Back to chapter index
A loud peal of thunder outside struck as lightning lit up the night sky for a brief moment, as, concurrently, Cosma Botmeles lay in bed feeling a little miserable. She’d been trying to fall asleep for a solid four hours now and it was not going well. This tended to happen to her most nights, but considering the ungodly loud thunderstorm outside, it was a little worse at that moment. On her small nightstand her plainly-cased phone lay facedown so as to cause as little distraction as possible. She was aware this was useless and that she would probably end up spending the rest of the night scrolling some stupid bullshit anyways, but it didn’t hurt to dissuade that impulse a little.
Cosma was a woman at the ripe age of 34, currently living alone in the suburbs of some city, right smack-dab in the middle of some country, you know the one, the one next to that ocean (or was it the other country next to that ocean?). She tended to struggle a bit in daily life due to the near-constant sleep deprivation, which led to her being considered an antisocial weirdo by the general population. She lived alone and did not have a large amount of friends. Her neighbor Ellen Seedy had attempted to contact her at several points to start some sort of companionship, but Cosma turned down every offer (as Ellen appeared to be slightly too normal to be fun to talk to (which is the opposite complaint said general population had about Cosma)). Physicality-wise, Cosma was of relatively uninteresting build and stature. She had long, disheveled obsidian-hued hair that she didn’t take very good care of. Due to the insomnia, her eyes were constantly heavily bagged, which did not contribute well to her being trusted by the general population. She didn’t have many hobbies, and spent most of her time looking through stupid bullshit online and not falling asleep. Her day job at the misery fuck factory (aka the nearby convenience store) did not help her fragile mental state either. Really, the insomnia was just the cherry on top of all her other problems.
As she rolled over (a pointless exercise), her phone began violently emitting noise and vibrating. Strange. Didn’t she turn off the ringer? She made another bodily revolution over to the stand, muttered some maledictions under her breath, and picked up the accursed cellular device.
“Who is it?” she said in an aggravated tone.
“Listen!” An ominous voice on the other side of the call was evidently not fucking around.
“What?” Cosma asked back.
“Listen to me, Cosma!” The voice warbled and shook in a pretty off-putting way, but it could’ve been worse all things considered. Being a cashier, Cosma had seen and heard much worse.
“How the hell do you know my name?” This was accompanied by an eyebrow cock on Cosma’s part, which of course, the voice could not see.
“The internet facilitates information seeking on a level higher than ever before, I can find anyone’s name with ease before I even find their number!” Their tone was more self-congratulatory here than was needed.
“How did you find my number?”
“That’s not important right now! I am not taking questions, I am the one asking questions! Listen!” The voice said it with the exact intonation of that one Songs: Ohia song.
Cosma stuck the phone away from earshot and sighed a few more maledictions before bringing it back to her lips. “Ok, fine, whatever, I’m listening. It’s four in the morning. What do you need.”
“It’s four in the morning? This is of little concern for a being outside of time and space! Anyways I need you to check behind your dresser in your bedroom.”
A brief pause ensued. “Why?” she asked slowly.
“I said I wasn’t taking questions, Cosma! Just do it!”
“Jesus Christ, fine.” She shoved the mangled bedsheets off her and climbed out of the sleep chamber (which wasn’t really doing its job). Hunched over due to an unfortunate combination of exhaustion and irritation, she made the short walk over to her mostly unused dresser and (with some effort) dislodged it from its spot in the carpet, peering behind it. “What the hell is this?”
“Thank the stars it worked! Uh… I think… what are you seeing right now, Cosma?”
“There’s like a small hole here that wasn’t here before.”
“Yes, that is correct! You got it! Now drop something into it.”
“What? Why?” Cosma was sounding increasingly exasperated by the sentence. She wanted nothing more than to climb back into bed and keep being miserable but it looked like that wasn’t gonna happen.
“I am not taking questions, Cosma! How many times do I have to repeat this? Just drop something into it!” Cosma ignored the voice and tapped the hang-up button on her call interface, which she probably should’ve done a while ago. The button did nothing. Damn it.
“Fine.” She grabbed a book off her shelf (original press copy of the Holy Bible) and flung it into the abyss. No sound was made, but the book quickly disappeared from sight. “Ok, I did it… can you leave me alone now?” At this point Cosma was too tired to ask why the voice was asking her to do this (although evidently not tired enough to fall asleep).
“Yes, suppose I can… now, Cosma, this won’t be the last time I call you, so keep an eye on that hole for me, will you?” She wanted to make some sort of cynical wisecrack, but the voice had already hung up by this point. She looked back at the pit and noticed it had gotten a few millimeters wider than it was before.