“I’ll play it one more time.”
She went back to the piano, and I sat at her feet. She smiled down at me and played the song again. I closed my eyes and let the music wash over me.
When I opened my eyes again, I found myself lying on the carpeted floor. She was nowhere to be found.
* * * *
“What’s going on here?” I asked as I arrived on the eleventh floor.
“There was a fire in the Budget Office, so they’re moving them down. The entire floor’s off-limits.” Barbara looked at me with suspicion. “Did you see someone in room 1105 again?”
“No,” I said immediately. “It’s unoccupied.” That room was mine and mine alone.
Some of our colleagues milled around as the Budget Office carried their things in boxes. They wondered aloud why the air conditioning malfunctioned and whether the other offices were going to suffer the same fate.
I turned away as soon as men and women with walkie-talkies started herding the crowd away from the hallway.
It took three weeks before I could sneak into the eleventh floor again without raising suspicions. But when I tried the door to 1105, it wouldn’t turn. I knocked. I pushed. I nearly dislocated my right shoulder trying to break it down. But it didn’t budge. It didn’t open.
* * * *
It was a year before I could get back to the room on the eleventh floor. This time, it opened quickly when I turned the knob.
The room was dark, its source of light a bulb swinging from the ceiling. I fumbled for my phone. A figure on my left moved. I screamed and jumped back. It moved under the light, and I gasped.
It washer, hair in a messy ponytail, dark clothes ripped, the left side of her face covered in dried blood. Her left eye was swollen shut.
“No,” I said, reaching out my hands to her face.
She grabbed my hands and looked at me in anger. “This is the last time you should be here,” she said through clenched teeth. “Don’t ever come back.”
“What?”
“Do you understand? Don’t come back to this room!”
“N-no, I—!”
She pushed my hands away and pulled out a gun from behind. It was a small, double-barreled Derringer handgun.
How do I know that?
“Get out and never come back,” she said, spitting blood in my face. “Get out!”
My body froze between forward and backward. The state of her terrified me, and I was so overwhelmed, I thought I could just leave and then come back later. A part of me imagined coming back to the room after an hour or two, after I had gathered my wits, and she would be in a different circumstance again. Maybe she would apologize or be dressed differently. Maybe her wounds would have healed. Maybe she would—
But then a part of me felt cold terror, enough to raise the hair on my arms and on the back of my neck. What if I left, and she did, too? What if I came back and she was gone? What if I find her body on the ground next time?
I stepped over that terror, like I had stepped over the threshold of the room when she reached out to me. Now, it was my turn.
“Don’t,” I said, my voice trembling. “Don’t push me away. I need to know.” I grabbed her shoulders and held on even as she tried to pull away. “Tell me who you are. Tell me why you’re here.Tell me who I am.”
I pulled her forcefully towards me and crashed our lips together.
A melody played in my ear, and a warmth covered us. Fora moment, I felt content with her against my chest, her back under my hands. I loosened my grip on her—and she pushed me out of the room.
The door clicked shut. And no matter how much I pushed against it, kicked it, punched it, and screamed at it, it remained closed.
* * * *
