The Number 23 [PART 1]
I've always been a night owl, but in the most extreme sense of the term. Even insomniac felt inaccurate. I would like to blame it on the graveyard shift at the bar. The neon sign outside flickers in a way that's oddly comforting, casting an eerie glow into the booths and bartop that's as consistent as my “insomnia”. The smell of grease, cheap vodka, and a hint of vomit fills the air, a constant reminder that it's 3 AM but this city never sleeps. Just like me.
Being removed but still adjacent to the Vegas strip, we get a lot of interesting characters wandering in outside of our loyal regulars. Granted, our regulars were quite the cast themselves-- we had one guy who somehow always shit on the bathroom floor, Alice who was seventy but flirted like a teenager, someone I called Pirate Dan because he always wore a pirate hat and ordered rum My personal favorite was an old fuck named Desi who had nicknamed me Piss because of the apparent smell of my bar. She's here every night, always tips well, and is always mean as hell to me. I've learned to love it.
A new regular started coming in a few weeks ago. A girl who was always dressed in dirty clothes. She'd sit at the counter, nibble on an order of fries, sip a drink, and stare at me with eyes that held…something? It was a deeply intense gaze. At first, I thought she was just another Vegas night crawler, lost and seeking refuge from the night's shadows in the sanctum of an almost 24-hour bar. But her visits grew more frequent, and she began leaving notes scribbled on napkins with cryptic messages about meeting God and chosen peoples and obscure Bible verses and always, somewhere in the middle, the number 23. I threw them out at first, figuring her for a harmless nutter, but recently, the behavior was getting much more intense.
One night, she didn't bother with the usual song and dance. She slid onto the barstool across from me, her eyes gleaming with a mix of excitement and drug use. "You're one of us," she said, her voice a low, urgent whisper. "You don't know it yet, but you're special." My first thought was to laugh in her face, but there was something in her gaze that stopped me. She was so sincere about it. It was creepy but intriguing. I set down the glass I was polishing and decided to humor her.
“That so? Because Desi thinks I smell like piss.” The old woman at the end of the bar cackled.
This girl ignored my joke. "Your parents," she continued, leaning closer, "they knew things. They were part of something that could change everything." I felt a chill run down my spine, not from the cold, but from a memory I couldn't quite grasp. Parents? The word was as alien to me as the concept of needing sleep. I hadn't seen my parents since they lost custody of me when I was very young. I couldn't remember a thing about them, though, outside of them being arrested and me being shipped off to live with an uncle I hadn't even known existed. But she talked of them with such fervor and familiarity, her eyes shining with a fanatical light that was both mesmerizing and terrifying. "They understood the 23s of the world," she murmured, her voice barely audible over the hum of the fridge. "It's your age, you know. The age you stopped aging."
I wasn't sure if I should laugh or not.
"They were the most devout of followers," she said, her voice gaining strength. "They sought the secret to the problem of age, so we could all meet God in the end. And they found it."
Now, I had to laugh. “You're fucking nuts,” I said, taking her half drank whiskey. “And you're cut off.”
“You don't believe me.”
I repeated myself. “You're fucking nuts.”
“You haven't aged since 23. Don't you wanna know why?”
“Lady, I'm 28. And based on my daily aches and pains, I've been aging just fine.” Sure, I looked young for my age, I always had, but that could so easily be genetics or my lack of sunshine.
“They found it,” she said again. “They were the most devout amongst us and they succeeded.”
“Lady, you're in a cult. Get out while you can.”
“It's not a cult, it's a group of people who know the truth, and you're the proof!”
I had to roll my eyes at this point. “Every cult says they're not a cult. But sure, humor me, what did they find?”
“They found it,” she repeated once more with conviction. “The solution. But it came at a price.” Her eyes never left mine. "They had to give something up." My heart skipped a beat, only because she was practically staring into my inner being at this point. She looked like she was gonna cannibalize me. “A soul. Yours. For the gift!”
I studied her face, looking for any sign of a joke, but she was dead serious. She said her name was Lila at first, and she claimed to be part of the same cult that my parents had been in. The same cult that had sold my soul to find the secret to living forever, so they could “meet God”. "They wanted to be the chosen ones," she said, her eyes wide with a mix of awe and horror. "To live as long as the earth itself, to meet God at the end of the world." The absurdity of it all was laughable, but the way she talked about it, with such confidence, almost made me feel like I was missing something crucial.
"Look," I sighed, “I don't know what game you're playing, but I've got to get back to work." She reached out and placed her hand on mine, her grip surprisingly firm, and yanked me nearly over the bartop with shocking force. "They want you to join us," she whispered, her breath hot against my skin. "You're the proof that it worked. You're their legacy." I pulled my hand away, wiping it on my apron. Legacy? All I felt was a cold emptiness where my soul would be. Should be. Is, no fucking shot was she telling the truth.
Lila didn't take the hint. She started showing up at my apartment after work, her dark eyes boring into me like she could see through to the void inside. I'd find her sitting on the stoop, her back against the peeling paint, her hands wrapped around a cup of coffee that flies floated in. She talked of rituals and prophecies, of how I could help the group grow, how we could all be chosen if we did it right. But I wasn't buying it, it was the ramblings of a freak.
And yet, it was kind of getting to me. It was easily the lack of sleep-- all I wanted was to fucking sleep-- and it was making me question a lot about myself. Like, why couldn't I sleep? Anyone who slept as little as I did should be dead. The only times I slept were those once a month episodes where it was like my physical form got sick of my shit and just collapsed. I'd pass out, be out for a solid day or so, and then start the cycle all over again. I was also surprisingly hardy for someone who took so little care of himself. I ate like shit, when I did eat, and drank like a sailor. I never drank water because water is gross. I'd got hit by a car walking home from work once and spent only two hours in the ER, despite doctors telling me I should have died. I could not remember the last time I'd gotten even a head cold. I guess, if I was some immortal being, it would explain a lot. And yet, my life was so fucking lame.
No, no, she was just some nutter at the bar who'd grown obsessed with me. When I told my uncle about her, keeping some details vague, his only advice was to tell her to fuck off and that I swung for the other team.
“Oh please,” I scoffed. “I don't think she wants to bang me.”
“Aw come on, emo pretty boys like you are all the rage again. Better get a boyfriend fast or break her heart, kid.”
“Rudie, you're not fucking listening. She's batshit, she's pretending like she knows who mom and dad are and is obsessed with the number 23-- she even has a fucking tattoo with it-- and telling me about all this cult shit. She’s shown up everywhere. For what reason? Like, what if she's right? What if she did know mom? And da--”
Uncle Rudie snapped at me. “Go. To. Bed. You're fucking delusional.”
“Go to bed? And what, sleep?” I laughed. “I'd fucking love to. But here I am coming to you with a real problem and you're dismissing me, you always fucking do this.” We had a lot of nights like this, and admittedly, my lack of sleep probably contributed to a lot of it. I could act like a shitty teenager sometimes. But Uncle Rudie was always more like a roommate than a father figure. Sure, he had my best interest at heart, but he knew shit about parenting and never knew how to help me with anything.
“And what makes you think I know what to do!? Call the cops if you're that fucking worried, I don't know what you want from me. You work at a 24 hour bar in Las Vegas, what are you expecting? Normal fucking people? If you're scared of her, call the cops. But don't buy into her bullshit, have some sense.”
Maybe he was right, but… “Actually, we're a 23 hour bar, we close for an hour at lunch-- 23! That number keeps popping up, you don't think that's weird? Like, at all?”
“Shut up and go to bed, don't let this dumb broad convert you into some weird sex cult because you have mommy and daddy issues.” He dismissed me with a wave, taking a big swig of his Scotch as he did so.
I held my tongue. He was right, I should sleep, but damn did I get sick of his dismissive attitude. Still, I reminded myself to be grateful to the fact he took me in again after an abusive relationship left me homeless. Funny, that happened and landed me back here when I was 23…
No, I wasn't ready to let it go yet. I bolted out of my room with vigor.
“Tell me about dad. You never say shit about him!” I shut the TV to force him to listen.
“I don't know shit! He left home to go live on some hippie commune when I was still a brat, shit, you know I was only fifteen fucking years old when you were born, right? And I didn't even know who the fuck you were till those social workers dropped your scrawny ass on my doorstep.”
“Hippie commune?” He'd never mentioned that before. “You never told me that! Why don't you ever tell me shit?”
“Because my brother was an ass and ditched all of us. Didn't say shit to me, or mom or dad, we never knew he met a woman or had a kid. Just acted all high and mighty one day, said he had all the answers and told us all to fuck off. I'm glad you don't remember that prick, why should you?”
I had to concede defeat. I had really thought he was keeping secrets. That stalker girl with her weird words was getting to me. But it seemed he didn't really know anything.
“I just… I don't know man. It's hard not knowing anything about myself. I'm not normal, I know I'm not, and it'd be nice to know why, yanno? Even if it's, I don't know, weird ass cult shit.”
“Trust me,” Rudie sighed. “The last time I saw your dad, he was not well. Got super righteous and churchy and just disappeared. And if this weird chick does know your folks, you don't want any of that. Yeah, you're a weird fucking kid, but there ain't no shame in that. You live in Las Vegas, weird fucking kids are a dime a dozen. Get over it.”
I sighed. “She's just…got me all on edge. I guess if I do see her again, I'll, I don't know, call the police or whatever.”
Well, I did see her again. But the police didn't do shit. They laughed me off, really. So I was stuck with my weird culty stalker. The more she came around, the less she freaked me out, though. She went from a genuine creep to just a nuisance.
One night, Lila caught me at my most vulnerable—exhausted and fresh out of a fight with a patron I had to throw out. I'm genuinely a huge pussy, so when he swung, I froze and got myself a nice shiner.
Lila told me she knew how to give me back what I'd “lost". I just sighed and thought to myself here we go again, I'm not in the mood tonight. I was rattled, but not from her, not anymore. I began to just get used to her popping up and starting with “Remember me? I'm--” followed by some name akin to Lila or Lena or Leelu or whatever.
“That fight?,” I said with a snarky sigh, earning a slight snicker from Desi at the end of the bar. “Is that what I've lost?”
“Your soul,” she said feverishly. “But what if you could get back what you've lost with your condition?”
I just raised a brow and poured Desi another drink.
"You don't want to live like this," she said, her voice soothing. "Alone, forever. It's a prison, not a prison, not a gift.”
“What's a prison?,” I asked, confused at what she meant.
“You're able to live forever,” she hummed. “You get to meet God! But at what price? You don't sleep, do you? That's a side effect I bet. And you'll have to watch everyone you love die. Come with me and we can fix it?”
“No fucking shot,” I said, trying not to fall in.
“Hey, Piss, make the next one a double!” Desi was great at killing the tension and keeping me grounded here, to this bar, not to some weird immortality cult shit.
I took Lila Luna Leela’s glass away from her. “You're cut off. Actually, you're banned. I'm sick of seeing you.”
“But you don't want answers? A hundred years from now, you'll be all alone as you wait to meet God. Do you want that, Nero?”
“You don't even know my name, and you want me to believe you knew my parents? Get lost.”
“Names are irrelevant in the grand scheme of time, which you have all of in the world. But I do know! I know you're a Capricorn, you were born on New Years, in a California desert town called--”
This time I took her fries away and loudly threw them in the waste bin. “Get out, you freak.”
That kept her away for maybe three weeks. I thought maybe I was rid of her. But in truth, she was laying low, watching out of sight, and waiting for me to be just vulnerable enough.
I was trying to find someone, anyone to cover the rest of my shift. I could feel it coming, the collapse. I had passed out in the cooler at work once and that was not a day I wanted to repeat. Thank God for Dahlia. She assured me she'd be there in five.
I must have looked worse for wear, because even Desi was showing me pity. “Son, why not sit down after you pour that?” Of course, she wanted her drink first. I nearly dropped it as I gave it to her, I was starting to feel so dazed.
Dragging my feet, I slumped into an empty booth seat and tried to wait for Dahlia to show up. But I didn't make it, within minutes I was out cold. Ordinarily, any one of my coworkers would call Rudie, but apparently, someone said they knew me and I ended up in the back of some strangers' car.
Well, she wasn't a stranger. I'd gotten to know her uncomfortably well at this point. By the time I came to, it had to have been close to four hours. I was still terribly groggy, not having slept nearly enough, but something within me told me shit wasn't right, and I jolted awake. The scenery outside was both familiar and not. It was the desert, but not the desert I was used to. A sign reading “Zzyxx” gave me an idea of where we were.
“You're fucking kidnapping me!?” Lula had me in her backseat. I wondered how she even managed that when I'd told everyone at the bar what a weirdo she was. She tossed a wig in the back.
“Said I was your sis and they bought it! I'm very sorry, this isn't how I wanted to show you, but you have to! You have to see it!”
I genuinely did not want to see shit. I tried to open the door, ready to throw myself onto the asphalt to avoid her and wherever she was taking me, but she had child locked the doors. “You're. Insane.”
“You're the one! The Child of the Void, you need to see it!”
I kicked the back of her seat as hard as I could. Somehow, she was unphased. I tried the windows, but again, child lock.
I wasn't ready to give in though. I calmly crawled into the front seat, slumping down like I was giving up. As soon as she opened her mouth to spew nonsensical babble once more, I lunged over and fought her for the wheel. We veered about the road, skidding on and off it. Lucky for us, these desert side roads were pretty barren.
“You just don't get it yet!,” she cried out.
“I don't wanna get it!”
“But you're proof, proof of the new religion--”
“Eat shit and die,” I spat.
The car spiraled a minute, unceremoniously tipping side to side before stopping in the sand. Lana and I were both dizzied, but I had adrenaline on my side. I kicked the driver side door open and stepped on her as I barrelled out. I hoped it hurt.
My face met sand and dazed me a moment before I scrambled back to my feet and took off running. Where? Anywhere at this point.
“You won't make it far!” I heard Liza shout. “You need me!” Strange, she wasn't following me, as if she knew something I didn't.
“YOU need help!,” I shouted, flipping her off as I did so.
The sun scorched the land, making the horizon warbled and the air stale. Every breath I sucked in felt like I was giving head to a blow dryer. It had to have been over 100°, easily. But hey, if I was this so called immortal being like this nutjob claimed, I guess this was a good way to test it.
I had no way of knowing where I was or where the nearest highway was. She'd either taken my phone or I left it in the car; either way, I was completely stranded on all fronts. No wallet either. Being alone with my thoughts, they naturally bounced back to my past. Memories I was sure I had forgotten were starting to bubble through, as if the grueling climate was forcing me into a vision quest.
In Joshua trees, I saw my parents, in the distant windmills, I saw crosses. That's right, our house was full of crosses, adorned with the number 23. I remembered, for the first time in my life, my parents' faces. They were so cold looking. They were gaunt and placid, as if they'd been malnourished. Only my mother smiled, but never at me. She was always pulling me away from the windows and doors, telling me I wasn't needed out there. I remember only being allowed to eat soup…
The only one who left the little shack we lived in was my father. When he did, he always had a backpack full of books and papers and what not. He only left like, once a month, and would be gone for days.
At this point, the sun was high in the sky, frying me like an egg. This was the most sunshine I had gotten probably ever, and I felt like it was affecting my psyche. Who said sunshine was good for you? This sucked. I was sweaty and sticky and I wanted to vomit. I did vomit. I couldn't see a road, couldn't see a car, and I wondered if I had really fucked up with my escape plan.
Lack thereof.
“I'm gonna fucking die,” I laughed. I should have made a plan. But I didn't. So I sat down and gave up, ready for the desert sands, or a snake, or a gila monster to take me.
But none did. I watched the sun climb up, and down, until the cooler night air began to settle in. This time, I was fighting sleep, still on edge. Sure, I'd said I was ready to die, but I wasn't quite ready to confront that. I found myself mindlessly drawing 23s in the sand, still thinking about my youth and probably losing brain cells.
Between the blips of memory, something stuck out. It was the one time we'd had guests over. If they were part of this cult, I suppose these were the other cultists. They ooo'd and aww'd over me for awhile, congratulating my parents for bearing the “first child”. Did none of the other cultists have kids? I remembered the mood shifting sharply all at once, and pain. Such pain. And then, business as usual for at least a year or so, before police came and arrested my parents (and possibly everyone else). I remember the social worker's face better than my parents. She was a nice lady, but she always looked confused. I probably said weird shit to her.
It came and went, until I tasted sand as I collapsed once more.
So she did know something I didn't, because when I woke up again some time later, I was on a bed in some dingy windowless room.
“I watched you sleep.” It was Linda, smiling frantically.
“You knew I was gonna…” My voice trailed off.
“I assured you you would not go far. But that is ok. I'll forgive all the resistance because we made it. Now I can show you, and you'll finally get it.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No,” I repeated.
“We’ll help you understand. Sorry for this.”
She promptly got up and exited, locking the door behind her. I was sure she'd come back with some bodyguards or something to beat me into submission, but it was kind of worse than that. She left me alone for God knows how long. Hours and hours and hours and hours with me and all of my thoughts, a buzzing light that wouldn't turn off, and no windows to even guess how long I'd been alone. It was maddening. No new memories resurfaced, just those same glimpses over and over, like a horribly edited movie. None of it made sense. The first couple of hours were annoying, but the longer it dragged on, the more dreadful it became. I ripped up the paint on the door I clawed at it so desperately. I banged myself up trying to tackle it. I just wanted to break out. When I was sure it wasn't happening, though, I laid down and gave up. I tried to smother myself with the pillow, but nothing happened. Maybe it really was all true.
--- Nemo here. Didn't realize these sites have a character count, and I don't know the meaning of restraint too well. Splitting it up here, but I'll post the rest as soon as I can.
I've always been a night owl, but in the most extreme sense of the term. Even insomniac felt inaccurate. I would like to blame it on the graveyard shift at the bar. The neon sign outside flickers in a way that's oddly comforting, casting an eerie glow into the booths and bartop that's as consistent as my “insomnia”. The smell of grease, cheap vodka, and a hint of vomit fills the air, a constant reminder that it's 3 AM but this city never sleeps. Just like me.
Being removed but still adjacent to the Vegas strip, we get a lot of interesting characters wandering in outside of our loyal regulars. Granted, our regulars were quite the cast themselves-- we had one guy who somehow always shit on the bathroom floor, Alice who was seventy but flirted like a teenager, someone I called Pirate Dan because he always wore a pirate hat and ordered rum My personal favorite was an old fuck named Desi who had nicknamed me Piss because of the apparent smell of my bar. She's here every night, always tips well, and is always mean as hell to me. I've learned to love it.
A new regular started coming in a few weeks ago. A girl who was always dressed in dirty clothes. She'd sit at the counter, nibble on an order of fries, sip a drink, and stare at me with eyes that held…something? It was a deeply intense gaze. At first, I thought she was just another Vegas night crawler, lost and seeking refuge from the night's shadows in the sanctum of an almost 24-hour bar. But her visits grew more frequent, and she began leaving notes scribbled on napkins with cryptic messages about meeting God and chosen peoples and obscure Bible verses and always, somewhere in the middle, the number 23. I threw them out at first, figuring her for a harmless nutter, but recently, the behavior was getting much more intense.
One night, she didn't bother with the usual song and dance. She slid onto the barstool across from me, her eyes gleaming with a mix of excitement and drug use. "You're one of us," she said, her voice a low, urgent whisper. "You don't know it yet, but you're special." My first thought was to laugh in her face, but there was something in her gaze that stopped me. She was so sincere about it. It was creepy but intriguing. I set down the glass I was polishing and decided to humor her.
“That so? Because Desi thinks I smell like piss.” The old woman at the end of the bar cackled.
This girl ignored my joke. "Your parents," she continued, leaning closer, "they knew things. They were part of something that could change everything." I felt a chill run down my spine, not from the cold, but from a memory I couldn't quite grasp. Parents? The word was as alien to me as the concept of needing sleep. I hadn't seen my parents since they lost custody of me when I was very young. I couldn't remember a thing about them, though, outside of them being arrested and me being shipped off to live with an uncle I hadn't even known existed. But she talked of them with such fervor and familiarity, her eyes shining with a fanatical light that was both mesmerizing and terrifying. "They understood the 23s of the world," she murmured, her voice barely audible over the hum of the fridge. "It's your age, you know. The age you stopped aging."
I wasn't sure if I should laugh or not.
"They were the most devout of followers," she said, her voice gaining strength. "They sought the secret to the problem of age, so we could all meet God in the end. And they found it."
Now, I had to laugh. “You're fucking nuts,” I said, taking her half drank whiskey. “And you're cut off.”
“You don't believe me.”
I repeated myself. “You're fucking nuts.”
“You haven't aged since 23. Don't you wanna know why?”
“Lady, I'm 28. And based on my daily aches and pains, I've been aging just fine.” Sure, I looked young for my age, I always had, but that could so easily be genetics or my lack of sunshine.
“They found it,” she said again. “They were the most devout amongst us and they succeeded.”
“Lady, you're in a cult. Get out while you can.”
“It's not a cult, it's a group of people who know the truth, and you're the proof!”
I had to roll my eyes at this point. “Every cult says they're not a cult. But sure, humor me, what did they find?”
“They found it,” she repeated once more with conviction. “The solution. But it came at a price.” Her eyes never left mine. "They had to give something up." My heart skipped a beat, only because she was practically staring into my inner being at this point. She looked like she was gonna cannibalize me. “A soul. Yours. For the gift!”
I studied her face, looking for any sign of a joke, but she was dead serious. She said her name was Lila at first, and she claimed to be part of the same cult that my parents had been in. The same cult that had sold my soul to find the secret to living forever, so they could “meet God”. "They wanted to be the chosen ones," she said, her eyes wide with a mix of awe and horror. "To live as long as the earth itself, to meet God at the end of the world." The absurdity of it all was laughable, but the way she talked about it, with such confidence, almost made me feel like I was missing something crucial.
"Look," I sighed, “I don't know what game you're playing, but I've got to get back to work." She reached out and placed her hand on mine, her grip surprisingly firm, and yanked me nearly over the bartop with shocking force. "They want you to join us," she whispered, her breath hot against my skin. "You're the proof that it worked. You're their legacy." I pulled my hand away, wiping it on my apron. Legacy? All I felt was a cold emptiness where my soul would be. Should be. Is, no fucking shot was she telling the truth.
Lila didn't take the hint. She started showing up at my apartment after work, her dark eyes boring into me like she could see through to the void inside. I'd find her sitting on the stoop, her back against the peeling paint, her hands wrapped around a cup of coffee that flies floated in. She talked of rituals and prophecies, of how I could help the group grow, how we could all be chosen if we did it right. But I wasn't buying it, it was the ramblings of a freak.
And yet, it was kind of getting to me. It was easily the lack of sleep-- all I wanted was to fucking sleep-- and it was making me question a lot about myself. Like, why couldn't I sleep? Anyone who slept as little as I did should be dead. The only times I slept were those once a month episodes where it was like my physical form got sick of my shit and just collapsed. I'd pass out, be out for a solid day or so, and then start the cycle all over again. I was also surprisingly hardy for someone who took so little care of himself. I ate like shit, when I did eat, and drank like a sailor. I never drank water because water is gross. I'd got hit by a car walking home from work once and spent only two hours in the ER, despite doctors telling me I should have died. I could not remember the last time I'd gotten even a head cold. I guess, if I was some immortal being, it would explain a lot. And yet, my life was so fucking lame.
No, no, she was just some nutter at the bar who'd grown obsessed with me. When I told my uncle about her, keeping some details vague, his only advice was to tell her to fuck off and that I swung for the other team.
“Oh please,” I scoffed. “I don't think she wants to bang me.”
“Aw come on, emo pretty boys like you are all the rage again. Better get a boyfriend fast or break her heart, kid.”
“Rudie, you're not fucking listening. She's batshit, she's pretending like she knows who mom and dad are and is obsessed with the number 23-- she even has a fucking tattoo with it-- and telling me about all this cult shit. She’s shown up everywhere. For what reason? Like, what if she's right? What if she did know mom? And da--”
Uncle Rudie snapped at me. “Go. To. Bed. You're fucking delusional.”
“Go to bed? And what, sleep?” I laughed. “I'd fucking love to. But here I am coming to you with a real problem and you're dismissing me, you always fucking do this.” We had a lot of nights like this, and admittedly, my lack of sleep probably contributed to a lot of it. I could act like a shitty teenager sometimes. But Uncle Rudie was always more like a roommate than a father figure. Sure, he had my best interest at heart, but he knew shit about parenting and never knew how to help me with anything.
“And what makes you think I know what to do!? Call the cops if you're that fucking worried, I don't know what you want from me. You work at a 24 hour bar in Las Vegas, what are you expecting? Normal fucking people? If you're scared of her, call the cops. But don't buy into her bullshit, have some sense.”
Maybe he was right, but… “Actually, we're a 23 hour bar, we close for an hour at lunch-- 23! That number keeps popping up, you don't think that's weird? Like, at all?”
“Shut up and go to bed, don't let this dumb broad convert you into some weird sex cult because you have mommy and daddy issues.” He dismissed me with a wave, taking a big swig of his Scotch as he did so.
I held my tongue. He was right, I should sleep, but damn did I get sick of his dismissive attitude. Still, I reminded myself to be grateful to the fact he took me in again after an abusive relationship left me homeless. Funny, that happened and landed me back here when I was 23…
No, I wasn't ready to let it go yet. I bolted out of my room with vigor.
“Tell me about dad. You never say shit about him!” I shut the TV to force him to listen.
“I don't know shit! He left home to go live on some hippie commune when I was still a brat, shit, you know I was only fifteen fucking years old when you were born, right? And I didn't even know who the fuck you were till those social workers dropped your scrawny ass on my doorstep.”
“Hippie commune?” He'd never mentioned that before. “You never told me that! Why don't you ever tell me shit?”
“Because my brother was an ass and ditched all of us. Didn't say shit to me, or mom or dad, we never knew he met a woman or had a kid. Just acted all high and mighty one day, said he had all the answers and told us all to fuck off. I'm glad you don't remember that prick, why should you?”
I had to concede defeat. I had really thought he was keeping secrets. That stalker girl with her weird words was getting to me. But it seemed he didn't really know anything.
“I just… I don't know man. It's hard not knowing anything about myself. I'm not normal, I know I'm not, and it'd be nice to know why, yanno? Even if it's, I don't know, weird ass cult shit.”
“Trust me,” Rudie sighed. “The last time I saw your dad, he was not well. Got super righteous and churchy and just disappeared. And if this weird chick does know your folks, you don't want any of that. Yeah, you're a weird fucking kid, but there ain't no shame in that. You live in Las Vegas, weird fucking kids are a dime a dozen. Get over it.”
I sighed. “She's just…got me all on edge. I guess if I do see her again, I'll, I don't know, call the police or whatever.”
Well, I did see her again. But the police didn't do shit. They laughed me off, really. So I was stuck with my weird culty stalker. The more she came around, the less she freaked me out, though. She went from a genuine creep to just a nuisance.
One night, Lila caught me at my most vulnerable—exhausted and fresh out of a fight with a patron I had to throw out. I'm genuinely a huge pussy, so when he swung, I froze and got myself a nice shiner.
Lila told me she knew how to give me back what I'd “lost". I just sighed and thought to myself here we go again, I'm not in the mood tonight. I was rattled, but not from her, not anymore. I began to just get used to her popping up and starting with “Remember me? I'm--” followed by some name akin to Lila or Lena or Leelu or whatever.
“That fight?,” I said with a snarky sigh, earning a slight snicker from Desi at the end of the bar. “Is that what I've lost?”
“Your soul,” she said feverishly. “But what if you could get back what you've lost with your condition?”
I just raised a brow and poured Desi another drink.
"You don't want to live like this," she said, her voice soothing. "Alone, forever. It's a prison, not a prison, not a gift.”
“What's a prison?,” I asked, confused at what she meant.
“You're able to live forever,” she hummed. “You get to meet God! But at what price? You don't sleep, do you? That's a side effect I bet. And you'll have to watch everyone you love die. Come with me and we can fix it?”
“No fucking shot,” I said, trying not to fall in.
“Hey, Piss, make the next one a double!” Desi was great at killing the tension and keeping me grounded here, to this bar, not to some weird immortality cult shit.
I took Lila Luna Leela’s glass away from her. “You're cut off. Actually, you're banned. I'm sick of seeing you.”
“But you don't want answers? A hundred years from now, you'll be all alone as you wait to meet God. Do you want that, Nero?”
“You don't even know my name, and you want me to believe you knew my parents? Get lost.”
“Names are irrelevant in the grand scheme of time, which you have all of in the world. But I do know! I know you're a Capricorn, you were born on New Years, in a California desert town called--”
This time I took her fries away and loudly threw them in the waste bin. “Get out, you freak.”
That kept her away for maybe three weeks. I thought maybe I was rid of her. But in truth, she was laying low, watching out of sight, and waiting for me to be just vulnerable enough.
I was trying to find someone, anyone to cover the rest of my shift. I could feel it coming, the collapse. I had passed out in the cooler at work once and that was not a day I wanted to repeat. Thank God for Dahlia. She assured me she'd be there in five.
I must have looked worse for wear, because even Desi was showing me pity. “Son, why not sit down after you pour that?” Of course, she wanted her drink first. I nearly dropped it as I gave it to her, I was starting to feel so dazed.
Dragging my feet, I slumped into an empty booth seat and tried to wait for Dahlia to show up. But I didn't make it, within minutes I was out cold. Ordinarily, any one of my coworkers would call Rudie, but apparently, someone said they knew me and I ended up in the back of some strangers' car.
Well, she wasn't a stranger. I'd gotten to know her uncomfortably well at this point. By the time I came to, it had to have been close to four hours. I was still terribly groggy, not having slept nearly enough, but something within me told me shit wasn't right, and I jolted awake. The scenery outside was both familiar and not. It was the desert, but not the desert I was used to. A sign reading “Zzyxx” gave me an idea of where we were.
“You're fucking kidnapping me!?” Lula had me in her backseat. I wondered how she even managed that when I'd told everyone at the bar what a weirdo she was. She tossed a wig in the back.
“Said I was your sis and they bought it! I'm very sorry, this isn't how I wanted to show you, but you have to! You have to see it!”
I genuinely did not want to see shit. I tried to open the door, ready to throw myself onto the asphalt to avoid her and wherever she was taking me, but she had child locked the doors. “You're. Insane.”
“You're the one! The Child of the Void, you need to see it!”
I kicked the back of her seat as hard as I could. Somehow, she was unphased. I tried the windows, but again, child lock.
I wasn't ready to give in though. I calmly crawled into the front seat, slumping down like I was giving up. As soon as she opened her mouth to spew nonsensical babble once more, I lunged over and fought her for the wheel. We veered about the road, skidding on and off it. Lucky for us, these desert side roads were pretty barren.
“You just don't get it yet!,” she cried out.
“I don't wanna get it!”
“But you're proof, proof of the new religion--”
“Eat shit and die,” I spat.
The car spiraled a minute, unceremoniously tipping side to side before stopping in the sand. Lana and I were both dizzied, but I had adrenaline on my side. I kicked the driver side door open and stepped on her as I barrelled out. I hoped it hurt.
My face met sand and dazed me a moment before I scrambled back to my feet and took off running. Where? Anywhere at this point.
“You won't make it far!” I heard Liza shout. “You need me!” Strange, she wasn't following me, as if she knew something I didn't.
“YOU need help!,” I shouted, flipping her off as I did so.
The sun scorched the land, making the horizon warbled and the air stale. Every breath I sucked in felt like I was giving head to a blow dryer. It had to have been over 100°, easily. But hey, if I was this so called immortal being like this nutjob claimed, I guess this was a good way to test it.
I had no way of knowing where I was or where the nearest highway was. She'd either taken my phone or I left it in the car; either way, I was completely stranded on all fronts. No wallet either. Being alone with my thoughts, they naturally bounced back to my past. Memories I was sure I had forgotten were starting to bubble through, as if the grueling climate was forcing me into a vision quest.
In Joshua trees, I saw my parents, in the distant windmills, I saw crosses. That's right, our house was full of crosses, adorned with the number 23. I remembered, for the first time in my life, my parents' faces. They were so cold looking. They were gaunt and placid, as if they'd been malnourished. Only my mother smiled, but never at me. She was always pulling me away from the windows and doors, telling me I wasn't needed out there. I remember only being allowed to eat soup…
The only one who left the little shack we lived in was my father. When he did, he always had a backpack full of books and papers and what not. He only left like, once a month, and would be gone for days.
At this point, the sun was high in the sky, frying me like an egg. This was the most sunshine I had gotten probably ever, and I felt like it was affecting my psyche. Who said sunshine was good for you? This sucked. I was sweaty and sticky and I wanted to vomit. I did vomit. I couldn't see a road, couldn't see a car, and I wondered if I had really fucked up with my escape plan.
Lack thereof.
“I'm gonna fucking die,” I laughed. I should have made a plan. But I didn't. So I sat down and gave up, ready for the desert sands, or a snake, or a gila monster to take me.
But none did. I watched the sun climb up, and down, until the cooler night air began to settle in. This time, I was fighting sleep, still on edge. Sure, I'd said I was ready to die, but I wasn't quite ready to confront that. I found myself mindlessly drawing 23s in the sand, still thinking about my youth and probably losing brain cells.
Between the blips of memory, something stuck out. It was the one time we'd had guests over. If they were part of this cult, I suppose these were the other cultists. They ooo'd and aww'd over me for awhile, congratulating my parents for bearing the “first child”. Did none of the other cultists have kids? I remembered the mood shifting sharply all at once, and pain. Such pain. And then, business as usual for at least a year or so, before police came and arrested my parents (and possibly everyone else). I remember the social worker's face better than my parents. She was a nice lady, but she always looked confused. I probably said weird shit to her.
It came and went, until I tasted sand as I collapsed once more.
So she did know something I didn't, because when I woke up again some time later, I was on a bed in some dingy windowless room.
“I watched you sleep.” It was Linda, smiling frantically.
“You knew I was gonna…” My voice trailed off.
“I assured you you would not go far. But that is ok. I'll forgive all the resistance because we made it. Now I can show you, and you'll finally get it.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No,” I repeated.
“We’ll help you understand. Sorry for this.”
She promptly got up and exited, locking the door behind her. I was sure she'd come back with some bodyguards or something to beat me into submission, but it was kind of worse than that. She left me alone for God knows how long. Hours and hours and hours and hours with me and all of my thoughts, a buzzing light that wouldn't turn off, and no windows to even guess how long I'd been alone. It was maddening. No new memories resurfaced, just those same glimpses over and over, like a horribly edited movie. None of it made sense. The first couple of hours were annoying, but the longer it dragged on, the more dreadful it became. I ripped up the paint on the door I clawed at it so desperately. I banged myself up trying to tackle it. I just wanted to break out. When I was sure it wasn't happening, though, I laid down and gave up. I tried to smother myself with the pillow, but nothing happened. Maybe it really was all true.
--- Nemo here. Didn't realize these sites have a character count, and I don't know the meaning of restraint too well. Splitting it up here, but I'll post the rest as soon as I can.