Chapter one: The summer storm

She opened her eyes and after a couple of blinks she could focus on her upside down vision of her numb feet, her boots made a scratching sound while being dragged against the wooden floor. Her arms were being held by someone on each side of her, she was being carried like a black out drunk. She did however take notice of the shoes of those who were carrying her, the one on the left wore black lace up boots, and the one on the right wore black and red Oxford style shoes.

Instinctively she did nothing, she was feeling weak, so running and fighting her way out of there wasn’t a good option. She closed her eyes and let her body weight go completely, her life wasn’t going that well anyways, dying didn’t sound like such a bad idea. She was put on a bed, and could hear at least four different types of voices in the room, some of them even sounded familiar.

“We should try to heal her with the percuros” she heard a deep female voice say. “What the fuck?” she thought “this should be interesting”.

Maxine was a very sarcastic being, someone that could be on death row and still be making dark humoured jokes. She was relatively tall, long brown hair and her eyes were brown with a hint of red in it, very peculiar. She felt something touch her forehead, something cold, but she did not move or open her eyes and in seconds she blacked out.

She woke up the next morning in her tiny bed, in her tiny bedroom, everything seemed normal. Naturally she touched the place where she felt the cold touch on her face, but there was nothing there. She got up, put her hair up in a bun, and headed to the window to see how was the weather that day.

It was a rainy day and the city was quiet. Some droplets of rain would fall on the window sill and splash back on her, she didn’t mind, in fact she actually liked it. She was wearing a white old oversized t-shirt, and as she closed the window she looked around her room looking for any sign of last night.

Her clothes were precisely folded on top of her desk, and her boots aligned together on the floor. “This is odd” she thought, as she was not the type to remember to fold clothes when she gets home drunk, usually she just takes them off and leaves them on the floor. She walked slowly towards her belongings and picked up her jeans to search the pockets but there was nothing, then she picked up her boots from the ground and noticed that tip had been worn out.

“So it wasn’t a dream…I really passed out somewhere yesterday” she said to herself, putting the boots down.

She was trying not to panic, she was usually really calm and rarely had moral hangovers because she didn’t care much about what people thought of her, but this was too much, even for her. She started to retrace her steps the night before and all she could remember was being carried and the phrase “we should heal her with the percuros”.

“Percuros?” She said on her way to the bathroom.

She took a long shower and got ready to go to work. Maxine wore basically the same outfit everyday, jeans, t-shirt, leather or velvet jacket or a suit and boots. She loved boots. Everyone thought she was stylish, but in reality she was just lazy and didn’t waist time picking clothes. She picked up her umbrella by the door and made her way out into the hall, trying not to make any noises.

She lived with two roommates in a three bedroom apartment, one of them, Jake, was really nice and free spirited, he was an artist, a painter and musician. His room was full of all sorts of instruments. Sometimes Maxine would come home and sit outside his door just to listen to whatever he was playing. She thought Jake was handsome and interesting, he had his muscles well pronounced through his tight clothes and he was always really kind to her. He was as tall as her and had deep ocean blue eyes, light brown hair, and a lightness about him that made his presence noted when he was in a room, even if he was dead quiet.

On the other hand, the other roommate was not at all fun, and she had never seen the inside of his room. His name was Francis and he was taller than her, thin, ginger hair, and pale green eyes. His eyes gave Maxine a weird energy, as if she was being watched, like she was a prey. She always treated him with a distance, but whenever they had to exchange words they kept it to the minimum. When Francis first moved in he accidentally confused the rooms and walked in on her completely naked. This was the first time she saw some sweetness in him because he was so ashamed by his mistake he kept saying “Please forgive me…I really didn’t mean to, it was my mistake” or “Once again I’m so sorry for that unfortunate day” for at least a month after the episode.

Maxine, Jake and Francis had lived together for the last six months, they each had their own life and schedule, nobody asked many questions about their personal lives or whatsoever.

She made her way out of the apartment without being noticed by any of her roommates. Once outside she noticed the sky was dark grey, it didn’t even look like it was day time, there was no sign of the sun, just a drizzle with ice cold wind. “This is weird, in theory it’s still summer…right?." She opened her umbrella made out of transparent plastic, that way she could see the raindrops, and started walking towards the bus stop.

She found a place to sit under the stop, her bus was to arrive in ten minutes so she stared to gaze about, looking at the wet street and how it reflected the canopy of the trees on each side of the road, for a moment it almost looked like it was an actual river, or a body of water. She then looked at her watch and that’s when she realised she wasn’t wearing it.

“Oh damn it!” She said, getting up from the stop. Her bus was to arrive soon which meant she would not make it home and back on time.

She let go of the idea of going back and hopped on bus. Her boss would not be pleased if she showed up late and hungover for the third time that week. She had been drinking extra lately because she was just tired of everyones’ shit. One of the qualities Maxi looked for in a friend or a potential boyfriend was honesty, she felt she dealt better with ugly truths than beautiful lies.

The ride to work was long because the rain caused an accident which lead to an unfortunate traffic jam. “Perfect” she thought with her sour humour. She was almost there when she saw her roommates walking on the side walk, together, under the rain, talking as if they were friends. This was a strange day for Maxine, it’s like a blind fold had been taken off, she was either seeing what was always there, or she had been so numb lately she didn’t notice this friendship develop under her roof. “Am I being too distant or bad humoured that I’m scaring them away?”

She got off the bus and saw the big neon sign that read “Regis Cafè”. She exhaled and went in. She actually hated this job, but since she didn’t find anything else this was what she had, for now.

“Hey Maxi, how’s the hangover” said her coworker Hugo in a cheerful tone.

“Hey Hu, I’m oddly feeling fine, what’s up with this traffic?”

“Hm I don’t know, but I think a car didn’t manage to break on time and hit the car in front of it, and then you know how it goes, they get off the car and start yelling at each other and what not…Thank God I walk to work…”

“Yeah, the bus took forever, I’m sorry I’m late…”

A costumer walks in all wet and behind them she could see Jake and Francis walking in still conversing. “What on earth are they talking about”. This weird friendship made Maxi very curious since they had pretty much opposite personalities.

“Good morning sir, what can I get you today?” she asked without even looking at the costumer, shifting her weight from foot to foot to see if she caught their eyes. The costumer answered and the just blankly filled the order without ever making eye contact with him.

“Hugo, one black coffee and a croissant for this gentlemen!”

“Coming right up!”

“Next in line please” she said while the costumer was still gathering up the money to pay her.

“Hey guys” she said as they walked up to the counter. “What can I get you today?”

They stopped talking and without even looking at the menu or the goods on the counter Francis said “Did you walk or take the bus to work this morning? We didn’t see you leave the house…”

“Hmm I took the bus, why?” she was intrigued now.

“I told you, we still have time…” Jake said to Francis as if he was saying an inside joke.

“What do you mean, have time? Time for what?”

“Nothing grumpy Maxine, nothing much we were just curious as to why you would sneak out of the apartment and made a wager…hm yeah, a wager on wether you had walked or taken the bus…” said Francis in a awkward way, Maxine was sure he was lying, she felt these things.

“Oh well, since you won’t tell me just tell me what the fuck do you guys want, there is a line forming behind you…”

“We actually don’t want anything, we were just passing by and decided to say ‘hey’”

“Alright then, bye! I need to work”

Francis left with a smirk in his expression and Jake waved a shy goodbye. “What a weird pair…today is really strange” .

The rest of the day went alright, nothing exciting happened. She was cleaning up the counter and getting ready to leave when Hugo approached her.

“Hey you” he paused to look down “You got home ok yesterday? You looked like you were going to be sick, I wanted to leave with you but you basically forbid me…”

“Oh sweet Hu, I made it home alright” she lied.

They had left work the night before and went for drinks with the rest of the coffee shop staff. She actually liked the people she worked with, it was one of the reasons she was still there. Hugo obviously had a crush on her, he was very sweet, sometimes too sweet for Maxine. They had slept together when they were drunk once and it was a big deal for Hugo but for Maxine it was just a friendly encounter. Surprisingly this didn’t make their relationship weird, which was nice because Maxi really considered him her closest friend. She kissed him on the cheek.

“Bye Hu, see you tomorrow”

She left in a hurry, she wanted to get home and confront those sneaky roommates of hers. She decided to walk there, avoid any waist of time in a possible traffic. It had been raining the whole day, the sun didn’t show up from behind the dark clouds. “I’ll go by foot anyway, rain or no rain” she thought to herself in her constant inner dialogue.

She got home pretty much wet since she had forgotten her umbrella at work, by now she was freezing, her mouth was almost purple. She made her way up the stairs and as she was reaching the keyhole she could hear Jake and Francis talking inside, she stoped her hand midair and just brought herself closer to the door, so she could eavesdrop on their conversation.

“I think it’s time we told her…I’m telling you she needs to be ready for it, when the time comes. Besides I can’t stand this place any longer” said Francis.

“Farak, you know it’s not up to us to decide this. You should try to make yourself fit in more, you know?”

“Farak? What the hell is that?” thought Maxine. She was too intrigued, curious and angry at the fact they were not only friends now but also at the fact that they were hiding something about her. She opened the door and bumped straight into them, they were standing right in the entrance hall.

“Hey guys” she said, shyly. “How are yo…” she stopped mid sentence when she saw Francis’ shoes, the same ones she had seen in her dreams or in whatever place she was last night.

“Nice shoes, Fa-rak…” she said slowly and cynically.

“Hey you, Farak?” said Francis in joking way in an attempt to divert the conversation.

“Stop with the bullshit, both of you!” she finally exploded. “I heard you guys talking! And I saw your shoes last night when you thought I was passed out, where was that? What did you do to me? Since when are you guys friends? What is ‘the percuros’?” there, now she felt like she had vomited all the questions she needed answers to.

Jake was in chock, it looked like all the blood had vanished from his face that was now pale, and somehow terrified. Francis had a scared look but with a strange relief in his expression.

“See, Jake, even she thinks it’s time for answers” said Francis, in his calm and well pronounced way.

“I th… I think we should just wait for instructions Fara…I mean, Francis…” stuttered Jake standing as still as a statue.

“NO!” said Maxine with a firm voice walking towards Francis until she was face to face with him and could even feel his breath speed up with her closeness.

“I demand answers, and I want them now…” her voice alone made Francis’ relief expression vanish from his face.

“Don’t hurt him!” Jake yelled out. “He is on your side!”

“Jake” Maxine paused to face him, “If that is even your real name…why on earth would I hurt him?”

"Am I crazy or it looks like they are scared of me?” is what she was thinking, and using in her advantage.

Francis took off his black trench coat and hung it next to the door made his way to the living room, he moved as if he was a feline, no noise, no mess. As he sat down the couch he looked at Maxine “Join me, princess, sit…” he said patting down the seat next to him.

“That’s ok, I’m fine standing…” Maxine replied.

“Very well then” said Francis “My name is Farak of Morthir, and this here is Jake. Yes, that is his real name, and we are here, in this ghastly universe to watch over you until your eyes are ready to see what is right in front of you…”

“What do you mean? Watch over me?” She said, while approaching the couch to take a sit next to Farak. He grabbed her hand tightly making her flinch in reflex, this was the first time they had ever touched, and he looked straight into her now dark red eyes.

“You are not from here Maxine, from this universe I mean” started Farak.

“Yes, we took a while to find you after your exile, you were just a baby, we barely knew who to look for” completed Jake.

She pushed his hand away and got up. “Fuck this! You both are just making fun of me, am I a joke to you?!” She pointed her finger to Farak “Fuck you” and then to Jake “and fuck you” and left the apartment slamming the door behind her.

When she stepped outside in the rain, that now was more of a storm, she let out a scream that came deep from her gut and at the same exact moment a thunder fell from the sky, in perfect synchrony. She started to cross the street and that’s when she saw a car coming towards her in full speed, she just froze there and shielded her head with her arms waiting for the impact.

BAM! A big deafening noise emerged from the impact of the car against Maxine’s body, the car hit her as if it had hit a fortress wall, it was all crumpled up. When she let her arms down from her face she saw the car, and what had just happened. Without even thinking she went around and tried to open the car door, it didn’t work so she managed to take the woman who was driving out through the window, she was bleeding and passed out.

Maxine had barely made inside her building when the car exploded. Jake and Farak came running down the stairs to the scene of Maxine, full of blood on her clothes and face, on the floor holding the badly hurt stranger. She looked up at them with anger and despair in her eyes. Jake and Farak stood there taking in what had just happened.

“Yes, Farak, it is time” said Jake in a trembling voice.

“Come Maxine, we have to go. NOW!” yelled Farak. “Come!”

“I can’t leave her here, she’ll need medics!”

“Excuse me, I must do this” Farak grabbed her and put her over his shoulder, she didn’t even know he was strong enough to carry her.

“Jake, you know what to do” he said pointing at the stranger with a head movement. He started to run upstairs and Maxine saw a light come out of Jake’s hand pointed at the woman’s wounds. She was just absorbing everything that had just happened, but she did so motionless. Once again she felt staying still would be the best move.

Farak kicked the apartment door open and ran down the hall to the last door on the left, which was his room. He put Maxine down and went to his bathroom to turn on the tub faucet.

“What the hell is going on, what just happened?” asked Maxine, in a stupefied state.

“Get in the tub Maxine, please”

“What? Why?”

“Can’t you just trust me?”

“Actuall…” Maxine started to talk and Farak just picked her up again and put her in the tub now half full.

“What the hell are you doing? Are you insane?” She screamed.

In this moment Jake came in the bathroom.

“Farak! Why are you still here?”

Jake walked towards Maxine and put his hand on her face forcing her to go underwater. She started to kick and move like a dying fish and in a few seconds she disappeared. Pff! Jake got in after her, went underwater and vanished, Farak followed. Pff! Pff! All three of them, gone.