Page 15

Did I forget that easily?

No.

I take a step back.

I’m definitely hallucinating.

I remain still as my name continues to fill the still air. Each time it’s spoken it becomes more desperate-sounding. More heartbreaking.

My feet are consumed with pins and needles. My palms are a clammy disaster. An out-of-body experience cradles me as I summon up the courage to open the door.

My name is spoken out loud once more and for the first time in what has felt like eternity, I feel hope—happiness.

“Rennix?” I can’t believe what I’m saying right now. “Is that you?”

Consumed with the unexpected bliss of the reunion I’ve been waiting for, I take a step farther into the doorway, bracing myself for the first step on what I assume to be the staircase. I’m wrong. So. Fucking. Wrong.

The moment my foot hits the air, a kaleidoscope of color flashes before me as I plummet into the open space.

I pinch my eyes shut, bracing myself to fall. It takes longer than anticipated but once I land over the top of a surprisingly plush rug, I realize the voice I heard was in fact Rennix’s, but it is from a recording stuck on repeat.

An iMac computer monitor rests before me, identical to the one I had in my room growing up. It’s even the same color on the sides as the one I had. Pink, of course.

I look around to try to figure out where I am, but it’s useless. All there is, is the computer and an obnoxious array of flashing lights so bright I’m afraid they may burn a hole through my retinas.

A familiar gray box with a yellow running man logo appears on the screen. The cursor is blinking, ready for me to enter my log-in information.

I look around. This must be a joke.

Without me so much as lifting a finger, the keyboard begins to move, entering my old instant messenger screen name: MaLL_Babe90.

“Yeah, so this is a hell no for…meeeee—” I squeal as my body skids forward as if I’m possessed. My fingers, now glued to the keyboard, type away, but not of my own volition, until my password is entered, and my hand moves to the mouse, clicking on the sign-in option.

Oh sure. I can’t remember the password for my bank account, but I can remember one from twenty years ago.

“This isn’t real. You’re not hearing what you think you are. That’s not dial-up grating your eardrums,” I lie. Ask any millennial what dial-up sounds like and they would do their best impersonation of the sound I’m one hundred percent hearing right now.

It lasts a few seconds more until it’s replaced with another sound.

A name.

My name.

Well, a nickname, to be exact. One I haven’t heard in a long time. This time it’s not through a recording like what lured me here. It’s real.

I think.

I hope.

Please be real.

The voice is coming from behind me. “Lia?”

My stomach drops. Only one person called me Lia.

Only Rennix.

I turn around slowly. I’ve never felt such eager apprehension before. My entire body feels as if it’s on the brink of collapse, all the while feeling elated at the possibility that by some creepy miracle what I’ve been hoping to be true is.