Beneath the layers of the drunken stupor he had found himself in, Kam could hear the dull backbeat of the music blaring through the club and his consciousness. It was the metronome keeping time for the bodies that swayed through the darkness, while strobe lights flashed like cameras, capturing people in individual moments of bliss.
Sana was at his side, tugging on the sleeve of his jacket to draw his attention away from the crowd and back to the tall table that several other people had crowded around. At the center were long tube shots held suspended in the case that she’d probably bought on his dime, but a sloppy smile lit his lips as he reached out to grab one, grasping it in fingers that looked too large around the slender plastic.
“To a good night!” He heard somewhat shout and he raised his shot like a robot, saluting the air and the people around him, whose faces he didn’t recognize and couldn’t concentrate on. The strobe light flashed his arm raising to his lips like stop motion and he shut his eyes against the light as he tipped it back and downed it, not even concerned that it no longer burned like it should.
“Come dance with me,” someone, he thought Sana, whispered low in his ear. He felt her grip his hand and pull him, and his weight went with her, not strong or aware enough of himself to stop it. The time and the light made everything seem disjointed but he found himself in an ocean full of backlit faces with his hands around a waistline that he recognized. He held on to her like an anchor as she swayed into him, as his lumbering form followed her in the depths of a trance. Around him people laughed, they sang to the music, or leaned into him to support their own drunken weight.
Sana turned in his hands and his dark eyes raised to meet her with the heat of a fool lost, but where he expected to see honey brown eyes, they gleamed amber in the pale light. The smile in her face widened until it split, cracking the soft planes of her dark cheeks and he imagined he could hear the sound of the flesh splitting like pavement.
Another flash of the strobe lights cleared his vision and he found himself frozen stiff, staring into the honey brown eyes he had been looking for.
“You ok, Kam?”
The voice drifted over the music and he laughed, catching her in his arms, and swaying their bodies together to the beat. It was answer enough for her. The song pulsed on and his eyes drifted over the heads in the crowd, watching as they moved together to the sound like one, unified being. No, like waves, cathartic and calm, a sea of happiness and gaiety. But the strobe light flashed again, and the bobbing heads began to bleed red. The calming waves of bodies ran together until they were real waves, crashing down around him and threatening to fill his lungs with the red heat of Mars. His arms tightened around Sana as he clung to some anchor in the raging ocean, some normalcy, but she fought against the trap and turned to face him.
“Kam, what’s wrong?” The voice hit him, filled with a tone he didn’t understand in the depths of the illusion that took him. He watched as she shouted something else at him, wordless, and a flash turned her back into the broken doll he had feared she was all along. Black smoke curled out of her lips and filled the air around him, thick and acrid. It clung to his lungs, it was suffocating.
Frantic and confused, the dark eyes of the man raised above the red sea to see a flashing red [Exit] sign, glowing dull in the lights around it. The dark skinned man barreled through the crowd that had become his nightmare, pushing apart bodies to get to through the door. The stark reality of the Destiny City night hit him at once as he heard the door slam shut behind him and he drew a shaky breath of cold air. Almost immediately he had to lean into the wall as he realized the choking feeling had not been Alkaid’s chaos after all.
When he heard the door open and the immediate crunch of heels on gravel, he leaned up from where he had braced himself against the wall with his forearm, wiping the residual spit from his lips. Sana was wavering between disgust and sympathy, but her arms were crossed in a way that said not to approach.
“You’re a ******** mess.”
There wasn’t enough energy in him to argue.
“I’m ordering you an Uber, okay? Sit here until they come and then just go home and sleep or something. I swear, this s**t is getting old, Kamboja.”
He shrugged as she pulled out her phone, walking to the edge of the sidewalk where an old iron bench sat beneath a lamp post. A few minutes passed and there was a sigh. The creak of the door and blare of music told him she left, and when it slammed shut, he found himself alone in a blissful silence. There were no people here. The Uber driver wouldn’t take long, but even then, his concept of time was off. He knew. It might pass in minutes, or feel like hours, and he didn’t know which one he preferred.
The dark, hazy gaze fell to the street below him as he tipped forward a little - noticing an old receipt and a capless pen. It seemed out of place, though it wouldn’t be the first time some drunken idiot walked out with a pen after paying off their tab. He fished for it, leaning down and dropping his hand as close as he could. It took a couple of tries with dull fingers, but he closed them around it like a sloppy claw game and came back with his reward, tilting dangerously the opposite way as he tried to right his balance. The receipt was unballed as carefully as he could, though his clumsy fingers ripped off a corner when he tried smoothing the paper against the edge of the seat.
It made him laugh, weakly, and he let the bit of the paper flutter away from him, caught in a breeze. As he watched it, his mind drifted to the note he’d gotten from Isaiah - who he now knew as Scholomance. He was mad over things Kam had kept to himself because he never knew how to explain it. Was it his fault for having friends? He didn’t know she’d remind him so.. publically..
The words flashed through his mind like the strobe light - my life was in danger, you owe me a debt. His teeth grit around another rise of bile in his throat and he shut his eyes, forced it down, and closed his fingers tighter around the pen in his hand. When he opened them again, he was already leaning over, sloppily scrawling a name across the back of the receipt -
Scolom-
Nope. He scratched it out vigorously, accidentally stabbing the pen through the paper, and carefully started again.
Scomola-
Nope.
The third time, he managed it though he hoped the cosmic messenger force knew how to read drunken scrawls. The words he wrote were much like his attempts at the name, requiring that he left the message short and sweet.
Strickenized
Scholomance,
I’m srr sorry. I don’t know why she is. She just deestru destroys everrything.
I’m sorry. I will expul explain soon.
He scribbled his name across the bottom of his pathetic, drunken apology, in the tiniest bit of space that he had left for himself, then realized that he had nothing to stamp the note with. He leaned back and fished in the front pocket of his trousers for the lighter he always kept next to his cigarettes. It took a few tries before he managed the dexterity to light it, and without the hesitation a sober man might have had, he turned his hand sideways and held the flame up to the thick metal ring that was always present. At first, he felt nothing, as the top of it began to heat through. Then very, very slowly he became aware of a stinging sensation along the edge of the band. Distantly, he thought it must of hurt, and he could feel the way his own teeth grit inside of his jaws, but the pain was dulled beneath the alcohol coursing through his veins.
When he finally pressed the signet into the paper, it charred the thin receipt to black in a perfect outline. When he pulled it away, it snapped out of existence in a way that was almost too jarring, and he felt the urge to vomit rise in his throat again.
But he pushed it back and forced himself to relax into the bench while he waited for whatever was coming.
((Word Count: 1650))
