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Chapter Two: Daisy Chain - Part Three
Leander
Where was he?
Shaking on the linoleum tile—
No, not linoleum. Kicking his leg out a bit to twitch his bare foot against the stone, he knew he knew that feel. The cool, slick smoothness. Sandstone.
Slowly, cautiously, he uncurled himself from his fetally tight ball. First his head, tilting back. The tense muscles in his neck strained and his snarled mass of unruly curls tangled messily as it fell.
He looked one way, then the other before he let the fierce clench he had on his knees loosen. The joints—the sore angles of his elbows and wrists—popped as bent limbs became straight again.
Like a puppy, he weakly rolled over onto his knees. Settling with his shivering form hunched over his knees, he let his forehead rest on the sturdy, stable surface of the sandstone floor.
Babies are born without knee caps, he thought while he stared at his bent legs, which don’t develop until the child is two to six years of age.
He leaned back, strangely comforted by that fact, the sturdy stability and unchanging certainty of it. He let the balls of his feet rest on the stone before pushing up into a Downward Dog pose.
He breathed deep.
Once.
Twice.
A third time.
A person’s breathing rate increased when they started to type.
He pushed up and stared at the wall. Stone-faced, the large, uneven bricks looked sturdy and inescapable.
He quirked his head at a message carved into the stone.
On weak, coltish legs, he walked up to it, his eyes squinting to read the somehow familiar scratched scrawl.
ELYSIUM HOTEL
LEANDER’S ROOM
EXTRA ELYSIUM NULLA SALUS
Leander took a deep breath, feeling somehow comforted by the words.
There is salvation within The Elysium
How did he know that?
His brow furrowed, he reached for the door’s latch. The moment his hand touched the cold metal, the lock snapped with a loud clack.
Leander jumped back, with a shocked yelp.
Reaching out again, he tested the latch, pushing down tentatively. It turned easily under his grip.
The Elysium. Paradise. Zion and Eden. “ ‘That is my home of love: if I have ranged, like him that travels I return again, just to the time, not with the time exchanged.,’ ” Leander murmured before he stepped into the library, remembering a quote he’d once read.
“Sonnet 109” by William Shakespeare. That was it. Happier having placed it, Leander sighed, breathing in the faintly dusty scent of knowledge.
Home.
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