The Fallen Odyssey

Chapter 4: Everything Will Be All Right

Justin woke with a gasp of panic and sat straight up in bed.

His heart was racing. His breath came in quivering, shallow inhales. He took a deep, slow breath in through his nostrils and out through his mouth to try to calm down from whatever had woken him with such a start.

Must have been a nightmare, he thought with a sigh. The kind you don't remember. He had been having a lot of those recently.

He blinked hard, trying to force his eyes to adjust to the darkness around him. He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles but still couldn't see anything. No light-not even any from the streetlight outside his window. No sound, either.

Power outage, he thought. From all the snow, I guess.

He turned and groped in the darkness for his phone on the nightstand but couldn't seem to reach it. He stretched farther. Then he felt his phone in his pants pocket and realized he was fully dressed and lying on top of the covers. His phone, wallet, and keys were all in the pockets of his jeans. He couldn't remember why he had gone to bed without bothering to get undressed first-couldn't remember going to bed at all, for that matter. Even his boots were still on. The last thing he seemed to be able to remember was storming out of the house, but that felt like a long time ago, for some reason.

As Justin wondered about this, it suddenly dawned on him that the bedspread beneath him was not his thick, downy comforter. It was a thin, rough quilt.

"This isn't my bed," he realized aloud, and his voice sounded strangely hollow in the darkness.

He struggled to pull his phone from his pocket and turn on its flashlight. The LED bulb shone unfocused and white. His nightstand should have been to his left, beside the bed, with his clock radio and a pile of loose change that clanged like a cymbal if he missed when karate-chopping the snooze button. But it wasn't there. His TV, his dresser, and his desk should have been at the far end of the room. Those were missing, too. So were his posters and his pictures of his friends-even his window was missing. The walls were bare timber. There were no windows at all and only a single door. The air smelled like sawdust.

A chill grew in Justin's stomach and worked its way outward, making him shiver.

"This isn't my bedroom," he whispered.

Scanning with his flashlight, Justin saw nothing he recognized except his winter coat hanging by its hood on the bedpost. He wiped a trickle of sweat from his brow, and it occurred to him that the room was stiflingly hot-a strange way to wake up on the day after Christmas.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, and his boots touched a floor made of unfinished planks. He tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry. Grabbing his coat from the bedpost, he reached into the inner pocket and pulled out his asthma inhaler; he always kept it in his coat, just in case. Usually, he only needed it during conditioning drills at basketball practice, but his breathing was currently rapid and painful, so he took a quick medicated puff.

Calm down, he told himself. This is not the time to freak out. Everything will be all right, everything will be all right.

He really, really hated when he had to tell himself that.

The bed and the floor both creaked as he stood. Using his phone as a lantern, he crossed the room toward the door.

What happened last night? he thought. Can't remember anything.

"I must be at a friend's house," he whispered. He looked at the timber walls and the bare floor. More like a shack, really.

The bedroom door made hardly a sound as he pushed it open. The ceiling was unusually low, and he had to duck a little so as not to bump his head on the doorframe as he stepped out. He squinted. The room outside the bedroom was just as dark as inside. He raised his phone for a better look and saw a round wooden table, a set of big game antlers on the wall, and, at the far end of the room, a small, diamond-shaped window set in what appeared to be the front door. In the opposite direction was a short hallway with a couple of other doors, but no lights appeared to be on anywhere. With each passing second, Justin grew increasingly certain that he must have done something immensely stupid after storming out of the house the night before.

Did I get drunk or something? he wondered. Maybe there was some sort of party.

That had to be it. It wasn't really like him, but what other explanation could there be? This house must have belonged to one of his friends' parents. Which meant his friends were somewhere in here, too. It didn't appear that anyone was awake, though. He checked his phone, searching for messages from the night before to jump-start his memory, but there were none. The last one was the one from Kate. He blinked in surprise, realizing his phone had no signal. Worse still, it was almost dead.

Justin approached the front door, shut off the light on his phone, and cupped his hand to the glass to look out, but he couldn't see anything. He opened it as quietly as he could. To his astonishment, the air felt warm and humid, and he heard the high-pitched peeping of frogs.

Justin stepped outside, and instead of a foot of snow, there was springy, dew-slick grass under his feet. There were no streetlights-no lights whatsoever that he could see. Only a lopsided crescent moon in the sky peeking through thin snakes of gray clouds. Rolling plains stretched out before him, and there were no roads or even a driveway in sight. He checked his phone and confirmed the date. It was Wednesday, December 26. But it felt like it was 70 degrees out here. It was also uncommonly quiet. Even in his small town, day or night, you could always hear vehicle engines in the distance. Or planes passing overhead. Or the garbage truck. Or somebody's pool pump. Or an old lady's TV turned up too loud. Or... something. But out here, Justin could hear nothing but peeping frogs, the whistle of the breeze, and-

A sudden thud made Justin jump. He turned and realized a moment too late that the breeze had blown the house door shut behind him. He grabbed the knob and tried to turn it. It wouldn't budge.