3 Cards Pulled
4 of Clubs: You follow a suspicious figure. In the shadows of an alleyway, they step through a door. When you get there, there is no door, just the outline of a dragonfly in graffiti.
King of Diamonds: You have a crisis. You are no longer sure what is real and what isn’t. You aren’t certain that you are really you. Why do you have this crisis? What led you here?
4 of Hearts: An attractive and friendly person tries to pick you up. When they use the washroom, you check their ID and see a card with a dragonfly. Their ID number is the same as your name number.
I think that I might be losing my mind. Nothing around me makes sense anymore! I can’t even trust my own eyes and reality seem to slip farther and farther away.
Already this morning, the mood in the office was strange. I would have thought that two deaths in a weekend would have some kind of impact, but from what I can tell, no one except those of us directly involved have any idea what happened. I heard people saying that it was strange to see Aiden taking a vacation, and they speculated that he and Joanna were off together somewhere. It was surreal. I don’t really know why neither of the ones who knew said anything, but maybe none of us wanted to break the mood of the others. And maybe saying it out loud would make it more real. Because it was real… Wasn’t it?
By the time lunch came around I needed to get out of the office, and decided to grab something to eat at the diner across the street. I left alone, and no one even seemed to notice, but that was fine by me. I needed to be alone for a bit. That wasn’t going to happen though. I had barely placed my order and sat down, when a man came up to my table. He asked if I would mind if he joined me, as all the other tables were full. I looked around a bit surprised, but he was right. There was no free tables in the diner. Suppressing a sigh I told him it was fine, and he sat down across from me. He introduced himself as Milo, and I suppose that he was pleasant enough. We spoke as we waited for our food, and it didn’t take long for me to realize that Milo was flirting with me. It was very flattering, and truth be told, the man was attractive. Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad to spend some time with someone new. At least that was what I thought at the time. Now I know better.
We were having a good time and even agreed to meet at the same diner for lunch on Thursday, but I don’t think that is going to happen. Lunch break was coming to an end when he rose from the table, saying that he needed to use the restroom for a moment. He placed his wallet on the table in front of me with a quick smile and told me to use his card to pay if the waitress came around with our bills while he was gone. I have pondered ever since why he would do that. I mean, he must have known that I would notice.
When the waitress came to collect our payment I paid my own lunch first, keeping an eye on the restroom door in case he came back out. When he didn’t, I picked up his wallet to pay for his meal, and as I plucked the credit card out, I saw it. Just below the credit card was another card, soft lilac, and with a dragonfly design on it. It felt like a static shock went through my fingers as I pulled it out and looked properly at it. It was the same dragonfly alright, there was no doubt about it. And printed at the bottom, below Milo’s name, was a set of numbers that were only too familiar to me at this point. Realization hit me like a bucket of cold water. Our meeting had not been chance after all. He had been seeking me out.
I tried to think back, but I couldn’t remember how many people were in the diner when I entered it. But the fact that it was full when Milo approached me had struck me as odd at the time because I have never seen the place out of seating before. I mentioned it offhand to the waitress, and she agreed with me. She said that they just seemed to show up from nowhere, most of the people she had never seen before. I forced myself to smile at the girl and suggested that maybe there was some kind of convention in town, and she went on her way. Leaving me at the table, staring at that card. I don’t know how long I sat there, but it can’t have been long, because by the time I gathered my wits enough to put the card back in the wallet and put it back on the table, Milo had still not come back from the restroom. Or maybe time slowed down for me, allowing me a moment longer to absorb the shock. I am not sure I would be able to tell.
Milo did eventually come back from the restroom, and he seemed completely undisturbed that I had been given access to his wallet. I made an effort to act the same as before, but I was watching him more closely now. We confirmed our lunch meeting on Thursday, and went our separate ways at the doors. At least we were supposed to. I am not sure what compelled me to follow him, I was supposed to go back to work. But I allowed him to get a head start and started trailing him through the street. I don’t think that he noticed me, but that doesn’t really matter. I never found out anything of value anyway. In fact, I only ended up even more shaken. I ended up following him until he turned into an alley. I can’t really remember, but it might have been the same alley from a few days ago, the one that the men in suits had taken a man into. It was in the same area at least. I waited at the mouth of the alley for a minute before I gathered up the courage to follow him inside. I could see him further down, and tried to keep to the shadows. He never once looked back. It looked like the alley was a dead end, but that wasn’t the case. I watched as he opened a door at the end, stepping through. I am sure that I didn’t see a door until that very moment. As it closed behind him I hurried forward, but as I reached the wall it was just that again. A wall. I stared at it in complete disbelief for a moment before what I was seeing truly sank in. I was not just looking at a blank wall. Covering the area where I was sure that I had seen a door, was the purple outline of a dragonfly, made with spray paint. I felt my breath hitch as I looked at it, and I could feel myself panicking. I am not ashamed to admit that I turned tail and ran. The closer I came to the studio, the more I started to question everything that I had just seen. It couldn’t be real. I couldn’t have seen Milo pass through a door that wasn’t there. Had I just imagined it? Had it been something in the food I ate? Had he tampered with it? I wasn’t sure. I still aren’t. I must have looked horrible as I stepped into the office, because the boss took one look at me and ignored the fact that I was late back and promptly sent me home. I have tomorrow off to ‘recuperate’, but I don’t know if I want to be home either. My mind is a mess.
I can’t trust anyone, and I can’t even be sure that I can trust my own senses. Is anything around me even real? Am I still even here? I am scared…
11 9 20, signing off.
[[Ending Roll: 5; Tokens Left: 10]]