Page 4 of Dead By Dusk

He’s still gasping for air, doubled over and red-faced, his eyebrows drawn. He holds up a finger as he struggles to breathe. I quickly scan the area while he recovers, noticing that Carmen is nowhere in sight. I furrow my brows before my gaze lands on a door left slightly ajar—one that had been shut.

I find myself proud of Carmen for wandering off on her own. As long as I don’t hear anyone dying, she should be good on her own until I know why William has decided to leave the area downstairs and join us.

With that thought, I turn back to the large man in front of me. Thankfully, he seems to have mostly recovered, though occasionally his breathing still sounds strangled—his eyes still watery and face red.

“We found a couple more people downstairs. Ol’ Carrot Top told me to come up here, that his face might be a friendlier one to see first anyways. That it might be easier for them to take in the information if they have fewer eyes on them or some bullshit, I don’t know. I would’ve told him to fuck off if I’d known I was going to get throat punched. Jesus. Who the hell even are you?” he says, exasperation lacing his words. I just shrug it off.

“I’m Silene. I’m sure you know as well as I do that I don’t remember anything else. Just like everyone else here.”

He just hums in response but scans me carefully. His eyes catch on my arms.

“You know, one of the guys we found down there, he’s got some bruises on him too. Nothing too insane, but it’s odd, ya know?”

“Why is it odd?” I ask, wishing I weren’t so curious, but the need to know feels as important as the need to breathe.

“You’re both wearing similar clothes. No one else is dressed almost for…combat. Both of you have bruises on your arms, he has a split lip, you have a bruise by your hairline. They seem to be fresh too. Like whatever happened, happened right before we were brought here. It’s just odd.”

My hand drifts to my forehead, feeling along my hairline and wincing at the pain that follows. Focusing back on him and his little speech, I could somehow sense where his thoughts were taking him. Had I known him? Were we in the same place at the same time before being brought here?

“Did he say what his name was?” I ask, hoping it might jog my memory.

“No, he didn’t. He wasn’t awake yet.” And then he walks away from me and that was that, I suppose.

There was nothing else left to say, and so, when he opens a door on the left, I veer right to the door I know Carmen had already entered. I purposely make my steps heavier to alert herof my presence. Still, she doesn’t move from her spot near the lone window.

She’s so still, she might have been a statue if not for the sound of a shuddering exhale as I let the door creak open a little more and slowly approach. I take note of the empty room around us.

The walls are the same shade of green as the rest of the house, and the only window is draped with blackout curtains able to drown this room in darkness with one sweep if one wanted to, and I wonder if that was what she’s thinking about or—

“There’s nothing else,” she starts, her voice so quiet, it could have been a whisper but instead echoes around us in the drowning silence. “Someone brought us here. We don’t remember anything. There is nothing else here but field and forest and a fog so heavy that even if therewereanything else we would have no way of knowing.”

It isn’t until I’m finally behind her and peeking over her shoulder that I understand. There’s nothing but green as far as the eye can see wrapped in a blanket of mist. The same sense of unease washes over me before I try to open up the window, but it doesn’t budge. Not even the slightest movement to indicate that it can be opened.

I shake my head, grasp her hand and head towards the door, back into the hallway.

“Anything in there?” I ask as William steps out of the room opposite of us.

He just shakes his head before saying, “Just an empty green room with a window leading nowhere.”

That’s absolutely no help, but we have nothing better to offer either. We all stare at each other for a beat before continuing down the hallway. Opening every door. Searching for something—anything, that might clue us in to what’s going on. But we don’t find a single thing that could possibly help.

That is, until we reach the two doors at the far end of the hallway. One is locked so tight, it might as well have been welded into the wall. The other door leads to a bathroom with one window.

A window that slides right up with the slightest pressure.

We should have felt relieved, but not a single one of us seems to appear as such. No, instead we stop at the halfway mark, and then push the window closed. Leaving it just as we’d found it.

An exit should have us all tripping over one another to climb through, but we’re all looking at it like it’s the plague. Like everything changes the second we climb through. Maybe it does. Maybe it will. Maybe we go through the window, jump off the roof and leave. Make our way through the forest, find a road and follow it into a town. But I think we all know that may not be the case.

I think we all know that it’s, unfortunately, the least probable thing that will happen.

So instead, we stare and try to figure out what happens next. Try to figure out if we investigate or go downstairs, find the others and decide on a plan together. It’s me who looks away first. Who steps away from the barely open window and walks back towards the stairs calling for Nathaniel until his lanky form and inquisitive eyes come into view.

“Is everything okay up there? Did you find anything?”

“Everything is fine, and we, uh…we found a way out,” I say. My doubt must show on my face because his own features are filled with skepticism.

“You’re sure it’s a way out?”

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