During the quaint years of my adolescence, I often found myself spending most of my free time in a way that many would find peculiar. I would listen to music constantly, drowning out the world around me, while daydreaming different scenarios that could range from me being a magical sorceress to me living a life that was simply better than my current one. The music allowed me to sink into whatever story that I was dreaming no matter my surroundings. I lost hours of my life, that could''ve been used for a worthwhile cause, to my pathetic fantasies. My habits consisted well into my teenage years and unsurprisingly, I developed hearing loss from the constant audio consumption.
Growing up in a major city where there was never a tranquil moment, I valued the few times when it truly did seem like the city went to sleep. However, my hearing loss made it so that any time it became too silent a shrill ringing would emerge from my right ear. I soon discovered that this was a condition known as tinnitus. Luckily, I did not face any worse damage to my hearing, as I could still hear all the sounds required to function normally, but I would never be able to experience true silence ever again.
I turned to other methods of escaping reality that wouldn’t cause harm to my ears such as reading, drawing, and writing. They worked and I was soon able to take some sort of control of my life only spending an hour or so a day on my hobbies. But I could never escape the longing of a better, more exciting life that I knew awaited me just beyond my fingertips. I soon got my wish.
During my junior year of university, for the first time ever in history, there was recorded and proven documentation of a supernatural phenomenon. Two weeks before Thanksgiving, in the middle of Times Square, a section of the ocean appeared in the sky. About 15 feet above ground, 60 feet wide, and 1.7 inches deep, a gigantic block of ocean water still filled with aquatic life floated in the middle of the plaza. The area was closed off from the public until the block of water eventually plummeted onto the ground merely three days later. The fish and seaweed that were still in the water were taken to labs to be studied but there were no unusual findings.
After this occurrence, a multitude of supernatural experiences emerged everywhere around the world. By the time I graduated university, these magical events became mild nuisances in the daily life of a person.
“Ugh, my flight was delayed because another flock of birds stopped mid air.”
“I couldn’t ride the train to work because a cactus appeared in the middle of the tracks!”
“Oh, the Eiffel Tower is wiggling again?”
Regardless of the public’s indifference, the government and numerous universities began to hold expeditions and research trips to areas with high supernatural occurrences in an effort to discover the cause of these events. I, being a hopeless philomath, of course, applied to volunteer for these expeditions. Obviously, it was very competitive, with numerous college grads such as myself applying, hoping to put this on their resumes. But by a stroke of luck I was accepted to the first expedition I applied for which was being funded by multiple universities including the one I graduated from.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
The group consisted of five members each with varying backgrounds. Firstly, there were two recent college grads who served as research assistants: myself and another girl named Olivia, the babies of the group. We had a nurse, a very (very) large bearded man named Redmond, who, at first meeting, seemed to glare at me with a concerning amount of hostility, which I later discovered was how he looked at everyone. The other man of the group, Cain, seemed to be the complete opposite in terms of personality, always having a grin plastered across his clean shaven face and constantly oozing charisma out of his pores. I also recall him throwing a smug wink my way which I kindly returned with a scowl. He was one of the main researchers. Finally, Imelda, the other main researcher and the lead of the expedition. I estimated her age to be around late 30s or early 40s, judging by the slight graying of her hair. I also made note of her muscular arms and the amount of time she probably spent on her physical health despite her busy schedule as a researcher. As soon as we all arrived at the meeting site, she made a point to emphasize the efficiency of time to remind us not to spend too much time socializing.
With the rest of the members, I boarded the charter bus that would take us to our research site, a small town in Oregon. Looking around the bus, I found myself being surprised that the universities would actually pay for decent travel accommodations. I recalled the summer before my senior year and my horrific experience with my first research trip. The university that funded the trip had provided us with cozy mold stricken cabins to stay in which eventually caused half of our group to go delirious from the toxins. With this memory in mind, I worried that the universities accidentally spent all of the budget of the trip on this one bus. Either way, I reveled in the space and picked a seat near the middle. I closed my eyes in relaxation preparing to take a long well deserved nap. But soon my peace was interrupted by an ominous presence.
“Fancy, right?” Cain said as he plopped down on the chair next to me resting his hands on his head. When I didn’t respond immediately, he swiveled his head toward me with his signature grin, as if he was doing me a favor by sitting next to me.
“Yeah!” I nodded vigorously as I faked a smile. I wanted some way to imply that I wanted personal space but I found that being sassy with the higher-ups usually didn’t end well. Seeming to be satisfied with my response, Cain turned his head right back around. Getting bored, he turned around again and looked over his seat, beginning to hassle the other research assistant, Olivia, who was sitting a few seats behind us. Olivia was the only person in the group who didn’t stand out in any way, shape, or form.
Everything about Olivia was bland. Her blonde hair looked as if someone had taken a vacuum and sucked all the life out of it, leaving only a dank gray color that would remind most of a rat’s fur. So much so that I had unconsciously started calling her "rat hair" in my mind. Her skin lacked any sort of pigmentation at all, giving her a prominent anemic look. She was also meek, always speaking in whispers and avoiding eye contact, and it was obvious that she would not be able to stand up to Cain.
“Hey, we’ll have enough time for talking once we get there. Quiet down now.” Imelda said, giving Cain a firm stare. Cain threw his head back and guffawed, giving Imelda a mock salute. I didn’t know much about my team members other than their roles in the expedition but it was clear that Cain and Imelda had some sort of history with each other in the past. In the front of the bus, Redmond swiftly glanced back at us with an irritated look (or maybe his regular look), being so tall that his head loomed above the headrest of his seat. I sighed and rested my head against my own headrest, hoping that the bus ride would go swiftly.