A Discussion of Their Nature in a Coatroom

Looking outside, in the distance, I can see the storm still rages. And yet, the area around the hotel, it seems calm. Rising up from the floor is Winsten, pulling along Kat. “So,” Kat says, “I guess that means Seleste was right?”

I stare out. “I guess so,” I say quietly, “I’m not sure how to feel about that.”

“I mean, it could help us figure things out,” Win begins.

I shake my head, focusing back up. “Sorry,” I say, turning to face them. “Not that she’s right, but what she was right about.” Then, I had another thought. “I wonder if that’s true for everyone? Are all our newfound gifts in the same veins?”

Kat shakes her head, “Let’s head back to the others first,” she says, looking with only her eyes at the corners of the ceiling. Not where the cameras actually are, but the intent was obvious. The storm may have taken out the power, but who’s to say there weren’t backup systems, or some sort of generators.

We walk together back to the closet. Once inside, the others look up at us. Seleste looks at us as we enter, and the moment the door closes, she asks, “Did it work?”

I hesitate, so Kat replies for me. “Seems so.”

Seleste looks to me. I nod. “It’s weird,” I say, still feeling the electricity crackling along my lips, “It’s like a part of me is still out there, keeping it away.”

“The hologram,” Alyson mutters.

I shrug. “Probably,” I admit, “But I’m not sure I want to try the unplugging trick. Given what would happen.”

“That would be bad,” Hilary says.

Kat and the Hernandezes look confused, though Seleste’s face is more one of dawning realization. “That’s the control thing you mentioned Alyson realizing,” she says to me.

I nod. Kat starts to understand. Mister Hernandez looks at her with the same level of confusion, asking, “What are you talking about?”

Alyson explains, “Hilary had a bit of a problem, back when we first showed up at their room. And in explaining what happened, I accidentally did this.” Holding up her hand, she showed the holographic image of the burning bar and Win rising from the earth to save Mister Jennings. Then, taking a breath, she lets the image fade. “And then I sort of mentally unplugged the power, to turn off the image.”

“Interesting,” he says. His wife closes her eyes and takes a breath. Then after a moment, she adds, “What if we can’t feel a plug?”

I frown. “What do you mean?” I ask.

She takes a deep breath before admitting. “It’s not as bad now as in the hospital, but I,” she pauses, looking at her husband, who shrugs, as though indicating it’s her decision. After another breath, she continues, “I can feel how people died. Like experience it. It was bad in the hospital. Here, there’s just one body in the sewers I think.”

Seleste looks at Kat. “What if she wasn’t just unconscious like you thought. What if she was dying?”

“What do you mean?” the kid asks.

“Right, um,” Kat looks to me for some help.

“We have this theory working. Doesn’t explain everything, though it certainly explains some things,” I start to explain, “Basically when the light washed over us, whatever we were focused on in the moment is related to what we can do. Like taking charge, or doing more, or remembering the past.”

“And if I were dying,” Mrs. Hernandez understands, “That would likely be what my unconscious mind was focused on.” Then, a thought dawned on her. “I wonder if the light, whatever it was, saved me?”

“I don’t think so,” Seleste says, “The light and the heartbeat didn’t seem to have much in the way of intention. Unless…” She trails off, pulling out her phone, with images of her boards, and a notepad, “What if it wasn’t an intention thing. We weren’t paying close attention, to be sure, but you went from stable enough to keep there before the light to stable enough to move after. If the light didn’t just give us powers, but changed us somehow, that might explain your survival.”

“What do you mean, changed us? LIke we’re not human anymore?” Kat asks.

“Don’t know,” Seleste admits, “But Lyle is a walking puddle, Mister Jennings lights things on fire, and you can hold your breath as long as the record holders while doing stuff. So if we are still human, I’m not sure we are entirely so.”

“Wait, you’re a puddle?” the kid asks Lyle. As Lyle does a shrugging nod, the kid replies, “Me too.” He pokes Lyle, then is confused. “Why aren’t you wet if you’re a puddle? Puddles are supposed to be wet.”

“Why are you wet? Did you like just wash your hands?” Lyle asks, then looks at Hilary, “I thought you guys didn’t get hit by the storm.”

“I told you,” the kid insists, “I’m a puddle.”

His dad explains. “It’s like his skin is kind of water, or well, skin-like water, now. Not sure how or why.”

Alyson smiles and kneels down to get to the kid’s level. “That’s like the opposite of Win’s skin. He’s all dried out and scratchy now,” she says with a smile.

The kid chuckles. “That’s ‘cause you guys are part rock now, silly,” he jokes.

“Of course, how could we not have seen that,” she says with a smile as she stands back up.

I, however, take it much more seriously. Last time he made some bizarre, off the wall statement about us was when he said Jennings would be at the tiki bar, despite not knowing what it means. “What if that’s not a joke,” I wonder aloud, looking to Seleste.

She furrows her brow. “What, like there is a third aspect that’s like the earth?” she asks.

“What if we’re all tied to some kind of base force of the world? The atmosphere, heat, life, creativity, the world, light.” With each one I gesture, first to myself, then Mister Jennings, then Kat, Seleste, Win, and finally Hilary. “I’m sure we’ll find more if we look. It would explain the incongruities in our past and intention theory.”

Seleste looks like she’s going to say something, then stops herself, as though reconsidering. “Maybe. Though that leaves a few of us unaccounted for,” she admits. “Why do you think it’s not a joke?”

I could explain that the kid knew about the hotel rooms before I’d told them, or that he knew where to find Mister Jennings, but there was another way to convince her. “Hey kid,” he says, “Want to tell Seleste what you were thinking about in the elevator?”

The kid shrugs. “I was thinking about everything I learned in school about forests, and why it was purple. Oh and why the elevator didn’t close right away when the closet button was pressed. And how old the old guy actually is, because I think he’s younger than he looks, but I’m not sure and mom said it’s rude to ask.”

Seleste nods, and asks, “So you think he knows things now?” Then, another more important question comes to her mind, “I wonder what was different between him and Alyson?”

We all turn to look at the college age woman. She shrugs. “I don’t know things,” she says. “Although, I mean, I knew it wasn’t natural, whatever happened in there. What if that was the difference.”

“Like, he was looking for explanations of a natural variety, and you were looking for things of the supernatural?” Kat asks.

I interject, “Then shouldn’t you be more qualified in understanding what’s going on with us?”

Alyson shrugs. “I mean, maybe. Unless whatever caused the forest shenanigans and what happened to us aren’t the same thing.”

Seleste frowns. I think I understand. “So you’re saying that the light and the beat were just there in the creepy forest already, and something happened that moved us there. Instead of the bottom of the elevator shaft.”

Alyson shrugs, shaking her head to dismiss the idea. “It was just a thought I had. Like a possibility.”

Seleste says, “Well then, want to go investigate the elevator shaft while everyone’s bunkered in the other room but we know it’s safe?” she asks Alyson.

“Can I go with them?” the kid asks, tugging on his father’s arm. His dad looks at Mrs. Hernandez, who smiles, resigned to what is happening, and nods. “Alright, WE can go with them,” Mr. Hernandez says firmly to his son.

Kat, the couple, Mrs. Hernandez and her baby, Jennings, and I remain behind, as the college kids, the reporter, and a father and son head off to do some investigating of the shaft. Kat looks at me. “Not going with them?” she asks.

I could answer honestly: that I’m not sure I can go into that shaft without collapsing in a blind panic. But there is another, more rational reason, too. “If Alyson is right, and they end up elsewhere,” I explain, “What happens with the storm? You saw, my control only extends less than a dozen blocks out.”

She nods, understanding my concern. Kat heads over to talk with the mother, while Mister Jennings goes to talk with the couple. Leaving me alone, to think about the other aspect. Control, and the atmosphere. But what element of my past did the purple light cling to. I was an accountant, but not a particularly great one. Not a bad one either, to be fair. Just unlucky. A few of our big clients went bankrupt one after the other, and the firm had to downsize. They only kept their best earners, and I was just below the line. Last one out, they said. But I didn’t feel like I could make money any better or worse than before. Didn’t feel particularly smarter either. In college, I’d tried my hand at law, but the timing around the LSATs just didn’t quite work out. And I ended up going into accounting. Well, technically, actuarial science for a year. But that job was rough on my mental health, and so I used the money to get myself an accounting degree and move on. Managed to get out of there a few weeks before the firm I was working for at the time got embroiled in a messy lawsuit. But it meant, all in all, I didn’t really have much of a strong foundation. Not like Mister Jennings and his military career, or Kat and her doctoring, or Seleste and her workaholicness. I just sort of drifted through my past. Then again, maybe that was it. Maybe that was why I didn’t feel anything there. Maybe I was just unlucky, and the light didn’t find any past element to empower.

I shake my head, and head over to the pair of women and a baby. When I’d gone in the morning, she’d still been asleep. So I haven’t had the chance to check in on her. “Hey, Mrs. Hernandez. Kat.”

“I hear we have you to thank for the rooms,” Mrs. Hernandez says with a smile.

I shake my head. “It was nothing,” I insist, “I wanted to check in, see how you were doing. When I stopped by the hospital, you were still out.”

She nods. “Better,” she says, “I’m staying in the wheelchair for today, I think, at least until we head up to our room. Standing up was rough and my balance was a bit off when the couple came and picked us up.”

“Just tell Lyle to carry you. He was fine doing it for Jennings, and seems oddly strong. Or Alyson for that matter,” I half joke. I mean, he would, but she seems the sort to be too proud to ask unless it is fully necessary.

She laughs. “If I need to,” she offers politely. Then, more seriously, she adds, “Sorry, it’s just been a lot today.”

“I get it,” I reply, “Feeling all those dead people in the hospital when you woke up must have been hellish.”

Kat smiles. “Well, at least there shouldn’t be any close by dying from the storm,” she says. Then, as though on cue, she grits her teeth, breathes sharply, and asks, “Right?”

Mrs. Hernandez nods. “Haven’t felt anyone but the sewer guy since I got here,” she says.

Kat smiles, though I can tell there’s something more going on. “Good,” she says.

I force a smile of my own. “Hey Kat,” I say, “Let’s let Mrs. Hernandez rest a minute. Besides, there’s something I was wondering about.” I gesture towards the far corner, away from the others. There’s a line of coats that, in theory, would prevent anyone who wasn’t actively trying from telling what we were talking about. She sees through my fake smile and nods, following me into the corner.