Unreal City by A. R. Meyering Page A

was just a projection of my memories of her.
    I’d decided I would go through with it, though I’d say nothing to Felix about it beforehand. There were many things I found myself wanting to ask him, but every time I was on the brink of voicing them, a disquiet like the one I’d felt when I’d researched familiar spirits shut my lips for me. I was aware that the answers were there. I just didn’t want to know them yet. I didn’t think I could handle digesting all this new information at once, so I chose the peace that came along with ignorance, meager as it was.
    My afternoon class was almost unbearable. I spent the three-hour period doodling in my notebook, trying to render the scenes I had created in my garden on paper so I wouldn’t forget them. My artwork was less than amazing, and I gave up after I noticed that the bear looked more like a walrus. Maybe I’d commission Joy to draw them for me.
    The pent up anxiety in me decided to come out in the form of tapping my pencil relentlessly on my notebook until I got a dirty look from the girl sitting beside me, at which point I settled for tracing spirals over and over on the blank paper meant for taking notes. That was something I could draw. Spirals were easy.
    Class ended and I bolted from the building. In there, it had been stifling and I’d felt trapped. In there, we’d all been packed together like sausages sealed in plastic. Now I could break away, let the frustration and anger leak out.
    One. More. Day. One. More. Day. I repeated these three words in my mind every time my sneakers hit the ground. It became a mantra, until another thought rocked me.
    Why not tonight? What’s stopping me? The weekend’s here, and it’s not like I was getting a lot of work done anyway. I’ll give Felix my hair tonight.
    I stopped on the dirt path that was the long road through the woods back to Merrill, trying to think of a reason not to. As I was considering, a flashing of red and blue lights near the dorms of College Ten caught my eye. Suspicions aroused, I changed direction and slid down the fern-carpeted hillside to get closer. Even from hundreds of feet away, I could tell from the growing commotion that something terrible had happened. Muffled screams came from a crowd gathering around a parked police car and ambulance. I craned my neck to see what manner of calamity had occurred, and caught a glimpse of a stretcher being unloaded from the back of the ambulance.
    “What’s going on?” I demanded of a tall, lanky student obstructing my view.
    He didn’t look down as he answered. “A body was found. I heard them say he must’ve been there since last night. I can’t believe it took this long.”
    “What?” I breathed, pushing past him. I had to know exactly what had happened, who had died, and how. I didn’t understand why it mattered so much then, but I’ve come to realize that it was my built up regret that I hadn’t been there the night they found Lea, Stephen, and Isaac. I’d played out that scene in my head so many times, finding it suitable punishment for my absence. The concerned onlookers, the police sirens. I’d imagined in that scene that I would push through the crowd to find her there, and I suppose that rehearsed frustration had been enough to make me struggle forward when this uncannily similar incarnation presented itself.
    As I peered around a girl’s shoulder, I steeled myself, bracing to see any number of awful things—blood, burn wounds, or broken bones. Nothing could have prepared me for what it actually was.
    My stomach tightened as I caught sight of the dead boy’s face, sallow yellow in color, the skin tight but bloated underneath. His lips and eyelids were tinged blackish-blue and a stillness that could only be death had settled over his body.
    Something akin to a very intense form of carsickness gripped me, and I felt a scream bubble up from inside and escape. I grabbed at the girl nearest to me, unable to control myself.
    “Get off