The Society
OVER THE COURSEof her nineteen years, Jo had woken up countless differentways.
There were the more simplistic times of her childhood, when she woke to the smell of her mother’s cooking, or her father’s voice through the door. There were the more stressful times in her early teens, waking up cold and alone on some stranger’s floor after helping out with a “techfavor.”
There were the times when her head pounded and eyes peeled open, gummy from passing out with too much caffeine still coursing through her system. There were the times when she barely woke up at all, eyes functioning only enough to scan downloading files before slipping shut oncemore.
This was none of thosetimes.
In fact, if Jo had to describe it, it didn’t feel like waking up at all. More just like suddenly. . .being. One minute nothing, perpetual darkness, and then the next, herbedroom.
Despite the lack of tiredness or sleep crusties at the corners, Jo rubbed at her eyes, stars popping to life beneath the pressure of her fingers. When had she come home? Hadn’t she just been somewhereelse?
Jo dropped her hands and looked around, taking in the overflowing hamper in the corner, the desk piled high with her multiple monitors and equipment. The cork board behind it was littered with pictures and sticky notes, printed documents related to various side projects she’d takenbefore—
Her mind drew a blank. Before what? She distinctly felt herself present in an “after,” but what had precededit?
With a stretch, Jo got to her feet, walking the length of her room. Everything looked the same. Her poster from the eighth Iron Man movie, which she’d pretended to hang up ironically. Her calendar still stuck in December 2056, because she’d been too lazy to hang the one her mother got her for Christmas. Who even used physical calendars anymore,anyway?
Everything looked exactly the way she’d left it a monthago.
A month ago, when she’d taken the job just on the edge of Big Bend, when she’d coerced Yuusuke into joining her, when they’d bothbeen—
She didn’t exactly choose to sit down; more like her legs led her back to the bed and then buckled. Almost as if on delay, her ears began to ring from distant, dream-like gunfire. She was pretty sure she was going to throw up. Jo buried her head in her hands, the images swarming back into her brain like persistent wasps, buzzing and stinging and drowning out all other thoughts: a message from some Japanese mob boss safe in the west, Rangers, gunfire, Yuusuke’s lifeless eyes, blood, so muchblood.
With a jolt, Jo ripped her trembling hands away from her face, frantically searching her palms, her nails, her wrists and arms. Nothing. Not a trace of Yuu’s blood to be found. Just her same sun-deprived skin, her fingernails bitten to the beds, and the plain, simple band of black that was her smart-watch.
It didn’t make sense. Not unless she’d dreamed the whole past month. And Jo didn’t put nearly enough stock into her imagination for that to bepossible.
Frustrated, and more than a little unnerved, Jo got shakily back to her feet. She needed to get out of her room and find out how she’d gotten back to her apartment. She needed to call Yuusuke and see if she really was going mad. And then maybe talk to somebody who “knows a guy” about sleeping pills that would make dreams less. . .vivid.
It was impossible to consider, but what else could it be? Her brain seemed unwilling to wrap itself around any other possibility. Unless she wasdead.
Jo stopped, hand frozen on thedoorknob.
Was thatit?
Was she dead? Was the afterlife her messy apartment bedroom? Could be a form of hell, shesupposed.
It seemed less likely than the dream theory. When she ran her fingers through her long, brown hair, she felt every strand. When she breathed in, she felt her lungs fill with air. When she swallowed, she felt her spit travel down her throat and past the point of sensation. For all intents and purposes, she still felt alive. Living, breathing, in the flesh,alive.
But that didn’t make sense either. Her whole existence was a contradiction rightnow.
With an aggravated huff, Jo turned the knob on her bedroom door and stalked out into the hall. Call Yuusuke. Then maybe her mom. She could tell her about the dream, pick her brain as to what it all meant. Probably stress. But talking to her about it would ease Jo’s mind, regardless, and her mom had taken after Abuelita when it came to all manner of the occult. “I would have been acuranderalike my great grandmother, you as well Josephina, if we’d stayed in Mexico,”she liked tosay.
It wasn’t just the thought of her grandmother that had Jo stuttering to a panicked halt not more than two steps out of herroom.
This wasn’t the familiar hallway that led to the bathroom, the living room, the tiny and barely-used kitchen. This wasn’t even a hallway in her apartment at all. This was a hallway lined with doors she didn’t recognize, decor in soft colors that were jarring in comparison to the chaos of movie posters she kept on her ownwalls.
This was a hallway she’d never seen in her life, and it sure as hell wasn’t supposed to be connected to her bedroom. So, Jo did the only sane thing she could thinkof.
She turned right back around and closed the door, staring at the familiar blue bedspread, the little spaceship hanging off the cord to her ceiling fan, the poster of Iron Man VIII that she—wait.
With a nervous drag to her step, Jo walked up to the bare patch ofwall.
Where was her poster?It had been there just there a minute ago,right?
Her mind jerked, as if suddenly changing lanes. She’d taken that poster down a few months ago. She vaguely recalled losing a bet with Yuusuke, watching as he’d torn it down and replaced it with a vintage poster of America before it was carved up in the war—a piece of history that verged on contraband, depending on who you asked. In her frazzled confusion, she’d forgotten that the Iron Man poster wasn’t meant to have been there atall.
