Welcome to Strangely

Gorgon turns around toward the door.

Abby looks at Sebastian, who shrugs before he says, “Come on, go wash that dirty face.”

Insulted, Abby storms past him, following Gorgon out of the room.

She notices the large room, which looks like a once empty warehouse turned into a modern loft. The space is wide and open. Long, red couches are placed in a large square in the centre of the room. The walls are all covered in a bright graffiti of words, clouds, faces, wings, swings, skulls, and waves. They must still be in Strangely, because she cannot see anything out of the large windows along the wall besides clouds.

Searching for only a second or two, she finds the bathroom.

Forty-five minutes later, Sebastian hammers on the bathroom door impatiently. “You’re not going to a fashion show. I have other things to do too, you know!”

With a huff, Abby pulls the door open. She has managed to wash the dirty dust from her face, but where she has tried to wipe her wings clean, she has only left smears of grey. She looks at him, with an angry scowl. “Where I come from… Here in Strangely, we don’t rush. Everything has its place and time.” She smiles a sad smile. “Except for Jenny, that is. She’s always late and will probably be late for her own funeral.”

Sebastian turns away from her but not quick enough, and Abby can see the ugly smirk on his face. He says, “She is very late, indeed.”

“What do you mean? Are you saying, she’s late for her own funeral? Don’t be silly. Jenny’s not dead.”

“Come,” he commands with a brisk tone in his voice. “Let me give you the grand tour.”

She wants to tell him to explain what he meant, but he is already halfway across the room, so she follows him across the large room to a big silver metallic door. Her eyes search the clouds outside the window. Maybe she will be able to see the tower from here. Chris must be so worried about her. She regrets the day she opened the Book of Eudemon because since that moment everything has gone awry. Nothing is as it used to be. To be honest, she cannot really remember how it used to be, but she knows it was better than being shackled in an ugly grey room for she does not know how long.

When Sebastian pulls the shiny door open, Abby takes a step back while her breath gets caught in her throat. She turns to look out the windows beside the door. Clouds. Big, bulbous clouds. She turns back to look out the door.

People are bustling past from left to right, and right to left. They all seem to be in an extreme hurry to get somewhere. Abby feels a twinge of panic. Should they also be rushing? What if something dreadful has happened. 

Her hands come up to cup her ears. The noise is deafening. It is like a noise unlike anything she has ever heard. Car engines, car horns blaring continuously, people talking, people breathing, loud footsteps on the pavement, babies crying, wind sighing around corners of buildings, paper swirling in that same wind between feet and tyres alike.

Sebastian looks over his shoulder at her as he takes a step over the threshold. “You’ll get used to it,” he says.

Abby dares to take a small step forward. She does not want to go out there. She is filled with a sense of dread so great it threatens to suffocate her. “I don’t know…”

Sebastian turns back to look at her. “It’s okay. Really. We’re not really here, you’ll see. They cannot see us, and even if they could, they would not pay any attention to us at all.”

“Not really here?”

“We’re here, but not really, for them anyway. They don’t see us, not because they can’t but because they don’t want to.”