Red Like Wine

Nights in the city are never silent. When you listen, you’ll hear the sound of a car revving, the bark of a dog, the distant sounds of a party or even a call for prayer. these sounds never clamour for attention, they are just simply there, just layered over each other. If you get used to the city, you might simply stop hearing the sounds unless you are really listening. I deliberately listen to the sounds of Azeri every single night. That’s how it starts on the night we discover the portal. The apartment I live in might easily be the cheapest in the entire city. It has cracks on the walls that we don’t seem to notice, the red paint on the cement floor is long faded and the once- white ceiling is now an ugly shade of brown that threatens to fall on us any day from now. The one saving grace of the house is that it’s owner hasn’t evicted us after a few months of unpaid rent and disconnected electricity. My two roommates and I don’t mind living this kind of life. We are all dreamers trying to make it and dreamers can be survivors. I feel like it would be easier if none of us had to pay school fees but the world we live in has never been fair. All of us have no one else but we are determined to make it. My roommate Torrie has learnt to roll with the punches quite literally. She is a fist fighter by night and a student by day. We try not to notice when she shows up with bruises and we give her painkillers when she tries to hide a brocken hand. We don’t ask questions and she doesn’t answer them. It’s how we have managed to live together for twelve years. My other roommate is called Nouvie. She has the glossiest hair you have ever seen, perfectly manicured nails, the fanciest chanel bags and the latest outfits. Sometimes, it’s hard to remember that she still lives with us and that she’s still trying to become a model all these years later. Like Torrie, Nouvie hustles by night and studies by day. Somewhere between that, she goes around stealing outfits and finessing her way through life. Then there’s me. I study all day and I hustle by night except that my hustle involves doing homework for my classmates when they are willing to pay. As I listen to the sound of night I hear the sound of a crowd shouting somewhere in the distance. I know exactly where the noise is coming from because I know where Torrie works. I’ve seen the audience. It’s mostly older men who pay to watch teenagers fight. Sometimes I wonder how Torrie can keep living that life. I look out into the city, pretending I am part of the chaos. Sometimes, I wish I am like Torrie or Nouvie. They could get out there and meet new friends, even do whatever they wished to do. I'm eternally stuck, chained to the fear of not being good enough. I'm stuck in the possibility of what might happen if I went out and I didn’t fit in. The city looks beautiful, almost as if it is glittering. all the glowing lights allow me to imagine that I could get a better life if I wanted. I hear the roar of a crowd in the distance and I wish I wasn't home alone. It's a while before I don't hear the crowd anymore. That's how I know that the fight is over. I could never understand how the entire crowd of men enjoys seeing teenagers fight each other, sometimes to death. I could never understand how Torrie decided to be one of the fighters or even how nouvie wears the finest clothes although all three of us could be the poorest people in all of the City. It starts drizzling and I know I should go back inside but I don't want to. So the first drop of rain falls on my shoulder, the second on my forehead and the third on my hand. I still don't move. Out on the street below the balcony, I see a couple walk past and I wonder how that would feel. I wonder if there is anyone meant for me out there and what they are like. When I was a child, someone told me that everyone has a soulmate out there, it's just finding them that's hard. I hear a noise at the door and I run into the house fast. I know it's Torrie trying to open our squeeky door because this is what we do every night. Torrie sneaks off to fight in the city and I pretend not to notice that her entire body is bruised or when she sneaks into the house. Nouvie goes out into the city every night and I pretend not to notice that she has new shoes or expensive clothes. I remain pouring over books from school and they try not to point out that I'm already the best student in robotics class and that I don't have a life. That's how we live, it all works. The city is a se, but we can barely swim. By the time Torrie manages to wrest the door open, I'm already at my desk, pretending to solve a complex maths sum. "Hey, roommate!" Torrie has to speak loudly so I can hear her over the trap music blasting from a neighbours speaker. "Hey roommate," I yell back. For some reason, to Torrie is always dressed in leather and jeans. Brown leather jacket and boots, black tee shirt and blue jeans. Her black hair is always cut close to the scalp and her nails are always cut short. Tonight, she has a bruise on her left cheek but I pretend not to notice. We are all just trying to survive in a city that doesn't care, it's what we've been doing for the last twelve years. Torrie doesn't make it to her room before someone starts trying to open the door. I can guess it's Nouvie by her feather light touch even when she is trying to force the door open. Torrie and I don't move to help her open the door because she has a better chance coaxing it open from the outside. The door finally yields, letting in a blast hot air from the corridor. Nouvie steps in, taking off her shoes and throwing off her sling at in one fluid movement. She looks up slowly at me then Torrie. Then she breaks into a smile as if she has been expecting to see us there the entire time. I'm thinking that I've never seen her surprised or caught off-guard. "How are the both of you, I haven't seen you in a while." She says and I realise we haven't seen each other in a long time although we all live in the same crumbling apartment. We all go to the university at the edge of the city but we have different classes and departments. "Me neither, " Torrie says without sarcasm for once but then she gets defensive "not that all of us don't have things to do. Some of us have to scratch and claw for every single thing we have." Nouvie responds by smiling. Her smile actually make her look like she's from a toothpaste commercial. "I know, getting your nose broken for a living looks way better." I can see Torrie crossing her hands and I hope that the fight ends before it even begins. Last time they actually fought was two years ago and none of them has gotten over the fight.so I try to run for it in a completely different direction. "There is food in the fridge if any of you is hungry." I say. I can see Torrie start to relax. Of all the three of us, she's always had the biggest appetite. She goes to the fridge and grabs a tin of food then she heads for her room. The entire time, her eyes don't leave Nouvie. I pretend to go back to my studying as she passes by my desk but then she pauses. "Robotics again?" She asks and I'm confused for a minute before she points to the Robotics textbook spread open in front of me. I nod, noticing that it was up side down but when I turn to her again, she is looking from me to the book and back with arched eyebrows. She doesn't say anything. She doesn't ask for an explanation and I don't offer one. "I swear I can't stand her sometimes!" Nouvie huffs once Torrie gets into her room and shuts her door. I am silent because it's Torrie who has been contributing to the food and sometimes rent. I haven't had much luck finding a job and none of us have any idea where Nouvie gets her money or even how she spends it. She just always somehow has the perfectly manicured nails and the fanciest beauty products. Her long black hair is always straightened and glossy. Her brown skin is always glowing. Torrie goes to the rings to fight every single day. Sometimes, she wins and gets paid. I start closing my books but Nouvie stops me. "I got you something for your birthday," she says. This time when she smles, it feels more genuine and less like it belongs in a toothpaste commercial. I remember that I am turning twenty. I didn't buy either of them anything for their twentieth birthdays a few months ago. I'm not surprised by this gesture because I've seen how kind Nouvie can be. I know she is running from something and she can't tell us what it is. So I don't ask. She opens the leather handbag and ignores the golden chain straps as they jingle. She pulls out three golden lockets and puts one in my hands. "I got these for us." I know that by "us," she means Torrie, her and me. The lockets look like they cost our entire rent. She puts the other pockets down and helps me wear the one she gave me. "Thank you," I say to her. She moves to hug me but as she pulls away, she freezes with her eyes fixed on something behind me. I look at her and turn around to see what she is looking at. I find a door open in the far end of the room. It's the door the landlady specifically told us never to open. I try to think weather it was open before Torrie came but I know it was closed. Torrie could not have opened the door because she has been in her room the entire time. The door is only half open but it looks menacing because inside it, I can only see darkness. In the eight months we have lived in the apartment, we've tried everything we could to try and open it but the door wouldn't budge. The landlady keeps reminding us not to try and open it but that's probably why we keep trying to open it. Once, I asked her why we shouldn't open the door. She wouldn't tell me what was inside, she only made some vague references to magic, doors and energy. Now as I stare at the door, it dawns on my that I can almost feel it on my skin. It's like a faint buzzing. It's so subtly, but it's unrelenting. Nouvie feels it too because I see her shudder. After a few moments, Nouvie hands me the other locket. "Give it to Torrie." She turns around and leaves quickly, locking the door of her room behind her. I move to lock the door but it suddenly dawns on me that I'm alone in the room. It suddenly feels like someone or something is watching me so I turn around and run to Torrie's room instead. I clutch the door knob, throwing all my weight behind it but it doesn't budge. My heart is drumming away in my chest like a mad thing and I can barely breathe. The door opens suddenly so that I'm yanked into Torrie's room. I put out an arm to prevent myself from falling on my face. I fall to the ground with a thump. "What the hell is after you?" I look up to see Torrie beside the door, her left hand still on the doorknob. I try to explain what I just felt but I can find the words so I keep quiet and just look at her. Her eyes narrow and I guess she feels the subtle buzzing too because she looks out the door. She shrugs her shoulders when she doesn't see anything in the corridor but I know she can feel it. "I came to bring you this locket," I say after an awkward moment. She nods and takes the golden locket. "Eeew, this thing is ugly." She says but her tone is playful. "It could make someone blind. Where did you get it?" "The weapons and arms shop if you must know." I say and we both start laughing. I know we're only joking because she obviously knows it's from Nouvie but she's taken it as an apology. We exchange jokes for a while as I watch her put the locket away in a drawer. The tension still sits heavily between us and I can still feel the faint buzzing. "Did you open the door?" I ask just before I leave. Her brows arch. "Which door?" "The one that the landlady's always racing about." "No... I didn't. What's inside it?" I shake my head. "I don't know." She laughs "Don't be so scared, let's go and find out." I walk out of her room, trying to walk to my room as fast as I possibly can but she grabs my arm, determined to pull me the opposite way. I reluctantly let her pull me to the offending door, hoping it doesn't turn out to be a cursed room. We stand in front of the door, Torrie's courage wanning by the second as we near it. She holds her hand, pausing just before she touches the door. She breaks into nervous laughter, backing off. Both of us go to our rooms after but I can barely sleep. I lock my door and hide myself under two blankets but I can still feel the faint buzzing on my skin. I call the landlady twice but she obviously doesn't pick up the phone because it's almost midnight. So I text her, telling her we found the door open. I fall asleep at dawn, hoping to wake up early because I have an early class. I'm barely awake before I hear the shouting. I groan because I can already see the rays of the sun through the thin curtains and it means that I'm already late. Even if I woke up, I wouldn't make it to the campus in time. So I try to go back to sleep but then again I hear the angry shouts. I'm angry because sometimes the neighbours have fights like this. I get up, ready to unleash hell on them but instead,I find out that the noise is coming from Torrie's room. Both of them are rarely ever up before midday. I walk into Torrie's room knowing whatever they are arguing about, it's been brewing for a while. My head is pounding and my nose feels runny. The sensation is disarming but I go to Torrie's room anyway because I know how easily their fights can get physical. "Why are you always jealous. You can't go around stealing peoples jewellery." Nouvie shouts. It's one of the few times I've seen her angry. Torrie is in front of her and they are glaring at each other. Nouvie's tears are sitting dangerously on her eyelids. "I could never want your ugly jewellery." Torrie shouts back but Nouvie is having none of it. Nouvie starts sorting through Torrie's clothes, infuriating Torrie. I get between them just as Torrie goes to grab Nouvie. Nouvie keeps sifting through the clothes obliviously, her tears falling. I remember my phone and I go to grab it but I'm startled when the screen lights up. The landlady's name flashes on the screen briefly the disappears. I unlock the phone to see seventeen missed calls from her. I groan. The shouting begins again. I run to Nouvie's room to see if I can find the jewellery but I stop at the door. Nouvie's room is the only part of our apartment that is immaculately clean all the time. But now as I look in, I see all the furniture stripped and the clothes dishevled, it looks like someone has ransacked the room. Then it hits me that my room was a little dishevled too. I'm angry because Nouvie ransacked my room while I was asleep. That's how she knows I don't have her jewellery. She has ransacked every nook and cranny of the room. I'm on my way to Torrie's room to give Nouvie a piece of my mind when I stop on my tracks. My phone buzzes repeatedly but I can't check it because I'm shocked. The door that we shouldn't open was only open a c***k last night but now it's wide ajar. For some reason, the room looks scary. My phone buzzes again. I can't stop looking at the antique furniture covered in transparent polythene paper. Buzz. The middle of the room is empty and the rest of the room seems warped for some reason. Buzz. I can see Nouvie's jewellery sitting in the middle of the room. Buzz. "Listen, Alina," Torrie grabs me by the shoulder, her voice quaking with fury but then she stops when she sees my expression and she follows my line of sight to the open room. She freezes too. Now the buzzing sensation feels anything but subtle. I can feel it pulse like it's alive. In the buzz, I feel something deeper, like a pull. Nouvie comes to me, her face tearstreaked. She turns and notices the jewellery in a pile in the middle of the room then runs to get them. A part of me is relieved because we can finally stop all this fighting. I pull my phone from my pocket when it buzzes again but this time, I'm shocked when I see the screen. There are several more missed calls and messages. "GET OUT OF THE APARTMENT!" The landlord has texted repeatedly. "NOW!" I'm still starting at the screen when the last message comes. "WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T GET INTO THE ROOM." In a fraction of a second, the pulses intensifies so that I can actually feel the pull of the room. The feeling is almost mesmerising but I know I should stay away because it's like the calm before a storm. Everything starts looking warped inside the room so that we cans see Nouvie clearly. The pulses intensify to an impossible degree so we can barely walk when Nouvie yelps. Then we both plunge in to the room without thinking because although, we get on each others nerves, we only have each other. It's like when the sun explodes. Everything is too bright and too hot. I try to grab for something, anything to keep me steady. I feel like I'm in motion and I can't feel my hands or feet. I can't feel myself. I'm not sure if I've seen a swipe of Nouvie's silky black hair. I'm not sure who I am or where I am. I'm just spinning and falling. The light is too bright even though I'm sure my eyes are closed. Everything stops so suddenly that I feel sick. My stomach lurches and I can't breathe. Then my foot touches the ground but I'm too unsteady to stand. I fall to the ground but the ground is too cold. Nothing is supposed to be this cold. My ears are still ringing.