100 Yellow Doors

august 20th, 2019 2:41 p.m.

Iman sat in an empty car. It was parked on the shoulder; a busy road hummed beside her, the car shaking as an eighteen-wheeler prattled by. Iman waited until her stomach stopped swirling and her mind stopped spinning to glance around; the driver's seat was empty, the backseat was empty. The engine was off and it still smelled like rot. It was another moment of eerie silence before she heard a voice from outside the car:

"No, I didn't stalk you. I got it off Iman's phone. It was left on the seat when she—when she—yes, when she vanished!" A pause. "Why are you laughing? It was—this is very traumatic!"

Beck. God, Beck. Iman shoved open the door and stepped out onto the shoulder, wincing as the sunlight glinted in her eyes. Beck was standing a few feet away, straddling the grass and the asphalt, his phone lifted to his ear. He tore an anxious hand back through his hair, mussing his curls. "Don't—don't tell me to calm down—"

"Beck!"

His gaze shot up towards her; he nearly dropped the phone to the grass. The next moments seemed to Iman as though they skipped seconds; one moment, Beck was there, gaping at her from across the way, and the next his arms were around her, his hands tilting her face back and rubbing her shoulders and moving her hair behind her ear.

"Are you okay?" he asked, adorning her face with kisses: along her jaw, her eyebrows, her eyelids, her mouth. "Are you hurt? What happened? Where did you go? Did anything—oh, you look sad. You look sad, Im. Is it something you saw?"

Until then, Iman hadn't been aware she was sad. Though now it made sense to her to call the rolling, dark something that welled in her throat and pressed at the back of her eyes sadness. She grabbed Beck's hand, pressing a kiss to his palm before returning his hand to him. "It's just—Julien. It was Julien, but he was...different."

Iman saw Beck's eyes skirt towards the phone in his hand, which was flashing a bright call ended screen. He shoved the phone back into his pocket. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Iman hesitated, and shook her head. "How far are we?" she asked, kicking at a pebble on the edge of the road and pivoting to head back towards the car. "From the lab, I mean."

Beck, falling into step beside her, only shrugged. "Less than ten minutes."

Iman gripped the door handle, turning a quiet grin in her boyfriend's direction. "Then let's get going," she said. "I promise I won't go 'abra cadabra' again."

Beck shuddered, the car beeping excitedly as he unlocked it. "Please don't."

Iman wasn't sure what she had been expecting, but it certainly hadn't been something so...plain. Maybe some sort of bright hazard or keep out sign, people milling about in lab coats, security guards standing stock-still at massive gates. She'd expected some place that oozed science, discovery, the secrecy that came along with discovery.

But what faced her was a red-bricked building, squat and square.

Beck was on his phone again, taking Iman by the arm and gently leading her out of the way of pedestrian traffic. They weren't far from the city; Iman could still see the Washington Monument above the emerald treetops.

"Yup. See you in a second," said Beck, clicking the phone off and putting it away again. He nudged Iman with his elbow. "You have the...the squirrel, right?"

Iman patted the pocket of her jacket, the sandwich bag crinkling as she did. At this point, she was less excited about the results of the lab and more excited about not having to carry around a squirrel corpse much longer.