Please Rescue Me

2

2

Appointments

Dressed in layers and every shroud and shawl traditionally worn in the Middle East. I’m not sure where exactly, but I know I’m somewhere there. Not in the modernized parts. A place where every foreigner stuck out like a sore thumb, which made my dirty blonde hair a roaming target. My hair started changing color ever since I was taken. More and more I’m starting to look like a ghost.

Thinner and thinner. Blonder and paler. A lot of people are scared of meeting my eye. Just one look and the locals believe that I would curse them. I am their version of a boogeyman in their folk tales. It helps thin out the people that approach me, and those who ever try to come close.

The SUV is cold. Everything is cold to me, which usually happens when you’re close to anorexic. Eve sits near me, almost wrapping herself around me, transferring as much heat as she can. Ahmed is on my other side, on edge with the guards around us, they have history. A long horrendous history I… had no control over whether to see or not.

The Driver is Elish, tall but with a large gut. Akeresh sat beside him, and the stale smell of cigarettes permeated from him, especially when he was sitting in front of the air conditioner. The backseat was occupied by the three of us, but behind us were two more guards. Renkel and Baker sat stiff; their legs squashed in the small space. They are younger than the two in front, and the only other foreigners in the vehicle.

All military men except for Akeresh. Hired and ready to fire anyone that gets too close for comfort. Those aren’t their true names. I know their true names, but they don’t know that. I know their families or their lack thereof.

My hand immediately found his. His hand was clammy and cold to the touch. Even to my hand, but I ignored it. He finally stopped trembling, and Eve found my other hand. She radiates so much heat. So much hate for the people around us, she is a furnace. She glared out of the window, but I could see her.

Their guns are no match for the rage inside her. They don’t know their lives are in a thin wire. A mere centimeter and she’ll burst. Her magic would be potent and thick. Choking them before they even know what’s happening, but she doesn’t.

Because I’m here.

The car continues to drive for an hour in the unruly desert. Climbing up and down, then finally we’re in a highly urbanized area. Something that seemed to be out of place when we were just in the harshest environment on earth.

There were a lot of people outside, but mostly men in turbans. Many were living their lives. I always find myself in their lives from the outside. To pass the time, I think about their families and the lives they have lived. The kind of homes they must be sharing.

It doesn’t take long before we arrive at a familiar compound. One riddled with men like the ones in the vehicle. Armed militarily but not one that is familiar. They were in stifling uniforms, but they were hidden in large robes and turbans hiding microphones.

A few white faces, but more brown ones. The car stops in the driveway, and the three of us wait for Akeresh to climb out of the front seat and open the door for us. The two on the back climb out of the hatchback door, seamlessly as if they haven’t been sitting with their knees close to their chest.

We were escorted towards the large compound. I knew the steps even with my eyes closed, and the room where I sat behind a paper screen. My services are sold as an East Asian mystic. My face is never seen through the Japanese screen. Even the floor of the room is made of tatami. Eve and Ahmed sat on either side of the screen, sat on their legs.

The sitting cushion is comfortable enough to proceed with appointments. Most usually lasts hours per appointment. Many of them have questions that need answers. Some desperate. This one is a headache.

I play with the hem of my scarf. The smell of tatami and wood is comforting. Anything from nature reminds me of home. We live in the middle of nowhere, or rather, beside a forest. My Dad is a successful enough doctor that we could afford many things. I lived in a second-story house. My room is a corner room on the second floor with the most windows. The smell of the forest and dew reaches something inside me with a dull ache.

“Welcome patron,” Eve and Ahmed said in unison. The sound of the wooden sliding door closing in the background, I can see through my end. It’s like a one-way mirror, as the large man in expensive clothes and expensive perfume comes to the room with a large chair.

I take off my hearing aid and watch his face carefully.

He spills over his dress pants. He looked expensive and sleazy at the same time, despite his large size. He also doesn’t like to sit on the floor. He finds no reason to lower himself to anyone. He sat on the chair as comfortable as one can be on uneven floors.

“It has been a while since I have been here” He smirked, fake plump lips made it hard for me to make out his words. He looked around the Japanese themed Dojo. “Nothing has changed from this place. The least that you could do for a loyal patron, is to actually design your room to their taste.”

“Forgive me, but the design of the room isn’t up to me” I answered monotonously. “What wisdom do you wish to learn?”

He scoffs. “Wisdom. How funny.”

“…”

“Well go on.”

I let myself notice the entourage around him, the one that no one else can see but me, the many specters around him are unsettling. The empty gazes and the many different ways of their death still marred their flesh. Unsettling might be too soft in this situation.

Their lips moved, but I heard nothing. Thank gods

I motioned for one to look away from the subject of their disdain and rage. A little girl with tanned pale skin and round eyes, her clothes were incredibly simple even compared to everything I own in my closet.

Speak.

And just like always. She shows me rather than speaking.

The visions were in rapid fire. I have grown used to this so much that they don’t come in slowly. The images were crammed into my skull and I felt the familiar trickle of blood down my philtrum.

“Well?” He huffed impatiently. No matter how many times he paid for my service, he is still as impatient as ever. “I’m waiting”

I took out the handkerchief Eve gave me and wiped the blood from my nose. “You have been looking for treasure again.”

His lip twitched. “You already know this.”

“your treasure, which you have been looking for in the mountains are in the wrong coordinates. There is a mountain that the locals have named Nimu that’s where you seek”

“What’s in the cache of this mountain?” He measuredly leaned his head on his propped hand. Still bored. Still uninterested and impatient.

“Paintings. Hidden during the war, and incredibly important. Western in essence.”

“Why on earth would they be in an unknown mountain in Japan? The Emperor didn’t hide things as the Reich did.”

“He asked the Emperor to do so.” I hid the bloodstained handkerchief back in my pocket. I have a few more clean ones in my person, because Akeresh sells those too. not a single part of a Visioner is unsellable. “There are catalogs of every stolen cultural piece in Europe. He made sure to make one in every mine that the Monument’s Men raided. Those that are missing are—”

I gasped. Spots littered my vision. The pain was quick as lightning, and all I remember was the loud c***k of my skull to the floor before I even felt the pain.