For a moment, Michael doesn’t understand where they are. He blinks repeatedly, disoriented, until the spark of recognition lights a fuse inside him and a countdown starts in big red flashing numbers like on TV when the ball is coming down in Times Square on New Years Eve.
TEN, NINE, EIGHT. The liquids in his body are starting to bubble like he’s been carbonated. It goes to his head, dizzying; to his fingers, prickling; to his lungs, gasping. The air is so still. The air isn’t really there. He doesn’t know how he’s breathing. He doesn’t know if this is real. The marrow in his bones tells him this is not the time to ask questions. SEVEN, SIX, FIVE. Photographs, movies, documentaries, magazine articles, Wikipedia pages, lines of poetry fly through his brain. Memories of the nighttime, of endless nighttimes, of certain odd mornings; the tide rushing up to the shore at Coney Island and holidays gentiles could never keep track of; those are there, too. Swirling together, washing over him. FOUR, THREE, TWO. His hand tightens like a vise around Wolfgang’s. Wolfgang did this. Just like they said in their text messages: pretty easy, actually. They’d asked if he wanted to see something, and he thought they might have some board games. Instead, they’re here. They’re here.
ONE
He turns his head to look at them. His eyes are wide and glassy, pupils the size of dinner plates. “The sky is black,” he says breathlessly.