“What the hell are you doing?” screamed Ralee, competing in volume with the streaks of energy whipping across the lab.

 

A normally white and sterile room glowed neon blue as bolts of lightning shot out of the large silver box Leona and her coworker, Ralee, had been sent to investigate. White noise echoed all around at a horrendous volume as if the lab had been filled with a thousand old-school televisions that weren’t quite getting a signal.

 

“We have to turn it off,” responded Leona. She inched her way closer to the crackling monstrosity, feeling every hair on her body stand up in the presence of the energy emanating from the enigmatic device. “It’s gonna blow.”

 

“We still don’t know what that thing is. Messing with it could be disastrous!” Ralee shouted as she peeked over the desk she had taken cover behind.

 

Gesturing wildly to the chaos unfolding before their eyes, Leona sarcastically rebutted, “Yes, because I wouldn’t consider this a disaster!” She squinted her eyes and held up a hand to guard them against the oppressively bright light as she made her final approach.

 

This was not how Leona had expected her day to go. After all, she and her girlfriend Ralee had only started their paranormal blog as a light-hearted hobby. Something to fill the empty days between work and university. When her own college had contacted her about a supernatural emergency in the biology lab, Leona had almost written it off as some kind of prank. It had taken her lover’s extraordinarily persuasive puppy-dog eyes to convince her to even check it out. Once they arrived on the scene, both of them were gobsmacked as they realized that this had, indeed, been an emergency, one that a group of educated individuals should have definitely called much more qualified personnel than a couple of amateurs to handle.

 

The young engineering student took another step forward, and a bolt of lightning burned a small hole in her grey blazer, right above the shoulder. She didn’t care about how close that had been to causing her harm; in fact, she was finding it hard to care about anything other than the enchanting silver box. The long winding road of decisions which had led her to this moment, the danger she had found herself in, and the surrealness of the situation meant nothing in the face of the compulsion she felt to be near the device. It was as if the static was speaking to her, whispering sweet promises directly into her ear. It was more temptation than she could resist.

 

“Wait! We shouldn’t--”

 

Ralee’s final words were cut short by Leona pulling down on the single lever present on the otherwise smooth surface of the box. In that instant, all of the noise ceased. Then everything went to hell.

 

A searing pain spread across Leona’s body as one final tendril of energy found its way to her chest. She screamed in agony and watched in terror as her arms dissolved right before her eyes. As her appendages vanished, they glowed a burning red like the end of a cigarette being inhaled.

 

Ralee rushed towards her. She pulled Leona by her waist, trying to free her from the energy that was slowly consuming her. Smaller bolts singed and scorched Ralee as she frantically tugged on Leona to no avail. The would-be rescuer was blasted back by a shockwave from the device and sent skidding across the linoleum floor. Leona fell to the floor as one of her knees vanished, leaving behind a stump and a calf which quickly followed the joint into oblivion. Ralee reached out for her again, screaming at the top of her lungs, “Leona, don’t leave me!” the distraught woman was struck by a bolt of energy, and sent clear across the room. She hit the wall with a resounding crack and slowly crumpled to the floor, unconscious. 

 

Leona witnessed the rest of her body slowly disappear, feeling every part of it burning as it went. By the time the condition reached her head, she considered her imminent demise a mercy.

 

Everything was dark. It was all so peaceful. During her life, Leona had never really bought into any specific religion and hadn’t given much thought to the afterlife. However, as she drifted along in abject nothingness, she didn’t mind the prospect of spending eternity in the void.

 

***

 

I roughly rubbed both of my eyes with the palms of my hands as I sat back in my computer chair and groaned. I had been staring at this draft for far too long and wasn’t anywhere closer to figuring out what it was missing. I knew it had to end on a cliffhanger, my chapter’s always seemed to get more views when a character was left hanging in mortal peril. Spoiler alert, they never died. Second spoiler alert, they were going to end up happily in each other’s arms hugging and kissing and adopting a bunch of kids together. Was it a predictable formula? Yep. Did it work? Also yep.

 

It had been a while since I’d written anything I was truly proud of, guess real world depression knocked the wind out of my writing the same as it knocked me on my ass from time to time. Now I just posted whatever nonsense popped into my head so that the people I’d met online wouldn’t completely forget about me.

 

Not all of it was gold, hoo boy, was some of it rough on the eyes… but the community surrounding the fiction site I frequented was so unbelievably positive. Even when I struggled to produce good work they still generously scratched my primal itch for validation.

 

One thing was for certain… Leona’s Odyssey was not going to be the smash hit comeback I was looking for, but being six chapters in, I was already pretty invested in the whole thing. That’s the bad thing about being a writer, it was like having dozens of children that you loved with all your heart who all faded out of existence the moment you left them alone too long. As much as I loved the characters, they were just that… characters. When their story was over, that was it, they were gone.

 

Well, I wasn’t on a strict timetable and I could feel any semblance of focus that I once had fading. The thunderstorm outside was creating a relaxing symphony that was just begging to act as a lullaby for me to fall asleep to. Clicking through the menus on my word processor, I hovered over the option to save my work when a loud thunderclap punctuated a sudden blackout. Son of a bitch! Literally seconds from saving! There was some cosmic power watching over me laughing their pompous behind off. Well, there went eight pages and three hours of my life. Guess I’d have to do it all again tomorrow. Fun.

 

***

 

“Welcome folks to Italiana Nome, home of our famous pasta carbo-nada, a gluten-free treat for the whole family. My name is Leon, can I get you--”

 

The grizzled patriarch of my latest table held out a hand to stop my usual script. “Shove it, I don’t care about your canned greeting, son. We’ll have a round of waters and a family-sized spaghetti with meatballs. Chop chop!” I fucking hated my job. With the greatest insincere smile that money could motivate, I ducked back into the kitchen to get them their damn drinks.

 

With practiced ease, I punched in their order before resting my furrowed brow on the touchscreen hoping that the static emanating from the machine would somehow fry my brain. “You okay there, Lee?” Cathy swept around the corner, grabbing a horde of condiments and napkins for the needy group of soccer moms she’d just been cursed with minutes ago. Despite being thirty years my senior, Cathy was twice the server I’d ever be. She was fast, attentive, and seemed to genuinely enjoy helping people.

 

“It’s just been a long day,” I replied, sighing my words close enough to the screen to fog it up.

 

Cathy swung around, somehow balancing the precariously stacked bottles on her tray with her sudden movement. “Lee, you just got here ten minutes ago.”

 

She was right, but that didn’t mean I was wrong. “Yeah, I know Cat. It’s just one of those days.” She gave me a knowing nod before bolting off to placate her inevitable manager complaint. Working the lunch shift at this place was a demoralizing duality. We were either so painfully slow that it made the act of even being here to work meaningless beyond the $2.13 an hour the man was paying us, or we were so slammed that the freezer started doubling as a breakdown cooldown zone. Today was unfortunately the latter. 

 

Barry, our well-meaning yet rotation-destroying host popped his head into the kitchen and yelled for me. “Hey, Leon, I may have just triple-sat you… sorry.” Your apologies mean nothing to me, you meatball-headed traitor! Realizing that I was going to be behind for quite some time, I forced my mouth to curl up into my own broken and unfeeling interpretation of a smile before heading out to war. Only twelve hours left in my double shift!

 

***

 

The long black arm idled in its circular prison, refusing to move the last centimeter towards its goal. Any ambient noise was drowned out by a deafening silence. Brooms stopped moving. Pots and pans stopped clanking. The hum of the air conditioner subsided in reverence to this moment. Every eye in the room was fixated on a single point on the wall and not a breath was taken in fear that it might trigger something unspeakable. A single bead of sweat raced down the side of a face not to be stopped by a stone-still hand.

 

It was so close.

 

It was so incredibly close.

 

A high pitched screeching pierced the room as the printer roared to life seconds before closing. The crowd descended into nihilistic hysterics. The cooks hurled expletives at an absent god. The manager slumped into their chair moaning a sound that was somewhere between a groan and a sigh. I dropped to my knees, a single tear joining stinging streams of perspiration. Somewhere an angel lost its wings and a dog howled at the moon.

 

The ticket said Bob wanted five family-sized dishes and a huge chunk of cake. Maybe Bob should have ordered an hour ago. Maybe Bob should go on a diet. Maybe Bob's name just got crossed off by Saint Peter and added to a new list downstairs. I didn't know if Bob would care about the last one. Maybe Bob had a timeshare in hell. Maybe Bob didn't believe in hell. I didn’t know what Bob believed in besides bullshit restaurant etiquette!

 

Still on my knees, I shuffled over to the boss man. “Alan, man, please just let me go. It’s just a take out order and we’re closed now.” I desperately pleaded my case, literally on my hands and knees before the arbiter of my mortal fate.

 

“I’m sorry. You know that we can’t close until the last take-out order is picked up and while we’re waiting for the customer, corporate wants us to continue seating diners until ten after. Trust me, I wish it was different.” Everyone in this world had a list. You know what list I was talking about. The list of names of people who had wronged you so greatly forgiveness was no longer an option. What that list meant for the people on it varied from person to person but I swore right then and there that if I got sat again, Alan would make my list.

 

From the kitchen, I heard the front door open and slam shut. It was too early for the takeout customer to be here. No. This wasn’t happening. Barry’s stupid inflatable-boxing-glove-looking face popped into the kitchen as he smiled sheepishly. “Hey, Leon, I think someone’s looking for you.”

 

Someone was looking for me? That didn’t make sense… I didn’t know people. Confused and curious, I exited the kitchen to the front of the restaurant and saw… her. Standing around five and a half feet tall with shoulder-length black hair laced with highlights of various colors was a woman in her mid-twenties. She wore a denim jacket over a striped t-shirt and faded torn jeans. Over her shoulder was an army green backpack covered in pins and buttons of various pop-culture references. It was Ralee Zephyr… THE Ralee Zephyr from my story. It wasn’t just that she matched the description I had made of her in chapter one… no, that’d have been uncanny but not impossible. Looking at her, she appeared just the way she did when I imagined her. It was as if someone had copied and pasted an image from my head and made it human.

 

From the moment I had stepped out of the kitchen she had been sizing me up, examining me closely from various angles, appraising my every feature. “Close, but you’re not her.” With that, she turned away and made for the door.

 

I had no plan here. This wasn’t even on my radar as a possibility when I imagined how today might play out. There she was, a living, breathing, character of mine… and she was leaving! “Wait!” I called out to her, not entirely sure how to proceed. She turned around, eyes looking through me as she gazed tirelessly towards a concrete purpose. “You’re looking for Leona, right?” She perked up at my question, obviously interested in how I had known that. “I can help.”