I shuffled backwards slightly, resting my hand against the cool wall of the elevator interior. "How can you have something important to tell me? You don't even know me."

The old man smiled. "I once did."

Intrigued, I took a moment to really look at the man standing before me. He was crumpled, shoulders hunched, sagging eyes, wrinkled shirt only half tucked in. His stance bore the mark of someone weighted down by the things he had seen. Yet, there was something familiar in the way his nose was crooked, in the way he held the notebook as if it were not even there at all. I tilted my head and the old man smiled again, revealing lines around bright eyes that I promised I would never forget.

I stumbled forward as the elevator lurched to a stop. "Ryan?"

The old man chuckled and flipped the emergency stop switch. The doors stayed shut. "For a moment there I didn't think you would recognize me."

I stood, mouth slightly agape as I once again took him in. "You--they told me you were dead."

Old Ryan stepped forward and put a hand on my shoulder. "I'm sorry it had to be that way. I wish I could explain everything that has happened since that night but we haven't much time."

His face was serious now, more serious than I ever remember seeing it. What happened to my friend these past seven years? He should have finished growing up with me, he should have been my age, he should have been--

"Jerome. The people who took me, they're coming after you next. You have to succeed where I failed." His eyes got distant. "You have to succeed where we all failed."

Old Ryan glanced at the cracked watch on his wrist and his eyes narrowed. He pulled out a pen and scribbled what couldn't have been more than a few words into the notebook. He gazed at the page for a long moment; a single tear streaked down his wrinkled face. Ripping his eyes away, he shoved the notebook with trembling hands into mine.

"Guard this book with your life, it will tell you all you need to know. It is vital that you--"

"--Ryan?"

"--don't trust the man in the crimson coat--"

"--Ryan!"

He stopped and his eyes softened.

I glanced down at the worn notebook in my hands. "Ryan, I'm scared."

He took both my shoulders in his hands. His spoke with the voice of dozens, "We all were."

When he let go of my shoulders, his body dissolved into ash and floated up towards the grate in the ceiling. I blinked in disbelief and once again looked down at the notebook in my now trembling hands. I slipped it into the inner pocket of my jacket and shakily unflipped the emergency switch. There was a soft ding and the doors slid open.

Before me was a brown carpeted hall lined with many unlabeled doors. At the end of the hall was a floor length window displaying the city skyline jagged against the setting sun. Silhouetted in the window was a tall man. His eyes were sharp and staring straight at me. When he spoke it was as if glass were piercing my heart.

"Are you Jerome?"

As I instinctively said, "Yes," I noticed what the sharp man was wearing. His pants were tailored and black, leading to shoes of alligator skin. His shirt was silky and also black and surrounded by a coat as red as the setting sun, it--it was crimson.

"Well, Jerome, come with me, I have something very important to tell you."

Steeling myself, I followed the man in the crimson coat out of the elevator and into the unknown.