Chapter 1: A memory

The dripping water makes me open my eyes with difficulty. My head ached and I felt like I was pulled onto something hard. When my vision clears and I manage to sit on the concrete, I realize what is really happening: I am in a sewer.

How did I get here?

I can't remember anything. I bring a hand to the back of my head as I feel some liquid pouring out of it. When I see my hand I see red: blood. I try to stand up but at first it is useless, my body hurts, my legs, as if I had run a marathon. My shoes were worn and dusty. My pants were torn at the knees and my jacket had some holes in the elbows.

I blinked several times without understanding what had happened. How did I get here? What happened to me? Did I faint? Where am I? Thinking and thinking made my head hurt more. In the end I stand up, but I even try to remember something. The last thing I remember was being in class. Math to be exact. After that I went out with a group of friends, I could distinguish Loren and Jinni between my flashback.

But after that I don't remember anything. I walk towards the sunrise, the sun hits my sight. I am in the sewer of the park that is near my house. The place was empty as usual. I looked both ways trying to find something or someone to help me understand what happened to me but there was no one.

A strange sound takes me out of my thoughts. It is a cellphone. I felt it inside my jacket. I pull it out and see the sender: Loren.

I did not hesitate to answer.

"Hello?" My voice was scratchy and dry, as if I urgently needed a drink of water.

"Nisha, thank God, I've looked everywhere for you, where are you?" She asks me a little excited.

"I... I don't know, I'd like to know too," I managed to answer.

"Are you okay? You sound strange."

"I don't know what happened to me, Loren, I just think I passed out." There was silence on the other end of the line.

"Maybe I have an explanation. It can't be by messages. See you at your house in ten minutes." And hangs up.

I remove the cell phone from my ear without understanding and then put it away. I walk towards the house that is not very far with some difficulty. The truth is that my legs did hurt. Like I did a lot of exercise. The afternoon was falling, the town was so ghostly that people only left their houses for what was necessary. Ghost or boring.

When I got home I opened the door and then closed it behind me.

"Mommy?" I tried, but got no response. She's still at work. I went up to my room and took off all my dirty clothes, went to take a bath to relax a little and maybe my ideas will also be clarified.

While I was in the shower flashes came to me: Do not do it!.

A shout.

I did not know the voice. We were in a dark room, was what I could remember. I brought my hands to my head and squeezed it. What's happening to me? I came out of the shower wrapped in a towel, as it was getting dark I put on only light pajamas, leaving my hair loose to dry. My room was medium, turquoise, a bed, a desk with a mirror, and my wardrobe. It was nothing to write home about. And it was even messy.

The bell rang downstairs, so I left my room and ran downstairs so I could open the door.

Loren.

"You're finally here," I muttered, closing when she's inside.

"You look pale," she says.

"I don't know what happened to me," I explained. "I was passed out in the park sewer and dirty. I'm going crazy?"

"You're not," she says, dismissing it as she sits on the couch and gestures for me to sit down as well.

I sat in the chair opposite.

"It's just that you told me you hadn't eaten all day and you felt dizzy, that's all. Surely when you got there your body couldn't take it anymore and you fainted because of it." She explained. "That's why I brought you a pizza." She shows me the bag she had in her hand that for some reason I hadn't seen.

And yes, there was a pizza with only six slices. My stomach rumbled. Maybe it was true.

"I don't remember how I got there." I took the box.

"It usually happens, Nisha, don't worry," we open it. The smell of pizza makes me forget my paranoia and focus only on eating. Maybe it wasn't that bad, maybe Loren was right: I had passed out from not eating all day. It used to happen to me that I let the meal times go by and then because of that I felt dizzy. So I didn't put that much importance on it.

"There is something I haven't told you," she tells me suddenly, her face changed to a serious one.

"What is it?" I was alert, I didn't like bad news or knowing bad things. I was very sensitive and anything could affect me. That's why sometimes I preferred not to know anything that affected my mental health.

Loren is debating whether to tell me or not, her blonde hair falling in waves to her shoulders and her big blue eyes examining me. Loren was tall and very pretty, next to her I was... poof, nothing.

"It's about Max Stuart, Nish," she begins. Max Stuart: he is the best known of the university, without forgetting that he is a womanizer and only thinks about himself. Max just hung out with his circle of rich boys and super pretty girls. In his sight the rest of us were completely invisible. More than once I had thrown my books in the hallways of the university and had not even noticed. I did not like him but he was not to my liking either.

"And how does what happens to him affect me?" I rolled my eyes.

"It's just that Max..." she sighs "...it's hard to say because I dated with him once so I feel very strange."

"Just tell me, Loren, bluntly."

"Max died," she blurts out of nowhere. I felt ugly. I looked at her trying to process what she had said, maybe it was a joke of hers or I don't know, but she looked serious and somewhat affected. She wasn't kidding.

"What are you talking about? As a step?" I even felt the hunger was gone. I hadn't had that much interaction with Max... well, almost no interaction with him but he didn't deserve to die so young and with so much ahead of him. My hands shook a little and I felt panic take over me.

Death.

I hated that word.

"It was this morning. They found him in his room, Nish, he had a bullet in his head." She sobs a little.

I approach her and rub her back.

"Davis confirmed."

Davis was Max's best friend, they were always together. And Davis was dating Loren now. Max is dead. It seems incredible to me, until Friday I still watched him playing on campus with his friends, he smiled and celebrated his victories in a big way. Max was... the soul of that university and everyone loved him, but now... he is no more.

It's amazing how one moment you are and the next day you're not. The future is uncertain.

"Loren, I'm so sorry," I managed to say. "For Davis too."

Suddenly I felt the temperature of my room colder. More chilly. That gave me the creeps.

"Davis is more so. They were best friends since they were kids. Go figure."She sniffs her nose. "Apparently it was suicide. They found a note with him."

Suicide? I don't know why but I didn't believe it, it couldn't be. Max didn't seem like someone who wanted to kill himself. However, perhaps what he showed to the world was a facade and inside it was wrong. I couldn't imagine how Davis would be because I hadn't been through something like that. What did confuse me was Max's death, deep down I still want it to be a lie, but why? It's not like he and I were friends.

"I understand. What will happen now?" I wanted to know.

"Tomorrow will be the funeral, at night we can go to his candle."

I did not want to, I felt that I could not be in a place where there would be people crying and even less near a coffin where a dead person was. I could not.

"I... I don't know." I stood up, crossing my arms.

"Jinni will go," she adds.

"You can go with her then," I tell her. "You know I don't like those things."

She sniffles, standing up.

"I know. I tried anyway" she hugs me "Thanks for listening. I have to go because I'll go with Davis." She goes to the door. "Eat your pizza, please."

"I will do it."

Loren gives me a quick look, then leaves. I was left standing there with no appetite anymore and with a huge urge to vomit, that only meant that the anxiety and fear had returned to me. And it didn't want them back. I wanted them away from me as much as possible. But that was something it couldn't do. They dominated me for now.

"Max," I whispered unconscious, "dead?"

I didn't believe it.

With shaking hands I took the pizza box and carried it into the kitchen to put in the fridge. I was at home alone, the night was falling and it was colder than normal. At what point did the Max thing happen? Why can't I remember my fainting spell? If it was just a blackout, why was my clothes dirty and torn like I was running from something... or someone?

More chills ran through my body, but that was not all but I jumped in shock when something fell on the floor of the living room. My heart beat a thousand an hour and I began to sweat.

"Loren?" I asked, hoping she was back. But I had no reply. I took steps towards the door with great fear, I did not know who it could be, maybe a thief or what do I know. When I get to the room there is no one.

No one.

"Hello?" I whispered under my breath. In my defense: I was very scared. Maybe I should have gone with Loren so that I wouldn't be left alone tonight where the town dresses in black. But in my living room and in my house there was no one, I was the only paranoid that was.

Ah... the TV control on the floor. I breathed in relief because maybe the cat came back from the street and threw it away. It was just that. I was going to turn to go to my room, but as soon as I did, my gaze went to the huge mirror in front of me.

It was foggy, I was looking at myself and also a repainted letter there: M.

M for Max?