JAYDEN

Black Labyrinth turned out to be one of the largest nightclub in town. Well, no surprise, Trevor did say Derek was the one who booked the place. The guy had always had too much cash to spare even back in high school.

Right from the main entrance where people in all levels of flashy clothing were milling about, my black jeans and plain white shirt stood out for all the wrong reasons. DJ-mixed music that I have no name lunged for us at full volume the second we stepped through the automatic glass doors. 

Once inside, all my senses were permanently damaged. My eardrums were ravaged and my heart forced to thump to its maddening pace, confirming again I must be insane to actually agree to join Trevor in this torture chamber. 

Bodies were packed like sardines under the dim interior lit only by neon laser beams. The stench of sweat mixed with body scents of all kinds tickled my nose, their stench worse than the sharp scent of turpentine that flooded our classrooms. 

With lights partying to the music thundering in the back, lingering tang of alcohol and cigarette smoke fighting to overwhelm the limited oxygen, it was impossible to stand upright and not feel the floor spiralling out of control under me. I had to stop and close my eyes more than once before I could walk again, though not in a straight line. 

How Trevor’s ears and eyes were still functioning was almost a miracle. It was even more of a blessing that he wasn’t majoring in anything live subjects related or it might eventually endanger his patients under anesthetic and surgery knives.

I tried not to flinch when a girl bumped into me with her chest, the bottle of beer in her hand nearly slipped. She regained her footings, a hand resting on my chest and smiled a tipsy half smile. “Want a drink, handsome?” she slurred, the stench of alcohol choked the air around us.

“No thanks. I don’t drink,” I tried to pry myself away from her and failed miserably. Damn Trevor and his fast feet. His ex-basketball captain trait only emerges in times like these. I was still looking over her shoulders when the girl sank her predatory red nails into my deltoid, forcing my attention back to her.

Crumbs of dried mascara accumulated on her eyelashes, thick enough to be mistaken as cockroach’s legs. There was nothing ‘smoky’ about her smoky eyes, more panda if I were to judge. One look was enough to tell you the girl spells trouble, with or without the stench of alcohol that seeped from her pores. 

“Oh come oooonnnnn! Don’t be such a wussy. You’re going to looooveeeeee it!” she shoved the bottle into my face, stopping inches away when Trevor finally remembered my existence and stepped in between us. 

He took the bottle from her and chugged half of it in one swing. “That’s cold, Melanie. How can you give a bottle to Jay but not me?” he said and casted a sideway glance at me that said ‘You owe me one’ as the girl, Melanie, threw herself at him. 

“Mila’s near the bar, you should go find her!” he shouted over the blaring song of a female voice digitized and nodded his head to the left.

I followed his glance and saw only more bodies clinging to one another. A hand snaked around a bare waist and a body grinded against another. Do these people all know one another? How could the girls allow anyone to touch them like that? In public?

“Trev, sorry but I think I should…” I turned and he was nowhere to be found. A familiar silhouette flitted through the crowd but I wasn’t entirely sure. There were just too many girls in clingy red dresses and a head of bleached hair. Heck, it was hard to know which direction we came from at this point.  

A wave of cheers erupted from one end and the dancers stopped momentarily. With the walls as a focal point, I squeezed through gaps between dancers who had gone still, looking around for the source of the ruckus. The exit shouldn’t be too hard to find once I get to the walls.

Or so I thought.

The cheers only got louder the nearer I got to the walls covered in teal and purple lava tubes. As if the two belonged to different worlds, the ones crowding around the luminous bar had formed a semi-circle that completely cut whoever was in the middle of it away from the dance floor. 

“Say yes! Say yes!” was the loudest of cheers. 

A face I hadn’t seen in years peeked out from the throng, highlighted in contrasting cold hues. 

Same dark hair gelled in spikes, same designer goods dripped from his body. Our host for today kneeled down in front of a girl seated at the bar, a bouquet of red roses heavy in his hands. It wouldn’t take Stephen Hawking to figure out what was going on. The douchebag had been using the same tactic since he moved in during senior year. 

It have always been; Derek sees a beautiful girl, Derek goes after her, Derek hosts parties and Derek asks the girl to go out with him. Cliché but he's rich and on the okay-looking side. Most of them readily said yes—before getting dumped within the next month and the vicious cycle recommence. 

This time though, the girl in question wasn’t enamoured like many of Derek’s past conquests. She was looking everywhere but him. The only ones oblivious to the awkwardness in her stiffened smile might be him and his lackeys. 

While I was debating between stepping in and wishing she would step out of it herself, our eyes met. She did none of what I had expected. 

“Jayden?” the girl leapt to her feet and was right in front of me in split seconds. “You’re Jayden right? Jayden Forst? It’s been so long!” she beamed while clutching my wrist with both hands.

A gazillion pairs of eyes (with one especially heated) burned through my skull as I stared blankly at the stranger with large, dark chocolate eyes. Equally dark bangs permed to a perfect curl. 

Surely I would remember her if I had seen her before. But not even a fragment of memory popped up.  

“I am Mila,” she said, reading my mind. “Mila Lee remember? We were in the same class—”

“Wait, you’re that Mila?” I couldn’t help the sudden hitch in my voice. 

Now that I studied her features closely, the two did share similar features—large eyes, heart-shaped face, the mole under her left eye. Only, everything about her seemed to have shrunk in size. Her arms, her thighs, her face—

—even her smile had shrunk. Something about it felt strangely somber. Forced even. Not the easy smile that used to come so naturally to her lips. 

“Now, aren’t you being too cold to me?” came Derek’s voice, the moment a full bouquet of rose was shoved right into my face. Their protruding thorns narrowly missed my cheeks. “Here I am, trying to ask you out and you’re off…” he shot me a glare. “…talking to the neighbourhood’s elf.”

“Jayden isn’t—” Mila protested but he cuts her off with a wave of hand. 

“So said the one who hadn’t even talked to her once back in high school,” my thoughts slipped out loud before I could stop myself. 

Mila’s ashened expression made me regret it more than Derek’s murderous glare did. The latter of which, I have grown naturally immune to. I turned to Mila who had her eyes down casted, “I could take you home if you want to.”

For the briefest moment when she opened her mouth, I thought she would save herself from the wolf pack but she only shook her head and hugged her arms. “I will…stay for a bit more…”

“You heard her,” the alpha of the wolves stepped in once again, the roses shielded my eyes from the Red Riding Hood. “Now back off, elf boy.”

I slapped Derek’s probing finger away and headed straight for the green exit sign blinking behind his burly frame. The jeers that followed my retreating back brought forth an unpleasant flood of memory. It was only until I crossed out into the streets that my fists finally loosened. 

Too close. If it was three years ago, a fist fight would have been inevitable. 

I couldn’t help but sigh as I WhatsApp-ed Trevor a message he would probably read only after he was done going hangover-MIA. But whatever. At least then he couldn’t blame me for ditching him without leaving a note again.

The dry night air felt surprisingly cold but pleasantly so compared to the sea of sweating bodies inside. The scent of crude oil lingered in the air while particles of dust from nearby construction sites drew a thin veil across the night sky. 

The parking lots were mostly filled up by now, a steady line of visitors still streaming in. Honks of cars filled the otherwise quiet street. Typical of the town center, traffic jams anywhere and anytime of the day. 

I have never been in this part of the town the entire one year and half after moving in. Not that I had the time to stray too far from the campus’s gates anyways. The furthest I had been was the art supply store and even that, was barely two stations away by monorail.

A couple dripping with Coach and Gucci apparels brushed passed me, seeming appalled at the sight of a homeless looking boy standing out of the gilded doors in faded-black-everything. 

Can’t blame them. Even I found my bag a little too old, torn in too many places. But almost none of us in the class have any extra cash to spare. A painting brush alone devoured my entire week’s worth of living expenses. 

Back in the days, I thought enrolling into fine arts would equal a chance of painting all day, immersed in the smell of turpentine and linseed oil and a degree at the end of the three years’ course. It would be easy. 

Only it wasn’t.

I threw my head back and glanced up at the sky. Only a single star adorned the otherwise empty sky, blank as the canvas propped up on the wooden easel in my room. Dark as my future if I can’t complete the chore in time. 

A chore. Really, since when has painting became a chore?

The star was blue, somehow, like the one Pinocchio wished upon, outshining other smaller ones around it. It could easily be mistaken as the moon at first glance but it wasn’t the time of the month for a full moon.

“I wouldn’t mind doing the star light star bright thing if you could inspire me, change my perspective or something…” With my head tilted to one side, I regarded it with the ghost of a smile. “Heck, you might as well send me down the rabbit hole while you’re at it.” 

Being bonkers was definitely better than average and uninspired. 

For the briefest moment, the star glowed a little brighter as if it was smiling to me in response—or it might have been my hallucinating mind at work. 

It has been quite busy these days, the hallucinating department. Sometimes going as far as inserting voices into my head, planting images darker than gothic architectures. It was at times like this that I was forced to recognize how screwed up my mind was becoming. 

I ran a hand through sweat-slickened hair and shut my eyes tight, feeling the absurdity of what I just did sank in. Anyone—Trevor especially—would freak out at my fairy-tale-lunacy confe—

—my head began to spin. 

The ground beneath me quivered, my legs wobbled. The scene before me wrapped and tumbled around. Vertigo of nausea attacked and claimed my senses. I stumbled forward, nearly crashed into a tree that had appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the barren road. The temperature had fallen at least five degrees in that split second.

By the time I finally regained my footings, the parking lot covered with asphalt had completely evaporated. 

A forest—or rather, tamed jungle spilled across my peripheral. Humongous trees with oddly shaped branches that reached up into the sky formed a thick canopy of azure and teal overhead. A cedar trunk had replaced the stairs leading to the club, cutting right across the non-existence road covered inch by inch in blades of dark blue grass that glowed in the dark. 

I snapped around, breathing hard.

The club itself was… gone.

In its place were identical trees that stretched out like an endless maze. No skyscrapers, not a single car, not a single soul in sight. Nothing about the place feels remotely familiar. A frustrated groan escaped my throat when I finally found my handheld from the abyss of my bag. 

Out of range. 

For once Trevor was right, it was time for a new phone. 

One tree at a time and on it went. I lost track of how much distance I had covered by the time my stamina finally zeroed out. Beads of sweat clung to my skin and dampened my shirt. It would be a blessing if my bottle has as much water to spare. God knew what I would do for a bottle of ice cold water now. 

“It wasn’t her choice!”

The sudden shout yanked my head away from a moss-covered trunk for support. For a few moments, I thought I was really going mad when only the whistles of wind against leaves greeted me. But the voice came again. 

“They are the ones who forced her! 

The voice sounded young, probably younger than me, but too sober to be one of the party-goers. 

The flicker of diminished hope reignited in me despite how everything else felt out of place. The last thing I needed was to get more lost than I already was by following the directions given by a group of drunkards. 

“They—!”

The girl’s voice echoed, louder with each step I took with my unwilling feet. 

“I just wish we can have a chance for our own Tale, something we could write on our own, free from His will.” 

I waded across one last bulging root and stopped short.

In the clearings where moonlight streamed through, only two actors stood upon the stage of blue and green—a guy and a girl of shorter stature. Though the guy was strange enough with his man bun and medieval get up, it was the girl who I couldn’t peel my eyes from. 

Her platinum curls that cascaded down to her waist seemed aglow with the moonlight streaming through leaves. Dressed in a thin, toga-like silken garment that danced weightlessly around her, she reminded me of the nymphets portrayed in Art Nouveau styled paintings. Though the striking blue streaks in her hair was definitely a modern twist.

Since when did cosplayers started doing Mucha style?

The Shakespearean guy was the first to notice me when the tree trunk I was leaning against toppled over and crashed into the ground, loud enough to send birds squawking out of the branches nearby.  

He stared at me like I was the one prepared for Halloween long after October and not the other way around. A few moments of blank stares were exchanged before he breathed out the words in a voice rough with shock, “What in the world…?” 

The girl whipped around on cue, the weary smile she had on dissolved into one of pure worries. Her cupid bow lips quivered as she watched me, disbelief painted in the depths of her sapphire blue eyes.

She was a breathing painting, straight from the hands of a master. No truer blue or rosy hue could match the colour of her eyes or flawless skin. Nervousness butterflied through my system as I tried and failed to pacify the ringing in my ears. Was there someone like this in the neighbourhood? 

“Are you even real?” 

The words left me before I could rephrase my thoughts. 

So much for making a first impression.