One night at the Prime Royals Hotel was already paid for, due to the ceremony being held at San Francisco and by the time it was over the last train leaving the city was already gone. With a full afternoon and the night off, he did not need to rush back to the inn overnight, instead he could just catch the earliest train home.
As he came to his room, Jason got a reminder text from Jianmen: "Don't forget to meditate when you get the chance. Hotel rooms are perfect for meditation."
"Geez Boss, way to kill the wedding vibe." Jason shook his head as he laid down his phone, then he took off his shoes, and sat on the bed, placing his round metal mirror in front of him.
After setting a timer, Jason started silently reciting his personal scripture, and he soon immersed himself in a meditative state.
Even though his eyes were closed, he still "saw" wondrous sights and was embraced with a sense of unrecognizable warmth that is not of this world, a strange but weird sense that the world around him was starting to align, and previously unknown and confusing experiences in life started making sense.
From the practice of the last few days, Jason started getting slightly addicted to the feeling of meditation. It made him feel free, inspired and safe, it was the same feeling he had after his first visualization session.
His visualization sessions were still painful and misery-inducing, that did not change for Jason, but according to Jianmen the Boss, it was supposed to be this way, the pain and discomfort was what was needed for him and Caroline to grow. The humans as weapons metaphor was brought up in different occasions for multiple times and was almost emphasized to death.
And the benefits to Jason? Besides his seeming to be getting better sleep and clearer heads in the morning, and was able to concentrate a tad better, not much.
Caroline once suggested they try with a hipster meditation school San Jose, and was quickly faced with a harsh shut down and she was almost hit with a double shift. It was actually the first time they saw Jianmen being so stern and absolute and not talking in annoying riddles.
In what felt like just a brief moment, Jason was pulled out of meditative state by his alarm.
Slowly letting out a long exhale, he picked up his metal mirror, looked right into his reflection and started chanting his personal scripture.
The warm and fuzzy feeling from the meditation quickly wore off, his eyes in the mirror seemed to have released a light flash the moment the feeling disappeared. But Jason was enjoying the clear mind too much to notice, as he had quite a bit to drink at the dinner.
When done with another relaxing meditation session, Jason timely washed up and headed to bed. It took him almost no time to fall asleep, which was quite rare for him before he started with the meditation sessions.
----------------------------------------------------
Feeling a sudden jolt in the chest, Jason woke up, which was also quite rare for him.
After rolling on the bed for a short while yet still not feeling the sleep coming back, Jason decided to go downstairs and see if he could find a bar to get something to drink.
As he walked out of his room, he noticed near the end of the hall there was a weird but familiar male figure standing beside the window, staring emptily at the fence with pointed tops around the hotel pool.
"Donovan? " Jason recognized that figure, "What are you doing here? It's your wedding night!"
The figure did not respond. He was still staring at the fence below, perfectly within jumping distance.
And as Jason slowly approached the figure, he saw that the figure was indeed Donovan Lau, the husband of Elaine Chao, his cousin. He also saw that Donovan was, for some reason standing on his toes.
Something was wrong, something was terribly wrong - as he got closer to where Donovan was standing, his instincts screamed louder urging him to get out of there and stay away.
"Donovan? Can you hear me? What are you doing here?" as he tried again trying to reach tonight's groom, the groom finally turned his head towards him.
Jason could have sworn he never saw an expression like this: his eyes looked blank, empty and unfocused, as if he was not looking at anything, but his face was twisted as if he was in severe pain while blood was dripping down from his nose and corners of his mouth.
Right when Jason was still in shock at what he saw, Donovan opened the window panel and started climbing out.
"Donovan! No!" Jason raced to Donovan's side, locking his waist with both arms and tried to pull him back.
A barely noticeable chill entered Jason's body through his arms and chest and ran down his spine and up his neck when he grabbed Donovan, but with the current urgency he paid almost no attention to it.
Donovan groaned and babbled as he kept trying to shove his body outside of the window. For someone who was faintly chubby and looked lacking in exercise, he was somehow able to exert unexpectedly great strength - even when Jason was pulling him on his waist from behind with almost full force, he was still able to move forward inch by inch.
Noticing that his hotel sandals were sliding on the carpet, Jason swiftly put one leg against the wall, and started pushing.
This stopped Jason's feet from sliding and stopped Donovan from moving forward to outside of the window, instead Jason was able to slowly pull Donovan back.
"Help! Anyone awake? Help!" seeing that he was gaining ground in the struggle, Jason called out for help in hopes of waking someone up so they could come to his assistance.
The window frame onto which Donovan's hands grabbed started bending and even cracking, it would not be long till Donovan's body was completely inside the hall.
Just as Jason started feeling like he's got the situation under control, an uncanny feeling of dizziness, vertigo and chill struck him. His vision became blurred and grey, it was as if all the things in his sight started losing color and getting moldy all of a sudden.
An overwhelming sense of danger came with this uncanniness, before he could process what was going on, he felt some sort of sticky and cold liquid flooding his arms that were wrapped around Donovan's waist.
Then, he felt the person being pulled back started turning his head around, yet there was no clear motion on his body.
Just like in a classic horror movie, the person in Jason's arms turned his head around 180 degrees, without any accompanying motion from the upper body.
And the twisted, boney and eyeless face, it was not Donovan.