THREE

Norman looked at the unfamiliar face and wondered if he was dreaming. He had an eerie sense that this was not the real world. Yet, at the same time, all of it looked like the real world. All the details were the same, from the sharp corners of the city to the colour of the sky. The girl in front of him was a sight for sore eyes. What was her name, he wondered. So he asked her: "What's your name?"

For a moment, the figure in front of him froze, not knowing whether to tell the truth or to lie. She decided to tell the truth. Her name was Andrea. They shook hands and looked at each other. They talked about schools and found out that they both liked badgers. It was a start. There was no door and no way out of that room. They might as well take the time to know each other, their likes and dislikes, their preferences, their lives. All that could be known.

There was nothing in that room apart from themselves. Andrea and Norman knew that they were powerless, they felt just how strong fate could be. But they could not bring themselves to give up, so they chatted on, hoping against hope that someone would arrive, that some unknown hero would drop by and save them, and they would be able to be free again. The city was a distant memory, time seemed to stop in its tracks in that room.

+++

It was raining. But it wasn't water that was falling from the sky. It was a red substance of unknown qualities. The sky had been hurt, and it had been hurt badly. The moon was a shadow of its former self, the stars were gone. There was no Sun. A white figure woke up, had a shower, had some breakfast, went to work. He had a bad feeling about this day. He didn't like it.