Chapter IX

-A Drink for One-

Ⓒ 2023

We arrived at the airport at 2:37 AM. After walking through the sliding doors, I was bombarded with a wave of different people–and smells. I never liked airports because it was always so crowded, especially because many of those people never seemed to remember deodorant existed. 

“You haven’t travelled much, have you?” Sharifa took my attention away from the agonizing bumping and maneuvering around people and led us to the luggage check-ins. 

I didn’t have much of anything aside from a small suitcase and a duffel bag. “No. The last time I went on a plane must have been when I graduated from high school.”

“Where did you go?” She pulled her suitcase onto the luggage scale and paid the amount before I did the same. 

“We went to Switzerland with my senior class, but I really was just babysitting them the whole time,” I sighed recalling the memory, but it was nonetheless part of the happier times of my life. 

“Tell me more about it.” She adjusted her satchel and began heading towards the TSA security with our carry-ons.

“Well,” I drew in a breath to begin as I set my bag on the conveyor belt. “I signed up for a trip to Switzerland with the graduating class at my high school, but once we got there lots of the guys ended up using all their money for useless junk until their cards could decline. By the time we were called back to meet with the rest of the group, I had to call a cab for all five of us since none of them could walk–all in German.”

Sharifa laughed and passed through the TSA gate, “It’s ironic that you work at a pub given how much you hate those kinds of things.” 

I could only laugh, “Yeah, I tried other jobs like babysitting, but nothing stuck well like the bar did..”

“You? Babysitting? I can hardly see it.”

“Yeah, I’ve been desperate to make money for a while now, so there’s not much of a choice when it comes to paying bills.”

We continued talking until we got on the plane and I had completely forgotten about my anxiety. It felt as if I were going on a trip with a friend, something that I needed but never was able to plan out or get the money for with Martial or Phoebe.

Not long after the plane began to take-off, our conversation steered towards more friendly topics like foods, experiences, family struggles, what we had in common, and eventually even why we thought the killer was targeting us specifically. Sharifa had plenty of theories about it, but she couldn’t entirely understand how there were a handful of people around the world who shared a conscience. Whatever that could be used to explain it all, I wouldn’t be able to understand. I could hardly understand physics in high school, let alone get how multiple people could be tied together as a single individual. 

There were a crowd of people all filing through the rain under their umbrellas. I held an umbrella as I stood in the crowd, lost in thought. No one seemed to notice as I stood still. I couldn’t see anyone’s faces, but I caught sight of a familiar tuft of hair. 

The thunder of rain on my umbrella was obnoxious, but I moved forward and followed the person. He didn’t have an umbrella as he ran through the rain against the flow of traffic. 

A car screeched and a series of cars honked as he crossed the road. He nearly fell backwards as he screamed a silenced apology before running off again. I continued to follow until he ran into a building and up the stairs. 

It was a mixed-use building with shops upon levels, but the bottom floor was occupied for a pub. As I passed by the windows, I could see a clamor of middle-aged men in business attire drinking and eating to their hearts’ content. Many of the workers inside were nervously handing out drinks and steaming dishes of food. I could tell just by looking inside I wouldn’t like the place. 

Before I pulled back the frosted glass to the stairwell, I looked up at the sign to the pub. The Swan. I then went inside and was greeted by the cold air of the building. I shook off the rain from my umbrella and laid it against the wall before looking up. 

Footsteps ran up the stairs, echoing down to the first floor. I couldn’t see how many floors there were, but I started heading up. 

By the time I made it to the last floor, I was tired out, but I strangely could still continue on to push the doors to the roof open. 

On the roof were strings that laundry had once been hung on stretched across pipes and other winding machinery I couldn’t name for the building. The rain was still pouring down when I stepped out. It was cold, soaking down through my clothes and onto my skin, but I didn’t care. 

Ahead of me was him, with his grey trench coat pulled over his head. He was faced away from me as he stared down at the moving waves of umbrellas below. We must have been at least ten floors up, but he didn’t seem afraid of the edge. 

“Are you planning to take me with you?” I was afraid, but my voice was still louder than the rain. 

“What do you plan to do if I do? I don’t even understand why you’re doing this,” he spoke without turning to me, but I could see his shoulders shaking. 

“Me? What am I doing?” I was confused. Wasn’t he the one that was killing us?

He turned around, his hood covered his face, and the darkness of the sky surrounding us made his features appear ghostly. “You’re killing us.” 

The wind pushed between us, throwing the hood off his head. We stared at each other in disbelief. 

I saw my own face on him. 

“Lennon!” 

I jumped up in a cold sweat and looked around me. I was still seated in the airplane with Sharifa sitting next to me. 

She looked at me with worry, “You saw something, didn’t you?”

I took in a breath of relief, “I was afraid I was going to have a nightmare if I fell asleep. I must’ve passed out once we got on.” I leaned back into my seat and held my face in my hands. 

“What did you see?” 

Whatever I saw was like nothing I had seen before. I’d never seen myself with such clarity, especially through a perspective of someone I hadn’t even met yet. “It’s Complicated.” 

Sharifa waited for me to continue, never tearing her eyes away from me. In a way, her eyes constantly on me made me nervous, but comforting at the same time. Almost as if I were being watched by a parent, but if I were to say or do anything out of line, it would result in a severe repercussion. 

“I wasn’t exactly dreaming,” I started and looked out the window. “It was like I was living as someone else.” I looked down to my hands and remembered how I once dreamt through Sharifa’s perspective. “Sort of like how before I met you, I dreamt in your perspective. Whilst meeting the killer.” 

It got silent between us, and the people that were chatting around in the airplane grew silent too. It almost felt as if everyone was waiting to hear what I’d say next. Even if lots of the people on the plane didn’t seem to speak English, I didn’t want to risk it. 

I got out my phone and opened a new note to text the rest of what I wanted to say before passing it to her. 

She understood before I even showed her the message. It wasn’t often that I was so understood like this, but maybe it was just because we had a shared conscience, or whatever it was. 

“He might be planning something to throw us off. That might have been his warning for us not to interfere,” she handed me a juice box and a pack of crackers. “Have something before we land. You haven’t eaten anything yet and it’s already around 7:49. We’ll be landing soon.”

I gladly took the food and decided to take the time to relax before the real work began. Looking out the window, I could see all of the buildings below. It wasn’t often I was given the chance to enjoy architecture and such. 

After we landed, Sharifa wasted no time and guided us to the hotel we would be staying at. I didn’t understand how she had the money to be doing this, especially on such short notice, but then again, her flower shop must have been a cover for whatever work she did. 

When we pulled up to the hotel, I couldn’t help but notice that the place was beyond what I would be able to afford within even five years of work at The Swan. All of the shops and homes that lined up along the block were high-end as well; just what line of work did she have? 

Not only that but somehow she could speak Russian with the people at the front desk of the hotel when checking in. She definitely had more that she didn’t show, but maybe she had her reasons to keep it from me. 

And like that, we went to our separate rooms and settled in, even if neither of us had much of anything to set up. She just might have gotten the hint that I needed some space to think, which was partially true, but my own thoughts began to scare me. What I dreamt began to align with reality and I wasn’t sure what I would see next after the last dream. 

The room itself was more luxurious than I could have imagined. There were windows that opened to a view of the canals and other beautiful architecture, a TV that hung on the wall was even larger than the one I owned, and a neat bed that tempted me to sleep after so long without it. Turning to the coffee table, there was a vase with lilies and an appealing bottle of wine sitting on a tray.

After the bath, I wrapped one of the hotel robes over my body. There was only so much I could figure out, and even if I did have a friend who worked for the FBI, it wasn’t like I could get his help with something like this. No one outside of the ‘seven’ that shared connections could help.

I turned to look out the window. Sharifa had explained that there were seven people in total, all spread across the world, who shared this connection. There had already been Charlotte Moon, Aemilio Fontez, Sharifa’s attempted murder, and then soon a Russian man I didn’t even know the name of yet. Despite the fact we all shared some sort of conscious connection to each other, it proved no use to finding and stopping the murderer. 

Laying down on the wide bed, I decided to get my mind off of all this murder mystery and look through my phone. I picked it up and disabled the airplane mode, checking my notifications. A majority of them were spam texts from Phoebe, but there was one that caught my attention. 

I sat up and opened the message. It was from a random number that I didn’t know. I hadn’t given my phone number out to anyone, so it must’ve been a mistake, but I couldn’t get over the cryptic message the person sent. 

Just a simple: “How are your travels?”

I wanted to delete the number and go back to mindless scrolling to distract myself, but the message kept itching my curiosity. Phoebe might have sent it just to mess with me, but she never would be so formal through text. Who would have sent it if not the killer? This was a chance that I could get some answers.

I decided to reply: “Who is this?”

It didn’t take long for the person to respond: “Check outside your window.” 

I instinctively turned to the window, a black mass falling down from the roof of the building to the ground. We were on the fourth floor. 

My body moved on its own as I dashed over to the windows, looking down to watch just as a body hit the pavement. At that moment, I froze. I couldn’t move and it became difficult to breathe. My whole body felt like it was being weighed down, my bones and flesh tingling and aching before I hit the floor. 

When I came to, my phone was ringing violently along with banging at my door. My vision was spinning and every movement I made resulted in my body falling back into unconsciousness. Whatever happened, I knew for certain the person that got pushed off the roof was the fourth victim. 

By the time I could reach out from the floor and grab my phone, I began to receive another call. The moment I swiped the screen to answer the call, Sharifa’s voice crashed from outside in the hallway, “Lennon! Open the door!”

I wobbly turned to look at the door as she unlocked through the door and pushed through into the room, then back at my phone screen. It was the unknown number. 

“Did you really think coming here would stop me?” 

Sharifa ran over to me and swiped my phone from my hand, screaming into the other side, “You’re sick! Why are you doing this?!” 

The killer responded with laughter, twisted and insane in every way, “Because there is only room for one of us in this world.” And like that, the line ended. 

She looked at me and laughed hysterically, “We won’t be able to stop him in time before he gets to the fifth person.” She always seemed to have confident plans, but now, all I could see in her expression was hopelessness.