The Party

I take in a slow deep breath and press my exposed skin to the cool bathroom stall door. My lips make a low whistle sound as I breathe out deep breaths.

“Okay,” breathe in. “Focus,” breathe out.

I need to get out of here and get somewhere else. I know I told Alé that I would meet him, but . . . But where? If I could just, I try to think to myself as I slowly inhale; I need to get out of here.

I run my hand along the door of the stall until I feel the cold silver lock and slide it over to open the door.

My vision is blurry, and trying to blink it away isn’t working. Is this what it’s like to go blind?
I stumble out of the stall and walk with my hand dragging along the wall for support should I fall, and I get through the door to the washroom. Falling into the counter I turn the sink on and splash water on my face. With my head in the sink I can feel the sudden presence of someone.

I feel for and push the handle down on the faucet to turn it off and pull myself up off the counter. My vision’s still blurry, but I see the blur of a person in black. A mask is covering the upper half of their face, but it’s not a huge one. The person hands me a white cloth and I reach my hand out to grab it but it slips from my grasp.

“Oh let me,” the woman says. Her voice sounds sweet and it echoes like she’s an angel speaking to me from the sky.

I see fiery red engulf her as she squats down to pick up the cloth. The woman stands back up and makes sure I have it in my hand securely this time. I cover my face with the soft towel padding it dry still trying to control my breathing.

Removing the cloth from my face she’s still standing there and still not completely in focus. I try to get my voice to speak up, but I just mumble and nothing coherent comes out.

“You’re a little bit drunk huh?” she laughs lightly and still just stands there.

My chest tightens and I drag in a slow breath.

“Come with me,” her hand takes mine and I feel her tug me closer to her. She leads me out of the room and we’re back out to the loud music. Then she pulls me into the room with smoke pouring out and the door is shut behind me.

There's a blue hue to the room, dim lighting in the whole area. The temperature is much cooler in here yet still warm, perhaps there’s a fire going somewhere in the room. The fog of smoke only makes my vision worse, but that’s when I finally notice my hand is not being held anymore and I’m alone.

I want to cry, where the hell is Alé?

I feel the touch of fingertips on my arm and then on my other and it makes me jump but then the touch is gone. I can’t see anything clearly and breathing is getting even more difficult. Something appears and grips me around the waist. Swiftly I’m lead across the room, bumping into plushy things or maybe it’s people I can’t tell. I’m spun around and pushed down into softness landing on my back.

I’m starting to feel claustrophobic and the roar fades in and out of voices all around me cheering and counting down.

“Seven, Six, Five!” the room yells.

A masked figure appears hovering over me and they are really close to. I can make out that the mask is a batman mask only covering the eyes.

“Four, Three Two,” my ears start to ring and I’m uncomfortably hot all over.

He’s getting closer to me and I try to force out a scream but it just gets caught in my throat.

His lips press to my forehead. No, no, no!

“One, Happy New Year!” The room explodes in excitement and I can feel a spray of liquid hit me in the face.

His hand grabs a fistful of my hair tightly jerking my head back, there’s a sharp pain on my neck then everything goes black.