Sunday, September 8th, 2:04 AM
It was dark out over the shores of Tampa. She hadn't slept in quite some time. Her joints ached and the immense heat did not help the New York native. Her friends told her it would be better come the winter, but more than once she had suffered through a sunburn by staying out too long. The current flat that she was currently laying in had no air conditioning. In fact it didn't have much at all. The owner had long been out of state for a few months now, and the entire apartment was empty and barren of any sort of working utility. The sink didn't even connect to a water line. However, it also meant that the landlord was currently unaware of Oliwa squatting in the second floor of his duplex. Having broken in through a careful lockpick applied to the front door.
She took in a deep breath of fresh air. She had not moved at all from the air mattress that entire day. The air mattress was of course literally the only piece of furnature in that apartment currently, but she had not even gone outside at all today. She knew withdrawal was bad, but didn't know it was miserable to the point of being almost life threatening. She had thrown up several times today, had had the last several days prior. Despite spending all of her money on cup after cup of ramen noodles that she would prepare with bottles of water and a cigarette lighter, she literally could not eat them fast enough. All the while, in the back of her head, she knew that her backpack sitting just nearby had everything she needed to make the pain fade away. Her stash of enthralling treats she had collected over the years.
Oliwa knew that she had a lot of vices, but persistence was her virtue. Despite her ease of access she refused to reach for the mollies and the tablets of LSD that were currently resting in the inner pockets of her bag. As days went on though, she doubted she even had the strength to get up and reach her backpack. She took another shallow breath and weakly rolled over again. Her eyes were bloodshot, and despite wearing only her underwear and not even using any covers, the Florida heat and withdrawal symptoms combined made it so that the mattress was soaked in sweat. The smell alone was nauseating. She would have showered, if the shower even worked. All she could do was sit there and ride it out.
Last night she had not slept at all, but the night before that was even worse. After having fallen asleep she had vivid nightmares which, in line with recent events, they had become real around her. She woke up the next morning to see that something from her nightmare had been messily scratched into the paint: Her own name. The night after that she didn't even dare try to sleep. Knowing it would only get worse, the last thing she needed was her nightmares slipping into reality to larger and larger extents. However there would be no going through a second night in a row without sleep... She would have to shut her eyes, eventually...
Next to the bed was a sudden "brrt!" sound as her phone vibrated. It's screen coming to light, and illuminating the room in a dull glow. She let out a frustrated breath before slowly rolling over and reaching out with her hand. Fumbling several times with the phone as she brought it up to the bed with her. it had 4% charge left. She had been using it incredibly sparingly the last 3 or so days. The apartment had no electricity so she could not charge it, and she knew when she picked it up that it would be likely the last time she would. Sighing, she used her thumb to type out the pin on the phone lock screen ("6969" of course) and opened up her cluttered and broken phone.
It was an email, which shocked her a slight bit. Who the hell used email these days? More importantly, she could not remember giving her email address to anyone. If it was spam however her email's filter would have picked it up. So she opened her email to see further, and noticed that it was from some vague email address... She couldn't tell if it was withdrawal or something else, but every time she attempted to read it, it wouldn't register in her mind. A series of random characters that barely even seemed like comprehensive English. Every time she blinked it's almost as if the email address re-shifted the character's that made up it's name, or she simply forgot what it had looked like.
Not letting it get to her too much, she opened the email. There was no text or anything of the sort but instead there was an attachment. A photo to be specific. She downloaded it onto her phone, stealing a glance at her battery: 2%. Even with her screen brightness turned all the way down. She quickly opened the photo and took a look. What she saw was enough to give her shivers.
The photo was of some place far away. She couldn't recognize where it was but knew it was outside the united states. The street was cobbled instead of paved, and it looked small. No reasonable car would fit through it. Instead mopeds and tiny eco-friendly cars lined the cramped street. Via Cimabue, that was the street's name. The camera photo was of a wooden doorway with a blue tiled "47" next to it on the right side, and on the other side of the door...
was her.
She was smiling, and clearly in a better position of health that Oliwa was currently. She had one foot raised and rested it on the step to the door. She was leaning against the wall casually, and was waving at the camera. It almost seemed half mocking, and despite the fact she was wearing a pair of aviators, it was like looking in a mirror: The woman was Oliwa. The hair on her arms and neck stood up in goosebumps. How was this possible? She had never been to this place before. How could this photo even exist? Was it the drugs, was the withdrawal making her hallucinate? If it was, it was pretty god damn elaborate. She stared at the photo for several long seconds, half a minute... No, a full minute. Expecting it to fade away like some illusion.
Eventually it did fade away. Her phone died, and she was thrust back into darkness.
She put the phone slowly back away. Then stared at the ceiling. She could not have the energy any longer to stay awake. Her eyes began to close very slowly. Gradually it began to feel as if she was lighter than air. She slowly lost feeling of her fingers and toes, then her feet and hands, and gradually all of her extremities and bodies became completely and calmly paralyzed. As she slowly lost all conscious awareness of her or her surroundings, her thoughts were of the photo and unknowingly of Italy.
It was dark here and the dust started to crawl down her throat. Sputtering in surprise, she weakly tried to look around. The cold was unimaginable. The skin on her knuckles and lips froze, dried and cracked. All around her was a low hum, a incessant buzzing at a pitch so deep that it made her head feel as though it might explode. Beginning to pick herself off the ground, she sputtered and spat out the iron gray sand that she was resting on.
Eventually things slowly started to become clearer. The hum cleared into the sound of waves splashing up on the beach right behind her. She looked over her shoulder and saw an endless expanse of dark waters, pitch black and equally as cold as the air around her. She felt a presence as she stood up, facing towards the ocean, but did not pay attention to it. It politely waited as the gears moved in her mind, trying to figure out where she was. Shivering in the night air, and she was as naked as she was when she fell asleep, which made the cold quite possibly life threatening. She gritted her teeth and slowly turned around, facing inland from the black ocean.
Deeper into the land, the beach ended into wild shrubbery and tall patchy grass. And beyond that, by a hundred meters or so, the ruins of some ancient town. Amidst the shattered and smashed buildings, obliterated by time, the church stood out. It's craggy tower patched together with cyclopean stones. It stretched out into the dark sky, the top of it having long fell off and revealing a jagged stone edge that seemed to almost cut the sky in two.
She started to walk towards the town slowly in the darkness, but stopped as soon as she reached the edge of the grass, because she could then see a figure standing between her and the town's edge, in the middle of all the weeds. His back was facing towards her, and his hair was a messy patchwork that seemed knotted and tangled haphazardly. Resting atop his head was a crown of antlers and dried wreaths, which wrapped around his head and the antlers to hold it there. A long and patchy toga clung to his gaunt, lithe frame, and his skin was pale as ice. Oliwa thought he looked almost dead. In one hand he held a long wooden stick, and in the other, a cluster of grapes that seemed soured and dried to the point of almost being raisins.
But then he moved, slowly beginning to turn around and face her.
"No parent... Should ever have to bury their child..." he had said, loudly, and Oliwa knew he had full intent for her to hear. She took a tentative step back and felt something crunch under her feet. Looking down, she could see poking through the sand was the surface of a skull. One she had just smashed accidentally. Frightened she went to take another step back, her heart beggening to race, but she fell back into the sand and dirt. The figure now fully faced her, and she found herself frozen into the wet sand.
He smiled, his teeth stained by wine. Oddly however Oliwa suddenly felt a calm come over her. Something not akin to the effects of alcohol. It was enough to let him speak one last time.
"I have buried all of mine."
-----
Sunday, September 8th, 8:17 AM
The sun was blinding. Her eyes squinted and squeezed shut, despite being shut already, and she raised an arm to block out the light. She shifted slightly, feeling suddenly uncomfortable. The ground and gravel under her shifted with her... Wait... Gravel?
She slowly sat up. She was fully clothed, she realized. Leather jacket and all. She patted herself down groggily to see that this had happened. Everywehre around her she heard cicadas and crickets, and birds flying overhead. She wasn't in the apartment anymore. Swallowing hard, her throat like sandpaper, she opened her eyes slowly. They took a second to dilate, and adjust to the immense brightness of a Mediterranean sun. It was then that she realized she was laying in the middle of a vast and gigantic vineyard.
She blinked, slowly coming to the realization that she was not just no longer in Florida at all. She was somewhere else, and she didn't know where. At first she thought she was dreaming, but then she realized she remembered her actual dream with perfect clarity. This was not a continuation of said dream: This was real. She stood up slowly and began to look around. Seeing the foothills of the alps nearby, and an Italian field hand approaching her as speedily as his middle aged legs could take him.
Eventually, the portly man stopped just short of her. Oliwa stared at him as he caught his breath, then spoke:
"Stai bene?"
Oliwa stared at him for another couple seconds, her mind still processing this.
"... What the fuck?"
