I jumped on my feet and felt the nightstand for my gun and my phone, only to remember that it was turned off. With shaking hands, I pressed the power button but I couldn't wait until it was on again so I could use the flashlight. Carefully, I started advancing toward the door, feeling the air in front of me for any obstacles hidden in the dark with my gun aimed forward. Deep inside I knew it couldn't protect me, but it was the only way I knew how to defend myself and I stuck with it. It gave me the courage I needed to check if anyone or anything had entered the room.
My heart was pounding in my chest as I stopped before the bathroom door and peeked inside with eyes wide open, trying to perceive any sounds or movement in the blackness. The silence was deafening. I didn't hear the rain but I couldn't tell if it had stopped or if the building was just playing its tricks on me again.
My phone finally came to life and I quickly scanned the bathroom with the flashlight. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary, so I turned around slowly to check the closet. I tried to calm my rapid breathing, but the thought of another odd thing happening made it impossible to relax. With a shaking hand, I slowly slid the closet door open and checked the inside of it under my light. There were several hangers hanging from a metal bar at the top, and an extra pillow at the bottom, but nothing else.
Quickly, I turned to the front door and closed it. As I locked it, I remembered that Elliot had also locked it, right after we entered the room, and I wondered what could have caused the door to just open. To be sure, I tried to open it once locked but, as expected, it wasn't possible. It felt like I was grasping at straws when I tried to think logically, but I figured that maybe someone had the key and they had used it to unlock it. But where was that someone, in that case? Not inside the room, it appeared. Still, I couldn't shake the feeling of being watched. It sent a chill down my spine.
Elliot was still in the same position when I returned to him. I knelt on the bed next to him and took his face in my hands.
"Elliot! Wake up!" I yelled, placing my hands on his shoulders to shake him. "Wake up!"
He remained motionless, like a sad doll. I placed my hand close to his nose and mouth and realized he wasn't breathing anymore.
"Oh, my god. No no no no no…" I murmured, checking for his non-existent pulse. "This can't be happening!"
Tears rolled down my face as I started with resuscitation attempts. Somehow I knew he was gone before I even tried. After a while, my energy ran out, and with a heavy heart, I had to give up. I brought my face to his chest, grasping at his shirt, which had gradually become wet from my tears. I hated myself and everything in the world for not being able to save him. It made me feel so helpless, I thought I could actually feel my heart breaking. He was gone and I was truly alone. It wasn't like before, when he went away but I knew he was still out there somewhere. As long as he was alive, the thought that he might come back to me one day comforted me. Now I didn't even have that anymore. He had come back to me and was taken away again before we could say all the things we needed to say.
"This can't be real. Tell me that I'm dreaming. You can't leave me again," I sobbed. There was no apparent reason for his death, he had just been sleeping. I looked around me, searching for a non-existent explanation, and felt the loneliness hitting me like a ton of bricks. It was déjà vu all over again.
I took his hand into mine and brought it to my face. "Wake up, please…"
A low sound behind me made me freeze. I wasn't sure what it was. It almost resembled a big animal growling. My gun was back on the nightstand. If there was someone or something behind me, they could get to me before I managed to reach it.
I laid Elliot's hand back down gently and turned around slowly as I took my phone back in my hand. The light jittered as my trembling hand aimed it toward the source of the sound.
There was no one there. I kept looking around me with the light, all along hearing that threatening growl that signaled the end of me. I was all alone and defenseless.
Something on the TV screen moved and it caught my eyes. I quickly grabbed my gun and moved to the foot of the bed so I could bend toward the old device and get a better look, hoping that whatever was growling in the dark wouldn't jump me due to my sudden movement. At first, I didn't see anything clear, but after a few moments of staring at the screen, I started to see something reflecting in it.
Behind me was a strange figure. It was taller than a person could be and it seemed to be wearing a dark robe with a hoodie, which covered its face if it even had one. From where I was looking, it just seemed like endless darkness filled the space where the head should be. Any other possible body parts were hidden under the robe. If it even had a body. I couldn't tell what it was. The sight of it was indescribable, somewhat blurry, but I wasn't sure if it was because of the way it looked on the screen, or my tears, or something I couldn't possibly grasp.
For a while, neither of us moved. I could hear the animalistic noise it was making and shivered at the thought of discovering what was hiding beneath the robe.
I tried to estimate how long it would take me to turn around and aim my gun at that thing. I had nothing to lose. If I didn't try to shoot it, I was probably dead anyway. Even though I knew the bullets would most likely have no effect on whatever was behind me, that was the only way I could defend myself. The weapon gave me a small chance of survival.
"One…" I whispered to myself and took a quick deep breath. "Two…" my chest was about to explode from stress. "Three!" I turned as fast as I could without losing my balance and sent my hands forward to aim the gun in the right direction. To my astonishment, I was aiming at the air. There was nothing there. I turned back to the TV and saw it standing behind me again.
"What the…" I turned to look behind me again, but before I even finished the turn, something hit me hard and sent me flying to the wall in a way no human could do. I fell to the floor right before everything around me disappeared and I sunk into darkness.
Elliot woke up suddenly, sitting up at once as if someone had put a fire underneath him. He looked over to his side and saw that Olivia was gone. Scanning his surroundings resulted in nothing due to the darkness.
"Liv?" he called as he searched for his phone. No answer. He pressed the power button and slid to the other side of the bed so he could get up and search the room. "Liv!"
He could barely see anything around him. His hands felt the wall on his way to the entrance. It was cold under his skin. He didn't like it, he preferred to feel her warmth again instead.
"Liv?" The door to the bathroom was open, but he remembered it was closed earlier. "Damn it, I can't see anything," he mumbled to himself and checked the phone to see that it was finally on.
The light from it didn't reveal anything helpful. Olivia wasn't there, nor was there anything to indicate that she had been recently.
Across from the bathroom was the closet. The door was open there, too, but Elliot was sure that it had also been closed before.
"What the… Olivia! Where are you?" Elliot tried to open the front door, but it was locked. He knew she couldn't have gone out if the door was still locked.
"Liv?" he went back down the small passageway from the entrance to the bigger area of the room and scanned the floor with his light. He walked around the corner of the bed and saw Olivia's shoe. From where he was standing, he couldn't tell if it was just the shoe, or if she was actually there. He advanced a little to see more and the sight was revealed to him as if in slow motion.
"Olivia!" he fell to his knees next to her and checked her pulse and if she was still breathing. Her chest wasn't moving and he couldn't feel her heart. "No! What the hell?!" he took her in his arms, just like he did a few hours ago with Eli. The pain in him threatened to split his chest open. Two of the people who mattered to him the most in one day, it was too much to handle. He wasn't even entirely sure that Eli was just an illusion. The fear that he was actually dead had been gnawing on his insides since it happened.
"Come on, Liv, you have to be okay!" He lifted her from the floor onto the bed and she just lied there like a lifeless doll. All his attempts to resuscitate her failed. He couldn't believe this was actually happening. "You can't… I haven't told you yet," tears blurred his vision completely for a moment before he blinked and sent them falling down his face.
He stared at her for what felt like an eternity.
"Who did this?" he whispered to himself, thinking aloud. The second those words came out of his mouth, he heard something in his vicinity breathing like an animal, almost growling. He looked around the room but it seemed empty in the darkness. "Who's there?" he yelled into the emptiness. No one responded, but the growling continued. "Son of a bitch, you're gonna pay for it," he muttered.
Elliot walked quickly to the other side of the bed, hand on his gun, ready to pull it out if necessary. The low growling seemed to be all around him and yet nowhere specific. He turned around wildly, looking for whatever it was that was causing it.
"Who's there?!" he yelled again. "Come out and face me, you son of a bitch! You're dead!" he cast another look at Olivia but turned his head right away. He couldn't bear the sight of her inanimate body. The understanding that she was gone was burning a hole in him that would continue to grow forever until it consumed him. He never got to tell her. For years, he feared that something might happen to her before he managed to come back into her life and tell her everything he needed her to know. Now, that fear had become a reality. It was the worst feeling ever, the biggest missed opportunity in his entire miserable life.
Suddenly he heard a whisper. He couldn't really make out what was being said, but it sent shivers down his spine. He turned several times frantically and looked around him. There was no one there, but he felt like he wasn't alone. His heart was about to tear his chest open from stress and fear.
Another wave of whispered words washed over him. This time he managed to hear, "I can see…"
Ironically, he couldn't see anyone. Elliot scanned the room one more time with the light from his phone before stopping helplessly. He sighed, still refusing to look at Olivia. The thought of all the things he wanted to tell her and never would brought tears to his eyes. He stood there for a while, facing the wall and letting the tears roll down in silence. At one point he thought he might never be able to stop the tears, and it made him move from his spot to try and shake it off. That was when he heard it again, this time the complete sentence.
"I can see your death."
Elliot frowned. It sounded like it had come from above him, but the only thing there was the ceiling. He looked up carefully, slowly lifting his head. His hands refused to move, so the light was aimed at the floor and barely reached the ceiling.
It all happened fast. He only had a second to see something dark coming down at him fast, and to pull his gun out quickly. Before he could even aim it, something massive met the side of his face and he was thrown at the wall on the opposite side of the room from where he had found Olivia on the floor earlier.
The last thought that he remembered having was that he wished he could be lying next to her as the world around him dissolved into nothingness.
I opened my eyes slowly. It took me several tries to manage to open them all the way. They felt extremely heavy as if I hadn't slept in a week. The room wasn't completely dark anymore. Some light managed to come through the cracks between the wooden shutters. It wasn't strong, but it was much better than the complete darkness that had dominated the room previously.
The first thing I noticed was the nightstand, my phone on top of it looking lifeless. The memory of turning on my side and Elliot holding me crossed my mind and gave me goosebumps.
As it all came back to me gradually, I couldn't understand how I was back in the position that I had fallen asleep in. I remembered the loud banging on the door, it opening, me searching the room and realizing Elliot was…
"Elliot!" I sat up and turned around to search for him. I was confused for a moment as he did the exact same thing right next to me and it felt like looking in the mirror. Kathy's observation at the hospital was right. We had always been in sync and distance hadn't changed it.
"Liv! You're okay! I thought you – "
"YOU'RE okay!" I responded. "I thought you… oh, god." We both leaned forward at the same time and fell into each other's arms.
I held him tight and felt how he was pulling me into him. The burden of my emotions for him forced me to close my eyes. It allowed my other senses to take him in, his smell, his touch. He felt so alive. It felt so good to be in his arms. The way he held me tight in return told me that he was just as worried for me as I was for him. I wanted to stay that way with him for a long time, but I had so many questions.
My heart pounded as I pulled back from him just enough to look in his eyes and talk. I could feel his breath on my face. The physical closeness lit up my need for him in neon lights in my mind. It was an old and familiar sensation with a new flair to it. His return had brought back to the surface our unresolved issues and we were both very aware of the elephant in the room, but hadn't been able to talk about it yet. I was terrified of that particular conversation, but I didn't want to spend another twelve years having him in my life without talking about it. I knew that we had to have that conversation the moment we got out of this place.
"Was it just a dream?" I didn't understand any of it.
"It felt so real." Elliot placed his hand on my cheek as if to check that I was actually there.
I closed my eyes to his touch and let my forehead lean against his for support. It all felt like too much to handle.
"I know," I whispered, "I really thought you were.. dead," it was hard to use that word to describe him.
"I thought YOU were…" he didn't finish his sentence.
"What the hell is going on here?" I asked but neither of us had the answer.
After a few moments in silence, he whispered, "hey…" and I moved my head back a little so I could look at him. "Liv, when I saw you in my dream… or whatever it was, I regretted not telling you everything I wanted before it was too late."
I looked at him without saying a word. I was intrigued by what he had to say, but I wasn't sure it was the right place to have that conversation.
"We should probably get out of here first," I said eventually.
"What if we don't?"
"Don't say that."
He looked at me and the sadness in his blue eyes made them seem infinite. I could've dived in and kept sinking forever, but I had to pull myself together. My brain started to look for a distraction and found it in a crack of light behind him. Up until then, the fact that it was light outside hadn't registered in my mind, but now it had suddenly caught my eye.
"Elliot, it's daylight," I pointed at the window.
He turned to look at it, letting go of my face. I was both relieved and disappointed, happy and angry at myself. The contradiction of the emotions he stirred in me had me in a constant swirl of confusion. I resisted the urge to forgive him immediately, but I wanted to be close to him.
"What time is it?" I grabbed his left arm and brought his watch close to my face, but I didn't have my reading glasses with me and it was too dark anyway, even with the little light coming in from the thin cracks of the wooden shutters. "I can't see," I sighed.
Elliot stared at me for a moment with an almost amused expression. I assumed he was pleasantly surprised by the liberty that I had taken by grabbing his arm, seeing that I had been keeping my distance from him – both emotionally and physically. Back in the day, he wouldn't have given it the slightest thought, but now we were different. The tension was higher, our feelings were charged with ten years of longing.
Or maybe he was just amused because he thought about how we were both getting older and couldn't read without glasses.
"Wait, I'll turn my phone on," he mumbled as he pulled the device out of his pocket.
I watched him as he fiddled with it and wondered if I could ever trust him again not to leave. I might never be able to reach the level of trust I used to have with him, and I was too scared to believe he wouldn't do it again. The question that went through my mind over and over was, what would prevent him from leaving for the second time some day? The doubt set like concrete in the pit of my stomach and nibbled away at my hope of finally being able to be honest with him about everything.
"That can't be right," he said suddenly, squinting hard at his phone and moving it away from his face and closer again, to make sure he was seeing right without his reading glasses.
"What? What time is it?" I asked again, anxious.
"It's 5 pm…," he sounded astonished.
"That really can't be right," I turned the phone in his hand toward me so I could squint at the screen, too, and saw that it was indeed right. "No… we went to sleep pretty early last night. We slept almost the entire day? How can it be? Something is probably wrong with your phone."
As a response, he placed his left hand between us and illuminated it with his phone, so we could both squint at it together to try and read the time.
"5 pm…" my body felt heavy as lead. I couldn't understand anything that had happened to us since we had arrived in this place early on Friday afternoon, and this was just another one on the list of inexplicable things. "My squad is probably looking for me by now. Maybe they'll find us soon." I shivered, thinking about the last time I had disappeared and no one realized it for 2 days.
"I don't wanna stay here and wait to see if that happens, Liv. We have to find a way out of here. Let's go back to the plan we had before we had to come into this damn room." He got on his feet, swinging a little as if he had to remind himself how to use his legs after sleeping for so long. I felt paralyzed as I watched him drinking from the bottle that he pulled out of my bag, which was still on the chair by the desk, and then putting it back inside. "You coming?" Now he was the one who was watching me, waiting for me to move as he offered me my bottle.
I shook my head, even though my throat was dry. The recent discovery about the current time had flooded me with hopelessness. I had a horrible feeling that we would never be able to leave this place. All I could think of was Noah. I wanted to see my son again, I had to go back to him.
Elliot must have seen the desperation in my face because he walked toward me, shoving my bottle back in the bag before offering me his hand to help me up. I forgot what it felt like to have someone who took care of me the way he always did. His eyes were telling me it was going to be okay. The warmth of his hand as it closed around mine wrapped me in a feeling of safety.
We walked to the front door of the room hand in hand in silence. My heart was pounding in my chest at the unknown danger that might be waiting for us on the other side of it.
Elliot put his hand on the handle and stopped. He looked at me, frowning, and I could see he was nervous about it too.
"If that woman is still out there, or anything else, I'll fend them off and you start running. I'll join you. Okay?"
I scoffed and shook my head in disbelief. "No, not okay. I'm not leaving you, Elliot."
"Olivia – "
"ELLIOT. Knock it off," I gave him a death glare that he could see well even though the light wasn't aimed directly at me. "Didn't you say to me once that you were my partner for better or worse? Partners work together." I was this close to pulling rank on him.
"This is definitely worse," he muttered.
"But not the worst," it just came out of me. I had no intention to start talking about it at that moment, but there were so many things we didn't say, that some of it was leaking out of me.
"Really? You think we've been through something worse than this?" he smiled in disbelief and it annoyed me.
"Yeah. When you disappeared on me," there was something absurd in me saying that to him while still holding his hand, but I couldn't help it.
"Really? It was worse than this?" He thought I was exaggerating.
"You have no idea what I went through after you left," I looked at him and felt my eyes shooting bullets of resentment towards him.
He looked at me like a reprimanded child and I regretted my words immediately, but I knew they had to be said at some point. If he ever wanted to make it up to me, he would have to find some creative way and it would have to wait until we made sure we were able to find the way out.
"Okay," he said in defeat. My words made him sad and it pained me to see it. He took a deep breath before exhaling loudly, preparing himself mentally for the possibility of being attacked the moment he opened the door. I squeezed his hand tighter and felt him squeezing mine back. It was our way of expressing all the complexity of our relationship in one, simple gesture.
As he opened the door, we both knew it could be the last thing we ever did.