Stone 2 Stone (ONC 2024)

Chapter 5: Keya

It's not real... they're not real. It's not real. They're not real. It's not—

Huddled in her bathtub, shielded by the clear plastic sheet around the tub to catch water, Keya picked at her skin—not realising she'd drawn blood from several spots. The water rained down as it had done for the past half hour, going cold, while she waded through murky memories and scrambled thoughts, cursed to relive an undying nightmare, it seemed.

It's not real. They're not real. It's not real—

It had become a morning routine, this bathtub vigil, staring out over its ceramic rim, past the plastic curtain, with vacant eyes. At strange figures hidden beneath several dust sheets that gleamed in the light of every morning. The windows high above them framed them perfectly, like a macabre painting from where she sat. Sometimes she sat there naked, sometimes clothed, and she stared, water slithering around her body like a clingy lover ignored.

Somewhere in the once-roomy loft, now too crowded by ghosts of things she didn't recall, her phone rang. She could hear the chirpy tone letting her know Stella was calling for the hundredth time.

And a hundredth time ignored.

She stayed where she was, for it was the furthest she could get in that loft from those things without venturing out into the world, a world she'd grown to fear for many, many reasons.

They're not real...

Her makeshift bathroom was one wall of the loft. A shower, a toilet—tucked behind a cloudy piece of plexiglass—and a vanity, all on display like a showcase at a museum; all vintage pieces she'd sourced from old homes about to be demolished to make way for another skyscraper, another roadway to The Havens, to her dad and his glittering world.

The phone rang again. The sheeted figures loomed. Outside, thunder rolled like a giant in the sky snoring, and suddenly that large loft shrank till Keya could breathe no more.

"Walls," she mutters absently, wishing suddenly that her open bathroom had walls. Walls that would allow her a moment's escape away from those hidden remnants of her work. Work she didn't quite remember carving, but vague memories suggested they were indeed hers. It was hard to tell what she'd been up to. She remembered little these days. But between that long-ago night in the club and now, many moons had passed—many frantic, sleepless, sleep-addled nights.

"They're not"—Keya shook her head, pushing down the nausea bubbling up her throat.

"Keya!" A distant voice broke through the murk. "Keya! For fuck's sake! Answer my phone." Bang bang. "You better still be alive or I swear"—bang, bang. "Keya!"

Keya blinked at the door. One way in and out of what used to be her sanctuary, now a lonesome cage. There was no strength left in her trembling limbs to push off the tub and let Stella in.

"It's not real," she mumbles again, eyes on the door. "She's not real."

"Kay!" Bang. Bang. It was followed by what Keya imagined the faint thud Stella's large handbag would make if she were here. So, she remained in her crouch, gaze flickering between the sheet-covered standing vigil beneath the large industrial window panels of the loft and the door. Five haunting mammoths lurked in her home. Five figures she—It had started with one. But over several months, one had become two, two had become three, three, four, and so on.

They're not real... they're not—she's not real—

Where did they come from? She'd been pondering that question relentlessly, going mad on her own. I didn't make them. They're not mine...

A faint jingle reached her next. Stella's voice was now all but another distant noise. "I swear if you're dead in there... I'm killing someone..."

The water shifted another degree colder. I should move. I'm exhausted. I should sleep... But she made no move at all, suddenly frozen with fear at the thought of sleep. No. I can't sleep. Never.