Tether

It is hot. Hotter than you’ve ever felt, the air smells like electricity and sweat. You spot lightning on the horizon, you feel the thunder before you hear it, your skin feels sensitive, like someone has turned your nerve endings up.

Sand sticks to your bare feet, where are your shoes? Is the sun setting or coming up? Setting, you think, so you’ve lost a day.

There are four others showing various levels of pain, two people that are definitely your age. The woman is beautiful, dark skinned with natural hair, the man is even darker. He is tall and strong looking. They are possibly a couple. They sit with their feet in the water, the man has his head in his hands, the woman leans in close, they whisper to each other and glance up every now and then. A tall, pale, redheaded man who seems to be checking the immediate area for something is speaking to himself under his breath, you can’t understand him. A young dark haired woman sits silently on a rock, her clothes are stained with something but the sun is behind her and your head hurts.

You are not sure who any of them are, but you file that away as “to be deciphered later” your head hurts and your throat is dry, your clothes are drenched, you think briefly that you wish that there was a way to change your underwear and socks, you think that it would help you think a little straighter.

You lick your lips, it does not help, there is a dry patch on your tongue that feels like sandpaper.

You take stock of what you have while you try to remember how you got here, you remember the shots and a shot but that wasn’t any different than your normal Friday night. Speaking of shots, your dehydration has just become a full hangover, you lean over to vomit. It’s fine, you’ve had worse.

You blink and take in the environment, the trees look tropical, which tracks, you’re pretty sure you were on vacation and you’re pretty sure the people surrounding you were at the hostel with you. You can’t remember what country you are in, somewhere in South America. Probably.

“Weren’t there six of us?” the tall redhead says quietly. He looks the least hungover.

“Yeah,” a quiet voice floats slightly above the crashing waves. Your head snaps in the direction of the voice, you freeze as it pulls on your memory, your blood runs cold, you can smell batteries for some reason. You look around at the others, the couple sitting together shrug their shoulders, they go back to whispering at each other, the redheaded man looks confused as he stands up and walks towards the voice, only the woman on the rock does not react.

“Stop,” you say to him, you aren’t sure how you know this but something in your gut is telling you that that voice is not friendly. You still feel very off, but you have been in enough hairy situations to know to trust the feeling.

“Why?” he asks, he continues to walk away from the group.

“Because something is wrong,” you say to him. He stops. The girl on the rock swings her legs towards you and stands up. She still says nothing. She still does not look up. The couple stops talking.

“That’s what I was just telling him,” the woman says.

“And I was just saying it doesn’t matter if something is wrong we need to find a way out of here.”

“I can help,” the voice from before dances against the rock cliff. You still can’t tell where it is coming from. Your stomach lurches again and you taste bile in the back of your throat.

“Nope. Absolutely not.” You stand up, stumble, grab redhead by the arm and drag him towards the others.

“Do any of you remember what happened last night?” You fight to focus your eyes, everyone is paying attention now. Everyone shakes their heads.

You have to sit down, you are too dizzy to think straight. Everyone except the rock girl sits with you.

“Water is probably a good idea,” the woman says. You wonder briefly how she got her makeup to stay on so nicely, you remember looking at yourself in a mirror in a bathroom the night before, rough.

You look around, there is not any water in the immediate area other than the ocean. You begin to take stock of what you have in the immediate area. No bags, no cups, nothing to hold water. You can’t see anything other than jungle surrounding the beach. You assume that there must be water in there. You also cannot bring yourself to stand back up.

“I said I can help.” The voice is a little stronger now. The two men stand up, like someone shot electricity into their spines.

“We should hear her out,” the redhead says.

“Her?” you think. The voice is not defined enough to determine where it’s coming from let alone the gender.

“Her?” the female half of the couple says.

“Yeah,” the male half of the couple says as he grabs the hand of the woman. “Let’s go.” She does not get up, and he begins to pull her harder.

“What are you doing?” the woman says. “Dude stop.”

You chuckle, they are probably not a couple since she just called him dude.

“What’s funny?” the girl on the rock says.

You look up at her, a little confused but you’re going to roll with it, for the first time you take in her face. She is Hispanic, maybe twenty-five, thin, her eyes have deep circles under them, but they are bright. Her hair is stringy, but you aren’t judging. You notice the stains you saw from a distance are a deep rust-red color. Blood? Possibly.

“Oh I was just trying to figure out who everyone was, thought those two were together.”

“They are not,” the girl says. Sure. Confident, her voice does not match her demeanor.

“Okay,” you think, but you don’t say anything. You aren’t sure if something is very off or if the pain in your head is making you paranoid.

“Get the fuck off me,” the woman says to the man.

“They don’t even know each other,” rock girl says. “They just think they do.”

You squint your eyes at her, you are thirsty and hot and a little annoyed and you just want some information that doesn’t feel like an acid trip. You notice that the redheaded man has walked halfway down the beach and has turned towards the jungle.

“Do you know anyone?” the girl asks you.

You don’t. The familiarity you felt at the beginning has faded away. You slowly close your eyes and take a deep breath, with the smell of the ocean you remember being on a boat.

“I don’t.”

“Do you remember your name?”

“I don’t.”

“Do you remember where you’re from?”

“No, what the hell is going on?”

“Couldn’t tell you. This is round three for me. I do recommend finding water before the sun comes back up.”

Then you hear a huge crack and a tree falls down on to the beach, ginger man stops walking for a second and then you hear a scream. You can’t see him anymore.

“I can help.” You jump, the voice sounds like it’s amplified and different.

“Ah, here we go,” rock girl smiles.

“Was that?”

“His voice yeah,” she says. “I couldn’t tell you how long I’ve been here, but you are the third group of people to come through here. Everyone goes to the voice eventually.”

The not-couple stops fighting, or rather the woman lets the man go and he begins to walk in the opposite direction that ginger went.

“He said he could help,” the man says.

“That’s not the direction it’s coming from though, and you just saw that other dude disappear. Are you stupid?”

“What other dude?”

You wonder if he’s being intentionally dense, or if something else is happening. You have a flash of the man holding the door open for you in a restaurant. Do you know this one? You definitely didn’t…don’t know the redheaded guy.

“You should all look for water,” rock girl says again. “Don’t waste your time fighting.”

“Okay where is the water then?” you ask her. “This cryptic shit is not working for me.”

“In there, follow the path, the stream is a two-minute walk don’t drink any standing water and try not to go any deeper than the stream,” rock girl sighs. “Ah he’s gone now.”

You look around, the man has walked into the ocean about a quarter mile down the beach. The sky is beginning to lighten, though you don’t see the sun yet.

“He’s still there we can still go get him,” you say.

“No we can’t,” the rock girl says. “He’s gone.”

“How do you know that?”

“Pattern recognition.”

“I can help.” This time the voice is a whisper, and you know without looking up that the woman is going to walk towards it.

“See,” rock girl says as she sits next to you. She puts her head on your shoulder. “This is faster than usual.”

“What are you doing?”

“It’s just been a while since someone saw me.”

“What do you mean faster than usual?”

“Well the first time we were here a week, the second time almost a month. It’s compressed this time.”

You are still too sick to your stomach to even begin to process that, but you let her stay next to you. Something is deeply wrong and you know you need to find water but you

“Let’s go get some water.” You try to grab the woman but she resists, she is walking in the same direction as the man, towards the ocean.

“What’s your name?” you yell to her, you notice that rock girl shifts uncomfortably.

“Nadine,” she says as she walks toward the spot where the man vanished.

“Nadine, why don’t you come find some water with us,” you say quietly. She stops, turns her head but does not walk back towards you.

“I think…I think I should go,” she says, her head twitches back and forth like something is pulling her. You smell batteries again, you can see her eyes tracking something.

“Nadine,” the girl on the rock says. “What do you see?”

This time Nadine does not react to her name; she keeps walking and reaches her arms out and up as she reaches the water.

“Nadine!” you yell, she pauses again, but only for a second, you stand up sway, take a step forward, stumble and then you feel a firm grasp on your arm.

“No!” rock girl pulls you hard so you fall back into the sand.

“What the fuck?” you say, you are tired, thirsty, hot and nauseous. “We’ve lost two people already, I’m not watching someone else vanish.”

“No,” she says again firmly, she stands between you and Nadine, who is standing with her toes just barely getting wet from incoming waves.

“She is not mine yet,” the voice says as she steps into the water, she snaps out of it, sort of. She turns around and walks, shell-shocked back to you and the rock girl.

The three of you sit in silence, you take a deep breath. You think to yourself, we are in trouble. You take stock again, three people, one of them might be losing it or might have all the answers, the other looks like she just witnessed something traumatic. You are in pain and your whole mouth is dry, you realize you haven’t peed in hours and you don’t have to.

“You,” you point to the girl. “What’s your name?”

“I don’t know,” the girl says quietly. “I think I remembered last time, I don’t anymore.”

“What do you mean last time?”

“I told you this has happened before.”

“Who are you talking to?” Nadine says, she puts her hand on her head.

“I can help.” This time the voice feels like home, you immediately feel better, your headache lifts and the nausea fades away.

“Oh,” you say as you feel your body get lighter, like you were always meant to float towards the sound. The battery smell is replaced by petrichor, your favorite smell. You remember running out after a big storm as a kid and playing in the puddles. The ocean is just a big puddle, isn’t it? You think, it is time to play.

“No,” rock girl says.

“Woah, what is happening?” Nadine still looks shocked. You don’t care.

“Nothing,” you say with a smile. “I’m fine.”

You make eye contact with the rock girl. “It’s okay not to remember,” you say. She tries to grab you but you brush off her hand.

Nadine shivers as the rock girl leans over and whispers something in her ear.

You walk towards the voice. Both Nadine and the rock girl follow you. You move faster and enter the water. They both try to grab your arms, your clothes.

Rock girl yells in your face "What is your name?" You think, it doesn't matter. You shake them off. Nothing is more important than meeting the voice. Nadine tackles you. Your head goes under.

You wake up in the baking sun, the smell of petrichor sits in your nostrils. It does not look like it’s rained.

You are sitting on a rock, you smell like a bar.

“Hey, weren’t there five of us?” a redheaded man asks you.