Chapter One: Amari Bigara

Ever wonder what it feels like when your mind and body are at war meanwhile you're trying to maintain an ordinary life with your job, best friend, and sanity? Yeah, me neither...

Chapter One: Amari Bigara

 

          This dream again; the world around me is just black, much too dark to even see my skin. I can’t hear or feel anything, but I know that it isn’t cold or blazing. I should feel scared or confused, but there is just a calm air around me. I can’t tell if I’m floating or standing. Could this be Hell? To try and answer that question, I try to move my limbs, only to find that something begins to curl itself around my legs. I open my mouth to shout but nothing sounds�"now I’m scared. I twist and pull but the thing just continues to curl even tighter, like a snake. Then suddenly, everything stops and only my heavy breathing could be heard. My senses are screaming in all different directions but I had no idea of how to respond to any of them.

          “Do not be afraid,” it said. The pounding in my ears stopped and I could suddenly feel a presence right in front of me and hear its breathing.

          “Where am I?” And I can now speak, but my voice was a raspy and tired sound.

          “You are safe.”

          “Who are you? Where am I?”

          The feel of soft yet rough hands cupped my face, warming me up even though I wasn’t cold. Its lips found mine, but it didn’t turn into a passionate kiss that ignited a fire deep within my animalistic conscience. No, it was a kiss that meant something, like a note or a reminder. A tinge of pain echoed into my head but It kept its lips locked onto mine. I wanted to pull away but I was kept still by the wrapping around my legs and arms. Finally, It pulled away, breathing into my ear: “You are safe. You are mine,” It repeated.

          I had wanted to ask more questions and demand answers until I turned blue in the face, but the sound of screaming interrupted that idea. The screaming was coming from the outside world, reality. I could feel the black world around me shaking and rumbling as the screaming became more obnoxious. Cracks of light were starting to break through and I quickly looked around me to see if I could finally see Its face but there was no one or nothing around me. The black began to shatter as I was rising to consciousness from the screaming. When I finally woke up, I was drenched in sweat�"literally from head to toe�"panting, and staring wide-eyed at my mirror image from the dresser mirror.

          “Oh my God, are you okay?”

          I forgot that there was someone else in the room, the source of the screaming. It was my best friend and coworker, Emi Sugiyama. “Emi? What are you doing here?” I couldn’t tell what time or day it was, everything was way too confusing.

          “Wha�"? I’m here cause you asked me to wake and pick you up today, remember? What were you dreaming about, you look like you had a fight with the devil.”

          Maybe she wasn’t far off from the truth; I wasn’t even sure what the heck was wrong with me. This wasn’t the first time I had this dream; I use to have it all the time when I was a kid and a bit during high school. But this was the first time I have had this nightmare for six consecutive days! Was it supposed to mean something? “I’m fine,” I said with a heavy sigh. “It was a nightmare filled with bugs, mice, and clowns.”

          She shivered. “Geez, you must have eaten something before you passed out.”

          “I think some Doritos.” That part was true, but the rest I had to lie about because this was one thing I could never tell Emi. Although she is my best friend, this was something I’ve always felt was beyond personal and I never felt it safe to tell her about them. She laughed at my choice of midnight snack and forced me to wash up before work.

          Slowly, I dragged myself to the bathroom and came face to face with my mirror image and I didn’t like what I saw. There was still a blanket of sweat stuck to my skin, making me look sickly and pale. My usual bouncy black hair was dead and faint, stuck around my face like a spider while my grey eyes appeared cold and lost with bags under them (inspiration: Jessica Stroup). This image was irritating me so I jumped into the shower to wash all the grim and sweat off. The boiling hot water burned everything, but that was the pleasure of it. I brushed my fingers through my hair and grabbed the body wash to cover myself in suds. The scent of chocolate blended with the steam of the shower and danced round my head like a blessed fog.

          I never wanted to leave the shower, but the loud banging on the door reminded me that that wasn’t an option. I always dreaded opening the curtains because the cold air that would whip my wet skin was one of the worst feelings ever. I immediately began blow-drying my hair and stepped out to throw on some clothes when I noticed the bed sheets were no longer on the bed.

          “Emi, what the heck did you do to my bed?”

          “I changed them. You soaked the whole bed with your sweat, welcome.”

          I rolled my eyes but muttered my thanks. From time to time, Emi would barge into my little apartment and start cleaning or fixing stuff saying that she was better off doing it than waiting for an old fart like me to get started.  Funny enough, she was the older one. She was running back and forth around my apartment fixing this or that as she chucked a brown bag at me. I smiled because the brown bag was a toasted cream-cheese bagel with hash brown nuggets and a few packets of ketchup. As she was running around, I had heard her a few times humming some Japanese tune that she use to sing as a kid: something along the lines of a Totoro? Anyway, Emi was half Japanese, from her mother, and half Puerto Rican, from her father. She looked more like her father with her darkish skin but she had her mother’s features. Her hair was a dark, silky waterfall that had the magic to dance every time she walked as her eyes were a dark brown that resembled aged wood (inspiration: Padma Lakshmi). She can’t speak a lick of Spanish, but she knows Japanese fluently and funny thing, she doesn’t like to cook Japanese cuisine, so she only cooks Spanish dishes. And me, I take full advantage of that.

          Finally, she was done as I had just finished my breakfast. “Feeling better?” she asked.

          “Yeah, food was good, thanks.”

          “Ugh, we gotta go or we’ll be late.”

          I groaned along with her. We worked together at a clothing store mainly as the clean up crew; picking up clothes, sorting them, rearranging everything, etc. The problem wasn’t the job, though, since we could have it worse. No, the problem was the manager who made our lives seem as if we were living in a bubble full of fart. Hector Lace was a curly-haired, hairy, beer-bellied animal (inspiration: Ron Jeremy). How he managed to get a job as a manager for a clothing store looking like a slob is beyond my comprehension. I try not to question everything, but there are just times when you sit down and beg, why! Emi and Hector never really got along, especially since Emi sometimes mumbles in Japanese and he’s a bigoted idiot. But we put up with the nonsense, for now, only to pay off the college loans we so lovingly accumulated.

          The both of us double-majored in social work and journalism; yeah, a weird combination. Because we weren’t the richest of families and the best colleges cost ten human lives, we settled for the community college of Oshko, New Jersey. Oshko was a town of a very, very small population with everyone and their ancestor all going to one school, one pizza joint, one make-out hill (that didn’t really exist), one college, and one major supermarket for all kids to work in to learn how to understand the value of a dollar. It wasn’t a terrible town, just extremely lacking in versatility, except in the case of Emi. We acquired the job with Hector right after we graduated and needed something immediately to pay off the loans. Thus, here we ended up.

          We hopped into Emi’s car and she drove to the store with little to no enthusiasm. The parking lot was empty but I had forgotten to mention that it was foggy as heck so it was almost impossible to see anything. As soon as we enter through the back doors, his voice rings loud like an alarm.

          “Amari! Emi! You’re late!”

          “No, we’re not, we still have ten minutes until our shifts start,” Emi argued.

          And of course, Hector wasn’t having it. He turned red in the face and stomped forward towards us as if he were going to slam us up against the wall with his stomach. “You are late, again!”

          And Emi didn’t back down and stepped closer towards him as if she were going to knee him in the jewels. “And I’m telling you, no, we’re not. Check the time clock, it reads 7:50AM, meaning, TEN minutes BEFORE eight!”

          I feared this was going to be a war with many casualties but the sound of the door’s wind chimes alerted us that a customer (even though the store sign wasn’t switched to open just yet) just walked in. Hector immediately changed face and swiped his hand through his greasy locks. When he turned to greet the customer, I noticed that he didn’t treat this customer like he normally would anyone else. She definitely wasn’t a regular yet he catered to her needs as if she were the president of something. If she was, that would explain why he yelled at us even though we were on time. Emi had already started folding some clothes lounging around on the shelves; I decided to sort everything by color and size. Hector took the mysterious woman to the other side of the store where he showed her some racks of jackets.

          “Psst, who’s the lady?” Emi asked.

          “I don’t know, but she obviously has money if he acts like that.”

          Emi scoffed. “Or her husband does.”

          “Emi, that’s mean!” I scolded her.

          She shrugged and resumed folding while I gave her the meanest glares I could conjure up. I knew she was just jealous, I mean the woman was very pretty. But we dropped the subject and carried on our merry little way until Hector and the woman approached us. “And this is Emi Sugiyahama and Amari Bigara; they work on the floor.” Emi wasn’t happy about the mispronunciation.

          Did I say pretty? Scratch that, this woman was gorgeous. She had flawless neutral skin and narrow dark eyes that matched her ridiculously long, wavy dark-brown hair. She had a sharp nose but even that complimented her face, as did her lips, which were plump and red (inspiration: Almudena Fernandez).

          This mystery woman stood before us and graced us with a smile that halted time for a few seconds. It wasn’t just because she was attractive; the smile looked so real and genuine and unforced that it shocked me speechless. Today’s society didn’t do things like that; we didn’t tend to look so natural and trusting towards people we’ve just met and we definitely didn’t exude a confidence that captivated anyone that approached us. She reached out her hand waiting for either one of us to grab it and give it a shake.

          “Hello, my name is Katherine Mon’strail.” Her voice was very sweet and soft with a slight accent (that I couldn’t place) around the edges. “But, you can call me Kat.”

          I grabbed her hand before Emi and shook it softly yet awkwardly. “Um, I’m Amari Bigara.” She nodded as she took her hand away and went to shake Emi’s hand.

          “Guys, Kat here is going to be your new assistant manager,” Hector said excitedly. However�"and it didn’t go unnoticed�"Kat gave a narrowed and dangerous glare towards Hector when he placed his hand on her arm and called her Kat. He immediately retracted his hand.

          “Yes,” she continued. “Mr. Lace is going to be transferred to one of the branch stores in another town so later on this week, you will be meeting your new employer.”

          “A new manager?” Emi asked. I think she was having difficulty holding in her excitement.

          “Yes, he is still going through the paper work and other non-sense so until then, I will be here as the head honcho,” she said with that smile.

          Hector didn’t look too pleased with this; perhaps it was because of this that he was being extra irritable with us. Just the thought alone that he was finally leaving on this random day had my blood racing with joy. Yeah, I know, that sounds cruel, but it’s not like I was wishing for death, more like for a fare-freakin’-well! Who knew this was going on behind the scenes for some time the whole while we were suffering from his stupidity! Kat continued to chat with Emi and Hector for a bit more until the feeling of uneasiness crept under my skin. Kat was staring directly at me with an intensity that I had never felt before. Why was she staring? Why won’t she look away? My body felt as if it wanted to kneel before her; as if it wanted cling to her. What. The. Hell?

          “Well, it was a pleasure meeting you all; I’ll be here bright and early. See you around, Mr. Lace.”

          Hector nodded, barely disguising the deep frown plastered on his face. Both Emi and I shook her hand again and she walked out of the store with a grace to each step. I waited for Hector to turn around and start yelling at us again, but it didn’t happen; he just calmly told us to get back to work and he shut himself up in his office.

          “What do you think?” I asked.

          “About which part?”

          “The whole thing.”

          “I’m so freakin’ happy that Hector’s leaving!”

          “Right! Finally! But…that lady�"Kat�"was giving off some weird vibes.”

          Emi raised an eyebrow. “Was she? She seemed cool.”

          Now I raised my eyebrow. “Yeah, but how did you not see how she was staring at me. She practically had me naked with her eyes.”

          She ‘hmm-ed’ and shook her head. “That’s…not what I saw. I think I would have noticed that.”

          “Obviously you didn’t.”

          “I don’t know. I think she really was nice, maybe you’re just conceited and just think that random hot people have the hots for you.”

          “Shut up, Emi.”

          We both sighed, stared at each other, and went back to work.

 

*Later that day*

          The day went on normal after that, somewhat. Hector remained in his office and didn’t come out until lunch time, but even then, he just ran right back in there. No one questioned it and we handled everything as if nothing were out of the ordinary. When the day was finally done, Emi wanted to stop by the supermarket since neither one of us had food in our refrigerators and we were starving. I was perfectly fine with a little shopping but I, for some ungodly reason, ALWAYS forget that Emi is no small shopper. No matter the type of store, she makes sure to buy EVERYTHING! And of course, this time was no different. The moment she grabbed the shopping cart, her arm reached to back of each shelf and she swiped all items into it.

          “We. Don’t. Need. This,” I growled for the Nth time.

          She smiled and grabbed another item that we didn’t need. “Amari, really? Have a little fun! I know we don’t need,” she looked at the item in her hand; it was a box of moth balls and the stench was simply murdering the crap out of my nostrils. “moth balls, but you never know when it might come in handy.”

          “You do understand that we aren’t rich, right? We don’t make enough money to buy half of the damn market!”

          “Yeah, I know, but why not pretend we are and buy whatever we want in the process?”

          “Cause then you’re gonna have the cops banging on your door demanding you pay your debts.”

          She continued to throw things into the cart, completely disregarding this whole argument. I wondered what was even the point anymore… “Well, when I die, they won’t get their money and I’ll be a hysterical laughing ghost. A win-win, right?”

          “No, just no,” I replied as I shook my head.

          We strolled around some more until Emi was thankfully done with her shopping. The cashier’s eyes were slightly annoyed�"I could tell since I also work at a ‘people’ sort of job�"and we needed an extra person to help bag. Emi thanked everyone as if she were a tourist thanking its citizens for being beautiful and walked out with a smug grin.

          “So what should we have for dinner?”

          I looked at our bags and shrugged. It was hard to know where to begin and I couldn’t even remember half of the things Emi even threw into the cart. “Maybe…pasta?”

          Emi pursed her lips, made a bunch of ‘thinking’ noises�"as she liked to call them�"and nodded her head; she wanted pasta. We drove quickly to my apartment and I went straight into the kitchen to cook. Some hours later, Emi left and promised to pick me up in the morning like she did today. I sat on the couch and stared blankly at the TV and replayed all of today’s events in slow motion. There was so much change in one day for me to completely absorb; that woman gave me weird chills every time I thought about how she stared at me. I know I wasn’t imagining things because she was right in front of me, not even two feet away. Yet, how was it possible for Emi, who was also right there to not have noticed those looks? Frankly, if Miss Monstril…? (Whatever)…if Kat was into women, that was fine with me, I don’t judge, but the issue was with MY reaction. My body felt as if it had to listen to her. That was the best way I could think of it; my body didn’t want to or even cared to listen to whatever my mind wanted to command, it only paid attention to her. And that wasn’t a normal reaction to anything, ever.

          Plus, my mind kept reverting to this morning before work. I don’t want Emi to have to see what she saw this morning. Even though it was easy to fib, if she kept seeing a pattern, then I’m sure she would notice something. It makes me a bit nervous to sleep even now, wondering if I will have the nightmare again. Thinking so heavily about it had the bright colors before me from the TV slowly blur together and darken into a black mass. Everything sounded so slow to me and my body felt light despite the exhaustion of the day and need for sleep. My face sunk into the sofa cushions and by that point, I was gone.

          It started off like it usually did; I was confused of whether or not I was standing or floating and there wasn’t much feeling to any pleasure or pain. I would always feel calm despite feeling disorientated. But that calm would always immediately disappear the moment I would try to move; these vine-like things would wrap around my legs and each of my arms, keeping me in place. I tried to speak but like many times before, I could not form a single sound. I was trembling, but since this was the first time I decided to face this imagination of mine head on, I reined it in.

          “Are you afraid?” it asked me. The voice would usually reassure me and calm my frightened being, but now it sounded uncertain.

          “I don’t know,” I managed to whisper. “Who are you?”

          “WHO are you?” it countered. Who was I? What the heck was it asking for when it was interrupting MY dream, MY life! I struggled against the vines but they tightened to the point of bone-crushing pain. I couldn’t see It if it was right in front of me but I thought it best to just glare straight ahead of me.

          “WHAT do you want and tell me who you are,” I growled. I was tired of playing games.

          Suddenly two red orbs appeared right in front of me and the sight of them triggered a blazing fire to race through my veins. My body felt as if it were screaming, trying its hardest to gain a voice to be heard. My mind didn’t understand; it couldn’t catch up to whatever message my body was trying to display. It was a much stronger feeling than when I met Kat, no, stronger didn’t even define it.

          The feeling of those soft and rough hands cradled my waist and pulled me closer despite the vines. Its breath danced upon my neck, raising goose bumps throughout my skin and chills down my spine. There was a soft clucking noise that I could best describe as a chuckle. It was…laughing?

          “How amusing you’ve turned out to be,” it said. Its hand crawled up my back to palm around the back of my neck. Soft lips touched mine and inched near my ear. “Until again, but you should wake up before you drown.”

          I didn’t have enough time to register its meaning because the black world around me blinked alight and all I could see was tile. More specifically, bathroom tile. I looked around and noticed I was standing naked in the shower, soaking in the rains. What the….

          “AAAAHHHHHHH!”

          There was the sound of running and then the door busted open and Emi swung the shower curtain to the side. “What’s wrong?!”

          I stared for a couple of seconds before I spoke. “Why…am I in the shower?”

          The face that Emi showed was one I wasn’t very familiar with; it was a combination of confused, irritated, concerned, and just mad. “Amari, are you suffering from head trauma?” she asked slowly, trying to not sound upset. “I woke you up, you got up and walked to the shower. You even yawned and said morning.”

          My eyes widened and I began to tremble. “I don’t remember,” I admitted.

          “Amari? You okay? You want me to call your dad or a doctor?”

          I wasn’t sure what I wanted, I was just so confused. I felt a headache tracing the wrinkles of my mind and my mind whined in retaliation. This secret war with my mind and body had me feeling insane. “No, I think….I’m fine. I’m sorry, I was having a moment, I swear, I’m okay.”

          Emi looked at me skeptically and she crossed her arms in front of her chest; she wasn’t buying it and she wasn’t moving until I sold something believable. “So having momentary Alzheimer’s is a sign of you being okay? You sure you don’t want to blame it on the Doritos again?”

          Crap. Emi wasn’t stupid and shame on me for thinking she was even slightly dense. Crap. Her eyes narrowed and she leaned forward, not caring that droplets from the shower was ruining the front of her shirt. “I’m not going to force you but I’m not going to tolerate it either. I don’t care what method you choose, but either you fix this issue or I do.”

          I felt guilty for lying and in general about this whole mess�"even though I wasn’t exactly sure what kind of mess I was involved in�"but I wasn’t particularly happy to be ‘bossed’ around like a child. “Don’t threaten me, Emi. I’m a grown woman and I told you I’m fine so I’m fine.”

          She leaned back and pursed her lips, pinning me in place with her stare. “Fine,” she snarled. “Just hurry up before we’re late, but I mean it about fixing this little issue you have going on. Stop letting it fester; it’s not healthy.”

          I nodded and she left me alone with the running shower that was now cold. The bathroom mirror was no longer fogged by the steam so I saw every detail of myself reflected across from me. My image looked old and haggard by something troubling. She looked dejected and in a faraway place. Are you okay, Amari? I felt like asking her. Was she okay? Was this okay to let her go on looking like this?

          But what I really wanted to ask her was that in spite of looking so depressed, why was she smiling at the notice of the hickey on her neck?

Author's Note

re-edited this chapter, hope it's clear. Tell me what you think =]