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Chapter 3

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You open your eyes to a small, cluttered room. Lifting your arm, you’re happy to find yourself no longer restrained: except, that is, for the needle in your arm, into which drains the I.V. bag standing beside your bed. As the last bits of drowsiness leave your body, the traumatic memory of your last moments fully manifests. In a panic, you lunge to your leg. Curiously, it seems unharmed. Feeling it up and down for a scar, you’re happy to find there isn’t one. Finally wiggling your toes, you feel certain that the leg is fine and unchanged.

A wave of relief rolls over your body as you decide that everything that had been experienced was just a dream. Why would a strange woman cut off my leg? It’s my second biggest appendage. You chuckle at the joke and hope there might be an audience to share it with when you see the large mirror to the right of the bed. Its contents horrify in subtle detail. In brown dried blood (yours, you assume) is the written message: “Find Fisher.” You look at the message and realize that your memory of the past day had indeed happened.

As a matter of fact, more than one day has happened. Besides the I.V., you notice a few more changes: the smell of sweat and urine on the bed; the book spines on the floor now covered with dried blood; and, most tellingly, you can see in the mirror that you’ve grown a small beard and mustache. From the facial hair, it can be presumed that at least four days have passed.

Grasping your head, you attempt to understand how you got here. I remember the call from Thomas, then some sort of boat. I definitely remember Irem and her father. After that it’s just bright light and having my leg cut off. God, I don’t even know where I am. This is the second time this has happened! How am I so good at unknowingly ending up at places?

Deciding to investigate, you jump out of the bed, but quickly feel your left leg give under your weight. The leg is still asleep and can’t be bothered. After a few minutes of massaging it awake, you try standing again, and this time succeed. Surveying the room, you can see one of the nightstands has a pair of jeans and a black shirt on it. Probably a gift from my mystery woman, Cemone. Ordinarily I wouldn’t take a hand out from a woman that has possibly maimed me, but I can’t afford to walk around in clothes covered in sweat and urine without expecting to get some sort of rash. Another reason to change your clothes is self-respect, but sadly that isn’t considered. After carefully removing the I.V. from your arm, you walk towards the clothes, feeling the leathery spines of books each step of the way.

The shirt fits well enough, but the jeans seem oddly small. The waist is wide enough, and the legs are long enough; but the denim feels very tight against your skin. If you flex them hard enough, the jeans will push against your calves. The pants are tight all around. Gonna have to get some new pants. Or at least slit some holes in these.

After putting everything on and examining yourself in the mirror, you exit out of the only door in the room. It leads to a rather short hallway with a single light fixture on the wall and three pairs of shoes at the end with a door behind them. Another message has been painted, on the door, right above the shoes. In blood (again, probably yours), the message reads: “Dealer’s Choice.”

Cute. All the shoes have rolls of black socks in them, and they all look identical in style. The shoes are canvas high tops, with white laces. The only distinguishing factor these shoes have are their colors. The first is black, the second brown, and the third gray.

Do you want to pick the black shoes? (go to Eight.)

Do you want to pick the brown shoes? (go to Nine.)

Or do you want to pick the gray shoes? (go to Ten.)