Jahkyah Thomas, “Untitled”

UNTITLED

Jahkyah Thomas

“Yo, you must be my new roommate,” Ava says, very welcoming. “Yeah, I guess,’’ she says with a snappy voice. This was made with a lot of techs built into it. All the doors, all of the lights, all of the heat, and the houses on the block are all the same. Ava tries to break the silence and says, “What brings you to the paradox of the city of mystery?” There was no reply. “Where’s my room?” “It’s the last room to the left.” She then storms off down the hall but to her surprise, the door is locked, and I walk to the door. At this point Ava’s over this and over her. She walks off. “My name’s Milo.” She finally opens up. “Whatever, mystery girl.” She smiles and closes the door. A couple of days go by. Ava is an outgoing person and says what’s on her mind, and all of a sudden, there was a sound indicating that the door was open. Ava goes strolling to the door. There’s no one there. This leaves Ava a little skeptical, but she doesn’t mind. She goes back to them, not giving it a second thought. She tries to find Milo to ask her a question. She goes to her room and knocks on the door. To her surprise it says do not disturb. She texts her phone. No answer. She found this a little weird, so she knocked again. Milo finally answers the door with the doesn’t-wanna-be-bothered face. “Hey Milo, would you mind if I had a party later tonight?” “Does it look like I really care?” Milo says with a sassy voice. Ava could feel the rage fill her body like a pool being filled with water on a hot summer day. Ava walks back to the room a little irritated. A couple of hours go by. It’s now time for the party. She’s getting ready, wondering if Milo would like to join us, but doesn’t want to be in a bad mood considering that her party is

in an hour or so. Ava programmed the house to announce when people are entering and leaving the house. The party starts. “Twenty people have entered the house,” the monitor announces throughout the house. Ava runs down the stairs to be greeted by a couple of high school friends that she kept in touch with. “Hey, how’s everybody’s day going?” “It’s going well. Where’s that roommate of yours?” This was the question she was dreading, but it was asked and truth be told, Ava did know herself. Ava quickly turned up the music. It wouldn’t bother the neighbors because of the soundproof house. Quickly things escalate. Ava spots Milo and invites her to join the party, which she does, and they start drinking. They all agree to play a puzzle game. There are a total of twenty-two people in the house. They all get one. Ava announces, “Once you finish your puzzle you can go home.” One of Ava’s tall, brown-skinned friends from high school named Noah says, “What if I don’t want to leave,” in a flirty tone. “Then we will have to make an arrangement,” Milo replies, looking uncomfortable. “Okay, love birds, can we do the puzzles?” she said with a deep voice to be taken seriously with her being 5-foot-2, long brown hair. Everyone comes up to the table, grabs one, and starts. About thirty minutes later, seventeen people had already left the house. “Seventeen people have exited the house,” the house says over the speaker. Now there are five people in the house. The other people gave up and went home. Ava and Milo decide to call it a night. In the bed, Milo feels a hand going over her mouth and smells breath that smells like alcohol and then the voice spoke: “Shut the hell up or there will be a lot of slow songs and flowers to bring.” He let go a chuckle. She stood up and walked into Ava’s room and started to scream. Ava jumped out of bed and said, “Open door.” The door is not opening. Ava heard the sound echo as the house’s main door

closed suddenly. The power went out, and her heart sank to her feet. She felt stuck. She couldn’t get out of the room. There was no one that could, so she thought she was given a test to see how far she was willing to go to get her roommate back. “HELPPPPP!” Ava screamed and to her surprise a man with a deep voice spoke on the house speakers. “Let’s play a game. You like games, right Ava?” “ARE YOU SICK? SCREW YOU!” Ava said loud, trying to put aside the fear she felt. He continues to say, “When I let you out of the room, there are five riddles. With each riddle, you have to sacrifice something.” Ava goes to the puzzle and it reads, you have . . .

To be continued . . .