|zarina meyer|

things clearly hadn't gone as planned. some force in this universe didn't want me to ever find peace; it continued to subject me to the very agony that i'd been trying to escape—the agony of being alive, but not living.

the two boys who thwarted my attempt to attain salvation were walking on either side of me, completely unaware of what i was mentally undergoing. as much as i wanted to, i couldn't blame them for hauling me out of the water. their intentions were pure and their act insouciant; this much, i could tell from the most recent events. they only thought i had accidentally tripped over the chainlink—that's what I'd told them anyway. I hardly cared if they believed me or not, they were irrelevant to me—even though they'd just pulled me back from the brink of death.

they were irrelevant because their effort would go to waste tomorrow. i'd go with them tonight, and tomorrow i'd try again to leave this insipid realm. they would then be downgraded from the status of my 'saviors' to just some faces in my short, second life.

i paid little attention to where i was being taken to—somehow, i wasn't bothered enough to heed to the warning that said not to trust strangers. the only thing that bothered me right now was my being alive. besides, these two were a far cry from those other people out to harm a helpless girl.

we'd hurried down the harborwalk to the state subway station. the warm atmosphere brought some more life back into my half-frozen body. few people paid attention to us, rushing about their insignificant lives, running after deadlines that were not worth making up to—everyone had better things to do than look at three teenagers, two of whom were dripping wet. the short, dark-haired one who i'd heard was called aamir, bought us three tickets and we boarded the orange line.

the issue of being stared at was an entirely different matter on the subway. i suppose sitting on an underground train, with nothing to do except to wait for one's stop, nothing to see out the windows save for cemented walls and tubelights flashing by, did make one curious about the people they were traveling with. the lady facing us stared at us with an impressively unbreaking gaze the whole ten minutes of our journey.

"you can let go of my hand now," said the tall, fair-haired, and soaked in the charles one, the one who also responded to 'nathan'.

although, I didn't know what he was talking about. "huh?"

he lifted his pale hand, which was grasped tight by a darker one—my own. blood rushed to my cheeks, warming my face. I hastily jerked my hand out of his. i couldn't come up with an explanation for my deed, so i reverted to muteness and avoidance of eye contact. sudden relief filled me when that stop finally came where we were to get off. we were on massachusettes ave, where we began a slow trek down south end. we stopped in front of an abandoned building at the corner of northampton street.

"home, sweet home," said aamir, proudly looking up at the structure. "welcome to the once-famous hotel alexandra, zarina."

i admit to being impressed. in spite of being a decaying shell of what it used to be, bearing scars of an unfortunate emblazonment, the five-story building still clung to traces of its former, victorian-gothic magnificence. We took the service entrance into the hotel, going up two flights of stairs to the third floor. the air was musty and damp, but the interior showed phantoms of grandeur—ostentatious chandeliers, hallways lined with moth-eaten carpets that once must've been thick and lush, imposing doors leading to rooms and suites. we went down the right branch of the corridor, stopping in front of the fifth door. aamir raised his fist to the wood and landed three sharp raps.

from the space below, I saw sodium light spilling out. the door was flung open by a girl who couldn't have been more than fifteen. her petite face lit up upon seeing the boys, brighter than the illumination of the room; her wide grin teemed with joy. "nathan! aamir!" she cried. "you're back!"

"zarina," nathan said, "meet stefanie cohen. stefanie, this is zarina."

"why are you wet?" stefanie questioned, paying me no mind. i preferred it that way.

"let us come in." aamir walked past her. "we'll explain everything."

i followed nathan inside, exchanging the briefest of glances with stafanie's cold, gray eyes. the room was a suite, lit up by an assortment of sources—emergency lamps, candles, hurricane lanterns. Four young faces gathered around nathan and i, all inspecting me.

oh, what fresh hell is this?