"We have a train after three hours", he said with a grumpy, low voice.
"So, you helping me?"
"Fuck you", he said and walked on.
After spending multitudinous hours at an old cafe, we boarded our train to Sisyphilli.
Shawn was really out of money as he drank loads of water in the cafe to contain his hunger. His hunger filled eyes looked at me having a strawberry cheesecake and it instantly filled me with guilt. But I did pay for our snacks in the train.
As I immersed myself in my novel, I couldn't help but notice him staring at couples giggling in the train, holding each other's hand. The train took us on a bumpy ride through the tunnels as he kept reminiscing about a rose coloured past and I stretched my imagination muscles trying to figure out the mystery set by the novel, and life as well.
At around midnight, we reached the heavily crowded and the bustling city of Sissyphilli. There was little bit of drizzle in the city that evening. Our shoes got a bit soaked till we got a black n yellow cab taking us into the heart of the city. We ended up entering a deserted lane, with a pack of dogs howling at the top of their voices and marking their territory for the night. The building was terribly archaic, with cracks crawling all over the weatherbeaten structure. The lift seemed like it needed a lift for itself. So we took the stairs. Obscure spiders and pigeons had found their homes in the corners of the dark hallways. After going through a maze of stairs and floors, we knocked on the door of flat 423. There was no answer for a long time.
"Is he not there?", I asked.
"He will answer from inside".
"So, he won't welcome us?", I asked.
All of a sudden, there was a huge bang on the door.
"Is it Shawn?", a deep baritone came from the other side of the door.
"Ya, it's me, Lucifer", Shawn answered.
"Who's the other guy?", he asked and I suddenly realised that he was looking at us through the peephole.
"Hi, I am Andre", I greeted,"I am the brother of Lily and Rose".
"Ohh...", he exclaimed," It's been a long time since I met them. Beautiful girls, I must say. What happened to them?"
I delineated the whole matter to him and my mistake. An unnerving silence followed the story which made it extremely gawky for me and I began knocking.
"Stop knocking! I am thinking", the voice came.
"Let us in atleast", I said and looked at Shawn, who had stretched his eyeballs to signal me a 'no'.
"No chance", the voice came.
"Lily and Rose always talk highly of you. They were very certain that you would help them", I said. It wasn't the truth but it wasn't a lie either. As soon as the girls heard his name, I could see they were quite relieved.
A clanky noise came from inside and the door opened slightly. Shawn looked surprised but we anyways entered the flat.
The flat felt quite empty since there were very little things and was quite spacious. Lucifer had worn a mask, which was that of a red demon with thick eyebrows and vampire teeth. I was quite creeped out by that itself.
"Don't touch anything otherwise I will fucking kill you two", he said and vanished into a dark room. Perfectly normal visit.
There was a mini fridge in one corner of the room and the other corner had a small desk, overflowing with numerous books and a laptop. But the most striking feature of the room was the various wall clocks. They were of different shapes and colors and all of them showed a drastically different time. You could even hear the sound of the pendulum of the big grand clock, which hung on the wall right in front of us. There were a few glass pyramids and spheres kept on the teapoy. I found it extremely hard to not fidget them but Lucifer's strong warning kept me from doing so.
He came out of the dark room with another strange thing - a crystal hemispherical glass attached to a black sparkling cardboard. It acted like a switch when he demonstrated it's use to us.
"What's this?", Shawn asked.
"Rexus Switch", he answered and sat on the sofa kept infront of us.
"What's that?", I asked.
"Rexus switch converts you back into another thing of any random dimension, if only the first reconversion into the human body goes wrong".
"And what is the procedure of that?"
"The girls have to switch it on themselves in the ware house or the Scroid system, if you call it that", he said," And make sure to return it to me after the work is done".
"He will come alone to return the switch", Shawn gave me a flinty stare. Come on dude, I paid for the snacks atleast. And he was behaving as if he was helping me out of no context or deal.
"Make sure it's done in the second attempt. Using the Rexus switch more than twice is dangerous", Lucifer said. I stared at his red mask but could somehow say that he was quite serious about it. But did he have any face at all? What if he turns out to be a faceless vampire like in Stephen King novels?
After a brief chat, we got out of the apartment and then waited in another coffee shop near the train station, so that we won't be late in boarding the train. In both the train journeys, we seldom had a conversation other than some small talk while having snacks. Maybe I should have initiated one instead of burying myself in the novel but he didn't initiate one either. But maybe that was to not disturb me from reading the novel. Who can tell? There are millions of reasons why some things never happen.
Upon reaching Zuschter, familiar oxygen made its way into my heart and somehow made me feel a bit relieved. It was not like I was stressed the whole time. But little things add up, only to be felt later. As if to counter the good feeling, a message popped up on my phone which read,' Lily has gone mad and is trying to run aw..'. I won't lie if I hadn't anticipated such things. After all reading those crime novels do pollute your mind to just dream and fantasize. Human beings can't even share the materialistic things they own, let alone share a single body.