Epsilon IX: Signs of the Fifth

Chapter three: First glance

Somebody had spoken to him. "Something was waiting for you."

It was rare for Colin to oversleep, but his mind had been seized by dark dreams.

"Something was waiting for you."

Dreams of fear and doubt, of being lost in a place of death and darkness. Waiting for him.

In an instant he jerked awake and was falling suddenly. And he was back. Awake.

The place was familiar enough. He must have still been in his hotel suite. A large window above his bed showed the pale blue sky of a summer morning. When he sat up to look outside, he immediately remembered. He was still at the pembroke coast with John and Virgil. The window at which he slept looked straight down the line of the cliffs and headlands, and in the east were other landmarks; old, stone churches and clusters of cottages beneath the morning sun.

But he had still been drowsed enough to overlook the rest of the suite, let alone, for that matter, the music that was playing...

The radio at his bedside had been quietly leaking out the sounds of an old electric guitar for over a minute now. How slow he had been to notice it astonished him.

The rest of the place resembled a bedroom suite that could neither be described as luxurious, nor particularly meagre. The walls held a solid white and the floor was carpeted with thin and brittle blue. However, a three-person sofa perpendicular to his bed was made of a costly, black leather. But Colin had soon noticed something much stranger, much closer to him.

On his bedside table, a fresh cup of tea - still steaming-hot and sweet-smelling - and a small plate of toast had been prepared for him. He took the butter knife in his hand, wondering to himself. Clearly, he was not alone.

A sharp click sprung from the far wall, and the door was opened. Without thinking, Colin secured the knife firmly in his hand beneath the duvet.

The door gave a creak, and the gaunt figure of Virgil walked proudly into the room, quickly clicked his knuckles, and sat down on the black sofa. "Hello Colin, how are you feeling?"

It took Colin a strange moment to remember who the man was. "I'm fine...Where's John?"

"He'll be back with us shortly," Virgil said with a curious smugness.

Virgil stood up; six feet of pure skin and bone. His entire appearance gave the impression that he had been starved for several years at least. A grey-coloured skeletal thing that threatened to cut anything that touched it like a blade. His face was young, yet so frail. His hair had receded by a curious amount for somebody his age, and he had a thin smile that always seemed to say "I'm up to no good."

"Now, Colin, you do remember...erm...the reason why we travelled to Wales?"

The solemness of his tone had chilled him, but Colin had soon become distracted by something else. When Virgil pulled back his long sleeve to adjust his watch strap, it gave Colin a brief glimpse of a number of red scratches on Virgil's forearm. "Err...We were..." Colin tried to answer his question, but was struck sharply by what his memory held, or how much it didn't hold. "I can't..."

"You don't know?"

Colin was hesitant in disbelief. "I don't know." He shook his head. "We were...getting away from something."

"Yes. Now Colin, can you tell me...what you remember happened after that?"

In that moment, Colin was frozen as still as stone.

"Something was waiting for you."

The suspicion that had been slowly gathering in his mind was now starting to form itself.