Darkness.
Darker than the insides of his eyelids in a completely dark and desolate room. Tangling around his neck and shoulders like an anaconda on a revengeance spree. Dangling from the top of his forehead, heavy with desperation. Strangling his neck tighter than his own wife's turgid thighs had.
He was at peace. Until he realized he was at peace.
Daylight streamed into the cornea of his eyes as the eyelids dutifully parted to welcome the savoury sun's energy.
With a jump, he got off a bed.
Adam Jucas found himself in a new location, foggy with uncertainty. A wooden cabin, his first impressions noted. Spruce logs composed the sturdy walls decorated with natural lines of xylem and brittle bark.
Residencies of dust had settled in every corner. Their airlines were busy among the godly rays of light stationary from ornate windows scantily-clad by muslin fabric.
A bookshelf, a table, a standing mirror and the bed he found himself on were the only visible articles of furniture decorating the single-room cabin.
A book had spread its pages wide, lying on a hard bed of wood that the table was made of. A pen remained inserted along the middle, leaking ink shamelessly.
'Whoever the hell was writing on it last night is an irresponsible fellow,' he commented in his lonely mental space. 'And whoever the hell is responsible for bringing me here is a distasteful one.'
He couldn't recall anything about the past week.
'That's strange. I've always remembered every clue, down to the last pigment. How come I remember nothing about what I am doing here and why?'
Discovering his reflection on the mirror, he found himself staring at a man in his thirties, crowned with youth, dressed in a tuxedo gleaming like polished obsidian in the morning light.
He steered his attention to anchor onto the table at the center of gravity of the jungle house.
It was a journal.
"June 16th," he murmured the words aloud from the two pages currently facing the ceiling. "Today I found a man stranded on the highway. His attire highlights his importance. He smells so nice and his face drives the butterflies in my heart crazy! I hope he wakes up soon. He seems to be in a deep state of sleep. Can't wait to talk to him!!"
The detective grimaced. Intuition analyzed the tone of the author and deduced that some woman had been behind this.
He found his branded formal shoes at the door, the squishy soles yearning to be crushed under his firm feet.
Vines of an unknown herb grew helter-skelter along the edges of the semi-detached door. The hinges creaked relatively noisily, as the rusty iron cylinders rubbed against each other.
Adam wasn't sure what to expect on the other side of the door, but none of his expectations matched the outcome.
A forest sprawled outside the cabin. The air was sour with a contaminant he couldn't recognise. Sunlight collided on the forest floor, rich with humus from fallen leaves. As for the trees...
No leaves, no branches.
Odd.
Stiff poles of pine crowded everywhere for supremacy on the soil. The temperature felt extraordinarily cold for a summer month in the Northern Hemisphere. With every moment being spent in this strange land, a blackhole of confusion grew stronger in Jucas. The gravitational force only seemed to attract more complexities.
'I need clues. I need to find someone,' the detective unofficially abandoned his vacation. 'I must uncover the roots of this problem. Whatever is going on with me.'
He began to walk towards the east, where the abundance and density of trees seemed to wane.
'What's this? A highway?'
He accelerated his pace to approach the hint of asphalt detected by the fovea of his eyes.
In a moment, the kingdom of trees heeled at their borders, meeting the black pitch of a proper road meant for transport purposes.
'I wonder if that generous woman is around here somewhere.'
A milestone nearby displayed: "Vicilia - 0 km"
From down the depths of his subconscious memories, cluttered around his hippocampus, Adam's mind conjured up a disconnected memory. Right on the tip of his tongue.
'I'm not sure where, or how, but I think I've heard that name before. Strange.'
Not a single car drove on the stretch of bitumen. Yet, his deft and crafty ears picked up a distant noise. Like a constant humming of engines.
Without thinking twice, he began walking with a vector aimed north.
***
Some cars were parked outside a café. One of them sent a sudden sensation of dé jâvū groveling for approval in the detective's mind, currently under the reign of skepticism.
A Bentley Continental.
He wasn't sure who was the lucky individual to be the owner or had the honor of driving it.
'Hmm... Let me go grab a cup of coffee. A shot of caffeine ought to clear out some of the seratonin.'
A tinkling bell rang twice as the door opened, the musical note pitching down and up.
"Hi there! Welcome to Café Eve-Jack," a blonde waitress merrily greeted him from behind the cashier's desk. "How may I help ya?"
Adam's eyes darted along the horizon. But they only saw a damp stench of emptiness. Not a single customer in sight.
His gaze still hadn't taken her face into account. But when he did, a mallet of that old familiar feeling landed on his cranium, shaking up his senses once again.
"I-" his lips were one step ahead. He had to legitimately end the sentence before he ended up speechless. His vocal cords selected honesty. "I think I've seen you somewhere. Don't ask me how, though. I myself find it a struggle to remember."
"Oh, is that so?" she covered her cute lips with her hand for hiding her giggle. "Well, I guess you could try an espresso. The thinkers' favorite, they say. Might help ya remember more fashionably."
"Aye, I'll be ordering a cup then," he reached for his wallet but he found it missing from its usual spot. His fingers found it in the other pocket of his dress pants. The waitress had occupied his retinae. "And what might be the name of such a lovely lady such as yourself?"
"Sure thing! A shot of espresso coming right up! Oh, and I'm Sophia, by the way."
"Pleasure to meet you, miss Sophia," Adam sent his hand forward to shake her hand. She had already turned around, so to save himself from the spotlight effect of embarrassment, he changed the elevation of the arm to pretend to comb his hair. "May I please know where's the washroom?"
"Ofcourse, sir," she answered from behind a curtain separating the kitchen from the customer sitting space. "It's right by the vase of katniss."
'Ah, that word reminds me... I think that waitress had a different name. A name that begins with the same syllable. How very curious indeed.'
Adam dived horizontally into the male washrooms, and found a row of urinals lined along the length and a mirror conquering the area of the opposite wall, beveled with faucets. The messy and grimy tiles on the floor complained about the lack of maintenance. Reflections of the circular lamps of the ceiling glistened.
Washing his face with some hydrogen oxide raining from a tap, something caught his eye.
In a ceramic urinal on the other wall, a key rested at the bottom of the bowl.
Wrinkling up his nose, he slid on some disposable gloves before picking it up. Life as a crime investigator was certainly very stubborn when it came to handling all sorts of situations.
A label had been attached to the key fob.
"Michaelangelo B."