They were roughly shoved into a dark cramped room, which smelled faintly of stale urine. For several minutes, they sat in stunned silence. Then Iasmin whispered, “What just happened?”
“What just happened is some guys grabbed us on the street and shoved us into this smelly room, and we weren’t able to do anything about it,” Aerek retorted angrily.
“The question is, why would they want to kidnap us?” Danyana offered.
Iasmin then thought out loud, “Maybe I’m just paranoid about this, but it seems too coincidental that we found the Window and talked to Mensan, who warned us that it is dangerous to mess with it, and got kidnapped only minutes afterwards. I could be wrong and these could be organ traffickers or anything of the sort, though.”
“They could be, but have all those thrillers that we have read taught us nothing? Where’s the fun in being kidnapped by organ thieves compared to some secret society trying to mess with other worldly portals?” Aerek replied.
“Do you think they heard Mensan explaining the Window to us? He seemed like he would not want that information to get to just anyone. I do not mean that we are anything special,” Danyana added with a blush when she realized what she said. She did not like to acknowledge her or her friend’s good traits openly.
Aerek helped her out of her embarrassment, “Whether they know or not, we need to get out of here and lose them. Then we need to find Mensan and warn him.” He looked at them, “And I would like to look at the Window again.” he finished.
They were silent again for a few moments. Seeing that someone might be listening, Danyana quietly began, “We need to lose them, but in order to do that we need to find out who and what they are. If we can find their motive behind what they are doing… well, then we actually stand a chance at getting away.”
Iasmin thought about it, but then stated the problem that had been on all of their minds throughout the whole discussion, “Yes, but first we need to get out of here. I know that this room does not feel like a very secure prison, but Green Street did not feel like a dangerous place where we could be kidnapped. It’s in the tourist district, for goodness sake!”
“Well, at least we know where we are.” Aerek pointed out, always the one to find the silver lining, “They took us to a building very near to it. I’m sure that if we could only get out of here and onto a trolley we’d get enough of a head start to blend into the crowd.”
Danyana continued forming the plan, “I agree, but let us wait until morning. I do not know or trust the night-time busses, and they are not crowded enough to provide the kind of cover that we will need.”
Iasmin could not believe that they would overlook the most important obstacle. She spoke up to get their attention, “Don’t you expect that if they shut us in this room they would watch us to make sure we did not leave?” she reminded them.
“Ah, Ias, always the one to bring down our dreams.” Aerek sighed.
“She has a point,” Danyana remarked, “I realize that it is our biggest obstacle, but it is not one about which we can do anything. We just need to hope that they make a mistake and wait patiently until then. Or until somebody comes to get us, though it is not likely to happen very soon.”
They went on like this for a while longer, and at last, when there was nothing left to discuss on that subject, Danyana brought up her suspicion about the window, “There’s one thing Mensan never allowed us to discuss with him. Do you remember? When Aerek first told us who used to live in the apartment… Well, it made me not like the Window. It could be a doorway to hell, for all we know.””
Iasmin chuckled to herself, “Dani, this one is even crazier than your other theories. Mensan did not think it was evil, did he?”
“No, but his account of it just reinforced my suspicion that it is evil. It could have killed him when he went up to it. He said that he would have stayed in the room if it were not for Vocia. He would probably have stayed there until he died of starvation, as Narcissus stayed with his reflection. Look at all of it. It resembles a misty mirror and we cannot see what is past it. We just do not know! The old men were trying to be too optimistic. Of course they would be. Everything mysterious found lately has only hurt us. They would want to break that tradition. Look at what the discovery of radium, the reason behind the mysterious radiation shown by some materials, did to Marie Curie. Look at what the discovery of electricity has done to our planet. Can you imagine what these Windows, if there were, in fact, more of them, would do to us? And look at who was messing with the Window before Mensan noticed it. A Satanist.” Danyana finished exuberantly. Her friends just looked at her.
“Back me up on this, Rek” she pleaded.
“I could, but would it lead to anything?” he asked her.
“No, I suppose it wouldn’t. Mark my words, however. That Window will kill someone soon. I can feel it.” Danyana warned them.
Before anyone said anything else, Aerek’s watch beeped and made everyone receive a small burst of adrenaline. It was two in the morning. Danyana was no longer in the mood for arguing. “If we stay awake for much longer, we will be asleep all day. We should try to get some sleep now, and maybe we will be able to figure things out in the morning,” she reasoned. Aerek and Iasmin agreed with her on this account and they all scrambled to roll their jackets into pillows so that they would be comfortable, as much as the floor allowed. Only Danyana was not troubled by this; she was accustomed to sleeping on a hard surface because it was healthier for her back.
~.~.~.~.~
They woke up at dawn with sunlight in their eyes. It was pouring from a window high in the wall, which they had not noticed the night before. There was not a single lamp in the room and the night had been cloudy, so they were not even very upset that they had not seen it. It provided an unexpected possibility of escape and they were determined to try it. Danyana climbed on Aerek’s shoulders and pushed it open. It would be a tight fit, but they would find a way to make it out of the window and into the neighboring balcony that she saw.
They sat in the room in silence for a while, hoping that someone would bring them breakfast and they could see their captors, but they could hear no sounds. The building was deserted. Nevertheless, they climbed out of the window in complete silence, expecting to be recaptured the moment they ran away. They were shocked when they made it to the ground, and even more surprised that nobody hindered their escape to the trolley stop. They did not dare to speak until they had squeezed themselves into the first trolley that appeared, between the door and a crowd threatening to burst it open.
Danyana spoke first, “Why was nobody watching us?”