just not making sense. A glance is stolen at the alarm clock on her dresser across the room (just to make extra sure she won't hit snooze). The numbers read a reasonable 9:33pm in blocky neon green, the little blip in the upper corner indicating that her alarm is indeed set for six the next morning as is appropriate for a Tuesday night. She rubs a hand over her face as if to scrub away the anxiety, flips the light off, and nestles down to sleep, focusing all the while on that beautiful abandoned town and those too-pretty silver eyes.

Time to get this exercise in futility over and done with, is the last thought through her head before her consciousness drifts away.


To her chagrin, it works. One moment she's cuddling her pillow, and the next thing Emily knows is the Grecian cobblestones and clear blue skies of the strange town the boy, Allen, claimed is Noah's Ark. She isn't quite sure if she believes that or not, but whatever this place is, the redhead cannot deny that it is gorgeous.

Taking a deep breath, she pushes herself up from the stone bench and gingerly puts her feet down on the ground. A relieved breath escapes her when she sees her hard-sole moccasin slippers fixed firmly in place where they should be.

"I can't believe that actually worked," she chuckles a little wryly. In hindsight, why some part of her firmly believed she would not wake with the slippers on she does not know. If they didn't, then her having clothes on upon appearing here in the first place would be questionable.

She suddenly glances down at her old cherry red t-shirt with the M&Ms logo across the front, quite glad that such is not the case.

Deciding nothing will be accomplished by sitting around and waiting for something to happen, Emily stands slowly and starts aimlessly wandering through the streets. This place is…peaceful, she notes. Serene. Quiet, but not so much that the silence is deafening. There's just enough background noise to allow one to keep sanity.

For reasons of which she is not entirely sure, she keeps an ear out specifically for a piano. The boy the first time she saw him had been tapping at a piano, hadn't he? It makes the most sense, then, to try looking for that instead of staying in one place with the far-fetched hope that he'll magically find her.

She tries to remember the path she took to get to that specific building, but everything essentially looks the same. She's not entirely sure she's appearing in the same place. If she's not, remembering the directions will be pointless. Sort of like the wandering, now that she thinks about it.

"Um…hello?" she tries with a wince. Clearing her throat, Emily says a little louder. "Hello? Is anyone there? A-Allen?"

A few beats, and the girl isn't sure if she wants to laugh or cry at the coincidence of her luck when the sound of footsteps approach and a those same silvery eyes she can't get out of her head pop around a nearby corner. "Miss Emily? You're back!"

A weak grin twitches on her face as she wraps her arms sheepishly around herself. She says, "Well, I've h-hardly got a choice in the matter. I don't mean to keep barging in here like…this. Whatever this is. And please, just Emily." His face turns a little meek, but she can tell he's still a bit guarded, a tad cautious, as he inches a few steps closer so they're not shouting across the small square in which he found her.

"Right, sorry! It's a habit," Allen chirps. "So, uh…how are you? I mean, you seemed upset last night. I guess I can't blame you, but…"

Emily tries not to grin. The boy is as awkward as she is. "I guess. I was prepared for it. Lessens the shock. Do you…have any idea why this is happening? You said this is, what was it? Noah's Ark? How is that even possible? Why does this place seem abandoned except for you?"

"It's a bit of a long story," he laughs, scratching the back of his head. Something remains unsaid, something Emily notices. She smiles sadly.

"But you don't trust me with it."

Allen looks as if he's ready to backpedal, but the girl shakes her head. The words are not a question but a statement, and it is a concept she can understand. Why would he trust her? He has no reason to.

"S-sorry," he mutters.

"It's okay. I get it. I just…want to know why I'm here. How I'm here."

His face suddenly goes serious, and he motions towards a nearby bench to invite the girl to sit. She follows his example and settles next to him. Somehow, his countenance appears far older than the years she counts in his face closer up. She runs an inventory of his body language. Loose, mostly open. Honest. Caution is still abundant.

Restless jumps out at her. The light cotton shirt he wears and the loose pants are mussed and creased. His hair, she notes, is a bit ruffled as if he's been running a hand through it. His eyes look tired, and exhaustion reads in the small slump of his shoulders.

And that's when she notices the hand.

"Oh my god, is your hand okay?" Emily blurts before she can stop herself, quickly blushing and clasping her own palms over her mouth, squeaking an apology. Having been about to speak, himself, Allen's mouth remains dropped as he stares at the girl with befuddlement. The question obviously caught him off guard.

"Uh…what do you…?"

She tentatively motions to his left arm and the scaled, red skin stretched across the black-nailed digits. Her wide eyes also catch a glimpse of what looks to be some sort of crystal lodged under the skin on the back above his wrist. It doesn't particularly appear comfortable. "S-sorry, that was rude of me, b-but is your hand…okay?" Dumbfounded, Allen glances down at his arm. Emily gets the distinct impression that the boy had forgotten that his arm is abnormal, for lack of a better term. It's going to sound discriminatory no matter how she tries to say it, to her chagrin.

"Oh!" he exclaims, a bit of a self-conscious blush rising to his face even as he clenches that hand into a fist and lowers it as if trying to hide it. "That's…well, I was born with it. I don't…well, i-it's…uh…" The shade of red steadily darkens as words continue to escape him. Emily finds it endearingly funny, though she scolds herself for thinking so out of context.

"You don't have to explain if you don't want to! I'm sorry—I shouldn't have asked, it just took me by surprise. I swear I didn't mean anything by it, I'm just so confused." Blue eyes fix on the cobblestones beneath her slippered feet. She doesn't like eye contact anyway, but the turns of this conversation and her social fumbles are making her want to dig a hole and crawl in.

Allen is quick to reassure her. "No, it's fine. This is probably strange to you. Where are you from? That might help figure this out. Your accent is American."

A shaky inhale and a nod preceded her answer. "Yeah. Seattle. West coast. All that jazz."

Curiously, she isn't expecting his head to tilt. "'All that jazz'?"

"Y'know, like the song from Chicago? The idiom? Basically means 'et cetera'? I get you're British by the accent, but it's pretty common, especially because of the musical. Broadway isn't exactly only known in the U.S."

"I don't…what's jazz in the first place? Isn't Chicago a city?" is the last thing Emily expects Allen to say.

She stares at the white-haired boy with the strange scar incredulously. "How do you not know what jazz is? It's a music genre! Originated from early African American slave culture in the mid to late 19th century? Really took off in New Orleans in the early 1900s. Swing music, big band stuff from the 1920s through 40s? Seriously? None of that?" She failed to notice the color slowly draining out of Allen's face the more she talked.

"…1920s…?!"

Emily nods slowly, "Yes, 1920s. Almost 100 years ago? Flapper era? Precedent to the Great Depression? End of World War I?" The boy blinks at her, and she slowly becomes concerned. "Does…none of that ring a bell?"

"Mi—uh, Emily. What…year do you think it is?"

Her brow furrows, "October 2nd, 2018…what year do you think it is?" If her voice wavers, neither of them deign to comment.

"…2 October 1853…"

"What? No, that's impossible." The absurdity of that statement considering the rest of their situation hits the both of them a split second after she utters it, and Emily winces. "Well, maybe not, but how is this possible? What the hell is going on?"

"I don't kn—" Allen starts, but both of them jump when a loud beeping sound begins filtering through the air, quickly getting louder. Emily is gone before she can spit out the curse sitting on her tongue.


Allen Walker stares at the suddenly empty half of the stone bench. The last vestiges of what he assumes to be some type of alarm clock echoing on the surrounding buildings. He blinks once. Twice. Thrice. And not for the first time in three days, he only has one phrase adequate enough to sum up his most recent experience involving the strange—apparently futuristic—girl.

What is this?!


Final Words: Please pardon the brief note as well as any errors. I wrote this on my phone, so autocorrect and typing and whatnot gave me some problems.

So the thing with the jazz. Jazz was a fledgling thing in the last half of the 19th century, however it was distinctly American. Southern, specifically. Jazz didn't become a big genre in its own right until the first bit of the 20th century, and the saying "all that jazz" probably wouldn't have been all that widespread until around then. It doesn't help that jazz at the time meant more along the lines of stupid in the late 19th century, and was also a euphamism for sex. That had plenty of jokes I could have made, but those are to be saved for another date. Regardless, due to this lesson in etymology, I went out on a limb and decided Allen probably wouldn't understand the idiom "all that jazz". Yay, history.

Thanks for reading! And sorry this took me so long!

-Sneak