Bright light shined through my pupils but the conscience would not return to my body. I heard voices around me, one getting closer as it spoke unintelligent babble.
I tried moving, my arms weren't responding I couldn’t feel my limbs.
With chills down my spine a scream forming in my throat I moved my mouth… and there I was, in a hotel room alone.
Aside for the stirred white sheets in the room everything was clean. As if no one had been in this room but myself. Where was Jessica? How did I get here? Springing to my feet, glad that I could now feel my limbs I jumped off the bed, running for the hallway where red carpet and dim lights hung on the wall-papered walls.
No sign of Jessica.
Maybe she’d gone down to the lobby and would come back later. I hoped.
Unable to find the room key I decided against leaving the room for fear that I would neither find Jessica nor get back in the room.
How strange that a room key would not be on the nightstand.
For the first time I noticed an unusually small window for a hotel at the far side of the room. Instinctively I walked towards it, the morning sun was high on the sky and the air was stale. Looking down there laid a fenced-in dirt parking lot, but held no cars only indistinguishable grey matter on the floor. Could it be a dump?
What a strange hotel, to have one of the rooms facing a dump.
A man walked behind the white fence pushing a Popsicle kart with a high colorful beach umbrella protecting him form the sun.
Jessica still wasn’t back and the ray of the sun began to give me a migraine. I looked back into the room in hopes for a phone. Across the restroom door, next to the empty closet sat the phone.
I picked up the phone and put it on my ear frantically dialing what I thought was Jessica's number, listening in silence for a moment a tone couldn't be heard. I banged it against the table in despair, leaving scuff marks on the polished wood.
This day could not get any stranger. Where the hell was I and how the hell did I get here?
Tired of waiting for someone to give me the answer to these questions I walked out to hallway in search of them, the door slamming shut behind me.
No one poked their head out of other rooms as I expected, to try and find the source of the noise in the room next to them.
No one was in the hallway except the utterly hideous ring of the old light bulbs exerting their energy.
In search of an elevator I came upon a communal restroom. Green stalls lined the back wall and there was a long faded mirror on the other.
Quiet sobbing came from under one of the stalls and hurriedly tried to muffle its own sound. I dashed for the last stall, the only one that I could not see beneath the door to.
I kicked the door in. Afraid of what stood behind it.
But there was nothing except a tiny rectangular window high on a wall.
Determined to see through it I stood on the toilet and stood on my toes to add some height. There laid only the same view I had in the room. The bright orange morning sun and the grey covered dirt.
I heard some footsteps approaching accompanied by heavy breathing, the sand began to lift drifting into the restroom window. Trying to keep my eyes clean I squinted, refusing to close them.
The movement stopped right above the window. As if looking for something, I heard it shuffle a bag it must have been carrying. Inside the bag the sound of clay stones banging against each other was quickly muffled. Whoever it was making the noise must have wanted to go unnoticed and I was at the worst position to challenge that.
The clay noise began again, this time accompanied by a thud. A brown sack appeared at the corner of my eyes, something stretching out its walls.
A black hand reached into the bag and pulled out a large wooden cross with a few phrases written in the middle.
The cross was moved away from the view of the small window, leaving me unable to recognize what the words said and what would be done with it.
Quick, hard thuds and ruffling of the dust followed. The cross was being posted in the parking lot.
After a few minutes a long weeping sound was heard, the person walked away leaving it's back behind.
Curious of what had just happened and what the cross said I jumped off the toilet I stood on, and headed towards the door.
