Mercy on Rayne - Chapter 2
Chapter 2 - Real imagination
“Rayne...”
I pull my hand back to my body and touch my forearm, which is freezing cold. It feels like I had it in icy water for at least 5 minutes.
“What the hell?” I look over my arm, checking for anything weird, but I cannot find anything strange. “Of course not, it was just my imagination. There is nothing in the dark.”
“Rayne...”
I turn around again and quickly start making my way to my flat, while looking over my shoulder scared. “Imagination...” I keep repeating the word, trying to believe it.
“Rayne!” A gust of cold wind rustles my hair and clothes and I look towards the window at the end of the hall, which lets a little bit of street light in, but it’s not broken.
“Where is the wind coming from?” I ask myself under the breath. “No. No, imagination, Rayne. Imagination.” I come back to the mantra, but speed up the way to my flat. Why is this hall so long? It’s never been this long. It usually takes me seconds to get to my flat from the elevator. What is happening today? Did someone pop something into my drink? No, that couldn’t be. I didn’t drink anything. Or not as far as I remember.
I finally reach my door and go through my coat pockets looking for my keys. Where are they? Where are they? Where the hell did I put them? A thought of me losing my keys goes through my mind as I hear my name in the wind again. I go back to repeating the mantra.
Suddenly there is light flickering above me and the lights in the hall turn on. The air goes warm and the tingling in my spine is gone. Calmness sits down in the hallway and I found my keys in the pocket of my jeans. I take a deep breath in and exhale relieved. I open the door to my flat and everything is the way I left it. Upon walking in I notice a new envelope by my shoes, which hasn’t been there when I was leaving to the party. It can’t be the mail because that goes to a mailbox in the lobby. I take my shoes off and pick it up. There is no name on it, so I just open it, curious to know what is inside.
Black marker writings on a white piece of paper.
“Be careful, Rayne.”
That’s all that is says. I turn the paper over several times, but I don’t find any single extra line or dot. Strange. Very strange only. I walk through the hall to the kitchen and place the paper and envelope on the dining table. I open the fridge and take out a bottle of water. While drinking I look at the mysterious message again, only to get more and more confused.
I shrug my shoulders deciding to leave it be.
***
I jerk awake to a shrieking sound. “What the hell?” Jumping out of the bed I run to the living room, from where I thought the sound came from. There is nothing unusual about my living room, then I look out of the full length window and see night time city spread out from 13th floor. Nothing unusual either. However, then I notice the window is cracked in the top left corner.
“Aren’t these supposed to be only hardly breakable?” I come closer to the window and a shape of a person materializes behind the glass on the balcony. “What the...!?” The shape thingy starts to bang against the window, the crack deepens, the shriek appears again. I realize it’s the shape outside making the noise. I back away from the window towards the kitchen. The banging continues as well as the shrieking.
The window cracks and breaks, the shape gets inside and flies towards me. I scream.
I wake up breathing heavily, my is heartbeat fast and my whole body is sweaty. Trying to calm down my breathing I sit on the bed and throw the duvet to the other side of the bed. I start to slowly calm down as the colder air hits my legs.
Few minutes later, I finally get up from the bed and walk slowly and carefully to the living room, My heart rate starts to get faster again unreasonably and when I enter the living room my eyes first go to the balcony and as soon as I see that it’s empty my eyes jump to the top left corner of the window, which it completely intact. I let out a breath of relief and reach the fridge. I take out a bottle of water and unscrew the cap.
The doorbell scares the crap out of me and I drop the bottle. The water starts running out and I throw a dishrag on top of the puddle and pick up the bottle. I sigh over the mess I made.
“I’m such a chicken. Jesus.” The doorbell rings again and I throw another dishrag onto the puddle, I glance at the clock on the microwave and see 5:34AM. It’s too early for the morning light in early March and it’s also too early for anytime of the year for someone to be at my door. Nonetheless I go to the door.
When I open the door, there is another white envelope on the doorstep. Nobody to be seen around.
“Strange.” I pick up the envelope and open it right after I close my door.
“Be more careful, Rayne.”
“What does this even mean?” shaking my head I go back to the kitchen to clean up the mess I made.
After I finish the cleaning I decide it’s too late to go back to bed, since I won’t fall asleep anyway. I sit on the couch in the living room and snuggle myself into my fluffy blanket. The warmth comforts my body and I finally calm down completely and relax muscles I didn’t know I had flexed the whole time since I’ve woken up. I completely forget about the two strange messages.
***
My phone rings and take my eyes of the TV and see Mina’s name on the screen. :”Mina?”
“Hey, girl! Listen, I’m sorry but I don’t think I can make it to yours today,” she apologizes and I know the reason before she has to tell me. She’s been my friend for over a year and a half and I’m just not as stupid as I look, you know. “I’m SO hung-over, I can’t even...”
“I know, it’s fine no worries. Besides, I have already finished the essay,” I tell her the truth because I doubt she remembers me lying to her last night (or early this morning) anyway.
“I think you mentioned that before, yeah.” See, I told you so. She doesn’t remember shit. “Okay so, we’ll see each other tomorrow in class right? It’s at 9, if I’m not wrong.”
“Yep, at 9. It’s in the lecture hall.”
“See you then, hun. Have a nice Sunday and rest up a bit!”
“See you!” I hang up and look at my cup of coffee. The liquid inside is still spinning slowly after I’ve stirring it and something about the movement intrigues me. It’s calming but at the same time somewhat distressing, but I have no clue why. I look at the clock showing 4:56PM and look back at my coffee. It’s too late for coffee if I’m supposed to be in class at 9. I decide to pour it down the drain. Poor coffee, poor Rayne.
***
Walking up to university from my place always takes forever, but today it’s not so bad. It only get bad, when I pass a bus stop and someone calls out my name. I turn around and see the guy from the party on Saturday night. Why? Why does he have to even appear?
“Hi, Rayne! You alright?” he greets me and gets into step next to me.
I even hate that British ‘you alright?’, it’s annoying as hell to a regular Canadian. regret not taking my headphones, at least I would have a good reason to ignore someone - him in particular right now. “Hi.”
“It’s Monday again. How dreadful, innit? I hate Mondays, it’s like after such a beautiful weekend you have to get back to work and school and all that crap. Would be much, much better if the weekend could be longer,” he rants.
If the weekend was longer, there would always be a person like you complaining about not having the weekend long enough. How do I get rid of this person?
A gust of wind blows when I walk around the corner and a shiver runs down my spine. A thought of me considering wearing more clothes crosses my mind and I remember the scarf I left by the door after checking the weather forecast on my phone. Should have taken it....
After I don’t respond to his rant Oliver keeps it down and we walk in silence, even though I don’t want to walk next to him I don’t have much choice at this point.
“So what do you study?” he asks when we are almost at the campus. Almost in safety from talking to people I don’t want to talk to.
“Film,” I say shortly, not wanting to even ask what he studies. I don’t care how rude it may seem, I just literally hate talking to people like him. I feel so uncomfortable. Plus I thought that I would warm up a bit if I snuggle further into my jacket as that gust of wind really surprised me, but I was still cold like my hometown in north Manitoba.
“My God, that is so cool! Why didn’t you say something earlier? I know so many people from film in second year. You’re second year right? For example Mina, you have to know Mina. Everyone knows her and she knows everyone. Kind of one of my best friends. She’s just that type of a person,” he rants again.
And you’re the type to never shut up, eh?
“Rayne!” I hear my name from distance in front of me and when I look up from the ground I see my best friend Mina at the entrance to the main building, probably waiting for me to join her while she smokes her cigarette.
Me and Oliver approach her and she greets him with a small hug, which I know she gives to people she knows and tolerates, but doesn’t actually call friends. I’ve seen this act so many times I almost started laughing. But I was taught to be polite so I just smiled in the corner of my mouth.
“Sorry, Olie, we have girl talk and I doubt you wanna be in it...?” If Mina mentions “girl talk” like right after she says hi, she’s basically telling you to fuck off.
“Oh yeah. Sure. Sorry, girls. It was lovely to meet you again, Rayne. Take care alright! Bye Mina!” he walks away and I start to warm up and feel much better.
“He’s a nice guy,” Mina lights up a cigarette and inhales.
“I’m sure he is.”
“Didn’t you leave the party with him?”
“No, I left without him and he somehow caught up with me on my way home.”
“Alright. Now, what I think is gonna happen is... we’re screwed. Shit,” she swears multiple times and only after about the fifth “fuck” I get what she means.
Today we’re being put into new groups for quite a valuable production and we have no idea if we’re going to work together or not. Of course we could ask for a switch, which may or may not be granted. And that’s the thing.
***
“Group 3: Mina Lee, Damien Knight, Erica Van der Kromer, Rayne Luce, Benjamin Gerhart, Kamil Rutkowski,” the teacher announces my group and as soon as I heard my name in the same group as with Mina I was happy. I worked with Erica and Kamil before and know they are very reliable. I haven’t worked with Ben since the first project last year, which means I haven’t really worked with him. And Damien transferred to our course this year, s no clue about him.
When all the groups were separated we went ahead and sat down together and introduced ourselves. I greeted everyone except Damien so far and as it came to the turn to greet him another of those horrible shivers runs down my spine.
“Hi, I’m Damien. Pleasure to meet you,” he says with a smile.
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I hope you liked this chapter and will come back for the next one :)
-Michaela
