Log 1
Freezing November rain pattered on the dark green hood of my parka. The drops on my glasses barely allowed me to see the road. A spongy green dot appeared in front of me. Full speed I pedaled, the sooner I found my way out of this wet nightmare the better.
A squawking horn sounded from the right, tires dragged across wet pavement, headlights glared, and my heart skipped a beat. Inches from my ankle, the wide mouth of a Benz came to a stop. My bike swayed and nearly fell over, with a wobbly step on the ground I managed to save myself. At that moment, the driver of the tartar-yellow taxi, eyes wide and mouth open, put aside the cell phone he had been holding to his ear moments before.
“Idiot!“, I yelled, pointing at the now red pedestrian light. Without caring, I drove on, splashing and shaking my head.
Not tartar-yellow, but light ivory-yellow was the official taxi color in Germany, it flashed through my mind. I remember that scene in every detail. Today, I hate yellow. Especially the nose-slime-like, rather yellow-greenish “mono-yellow”, which you will remember in case something similar happens to you as it did to me in the future.
The shock sat in my limbs as I steered the junky, orange-and-yellow mountain bike I was paying off from my meager earnings at a seafood restaurant through the deep puddles in the bike lane. I had declined my helicopter mother’s kindly, but completely inappropriate for a 16-year-old, offer to drop me off like an elementary school student right in front of the school. Driving up in my father’s 12-tonne truck-mounted crane wouldn’t have been any better, but he was away on a job anyway. I’d rather put up with soaked sneakers and soaking wet jeans than face this embarrassment. In contrast to my four years younger sister, who let herself be driven across Düsseldorf like the empress of the Rhineland.
Looking back, I can tell you that my wool-warmed and carefree life was a bed of roses at that point.
As I struggled to steer the bike along the right-hand side of the road, cars roared past and the filthy soup splashed in my face. Disgusting. It was a maximum of ten minutes through Düsseldorf’s city center to my home in the Bilk district. I tried to keep my eyes halfway up the road so that the same thing would not happen to me again with the taxi. My front wheel slid into the tram tracks, which, as usual, ran exactly perpendicular across the bike lane. Steering and keeping my balance were suddenly impossible. The helmet hung from the handlebars so the hood of the parka would fit. Just another in a whole chain of capital mistakes.
The mountain bike tipped over. My head hit the rain-soaked asphalt without braking. The world sank into blackness.
---
Noisy, electric humming woke me. My skull hammered in rhythm with my thudding heart. Stretched out long, I lay on a wet surface. Not asphalt. Carpet? Light stung my glued eyes as I opened them.
With difficulty I struggled to my feet in soaking wet clothes. Nose-slime-yellow wallpapered walls of a deep room stretched out on all sides. Mono-yellow. Stench rose to my nostrils. A mixture of rot and urine. I didn’t want to know what the flooring was saturated with. Individual panels glowed in the ceiling at irregular intervals. Like a seedy hotel hallway. From them emanated the enervating hum as well as an unsteady flicker.
Where in the hell was I?
I just fell off my bike and hit my head.
Now what?
Firm damp ground. Wet clothes. Hard walls. The unnerving hum and flicker of overhead lights. The bump on my skull. This was not a dream. But what else?
Coma. Sure, I was in a coma. Presumably, at that moment, my body was asleep in a bed in the university clinic, outfitted with various tubes and cannulas and a beeping heart monitor. My parents – or at least my mother Nicole – and Emilia, my little sister, stood beside me, trying to wake me with gentle words. This was how it would be. What else?
At first, I waited. Eventually, I would wake up. Or maybe I wouldn’t. After a while, I looked at the smartwatch. 3:12:45 pm. The seconds seemed frozen. On the smartphone I pulled out of my pocket, same thing. No cell service or Wi-Fi. The time display stopped, no GPS or navigation. Okay, I was in a coma. What had I been expecting?
The humming and flickering and the mono-yellow walls were slowly but surely burning into my cerebral convolutions. I decided to leave this room, hoping it would get better somewhere. This was my coma, my mind I was traveling in. On the back wall was a junction into another two chambers of identical appearance. Always keep to the left. This method was surefire to reach the end of any maze. I noticed a thin film of water running down the walls in a few places, held my fingers to it and smelled. Musty water.
Was there a movement? I had noticed something out of the corner of my eye. When I turned around, the room was empty in front of me. Now on the other side! More clearly this time. On the wallpaper, tiny mounds moved in random paths, like fat bugs scurrying under the night’s sheets. Heart pounding, I stepped closer. There was nothing there. Just smooth mono-yellow surface. A deception? Were my senses playing tricks on me?
Various long corridors and rooms in always the same mono-yellow alternated. I knew that if I was in a coma, I would wander endlessly through this strange labyrinth. Earplugs to at least get rid of the unsteady humming would be super.
“Hello?“, I called out, trying something else. “HAAALLLOO? Can anyone hear me?”
Nothing. I shrugged my shoulders and wandered on. In between, I had started counting the steps out of curiosity. At 10,000 I gave up. I had also tried to carve marks into this strange wallpaper with my bunch of keys, since I could theoretically walk in circles. No chance, the material was extremely resistant just like the carpet. Interestingly, I could barely hear the hum and the smell no longer bothered me. The human brain was amazingly adaptable.
I had been on the road for hours, exhausted, hungry, thirsty. Besides, my legs were getting heavy. My thighs hurt like hell on the insides as they chafed with the wet clothes. This coma was more realistic than I would have liked. To recover, I squatted down on the damp floor.
The humming stopped. That was the first thing I noticed. With wobbly knees, I stood up again. In the distance, someone was talking. Barely perceptible, individual words could not be made out. From what direction was this coming? To get my bearings, I listened in the next few rooms. Unfortunately, the enervating sound of the lamps set in, and the voices could no longer be made out. Nevertheless, I decided to wander on. Once again, the murmuring words sounded louder over the hum. Was it my family waking me from my coma?
“Here!“, I shouted again. “I’m here!”
The murmuring died away. Cautiously, I moved on. The sounds or the crawling of the beetles did not repeat.
Endless hours later I was completely exhausted, my mouth was dry as dust and my eyes fell shut. Coma or not, it didn’t help, there was no way around drinking and sleeping. Therefore, I strode to the nearest wall, caught the musty water with my hands and swallowed it. It didn’t taste delicious, but it quenched my thirst. Lacking alternatives, I ended up half-sitting in a damp corner on the wet floor, using my parka as a pillow, and fell asleep.
With a racing heart, I startled. Something was different.
It was watching me.
Goosebumps spread across the back of my neck. Swiftly, I peered into the hallways, unable to find a reason for the feeling.
It was approaching. It was abysmally evil.
My pulse raced. Sweat dripped into my eyes. I was burning hot and freezing cold at the same time. For the first time, real, panicked fear rose inside me, stretching from my stomach to the back of my neck. Get out of here! At all costs. Now!
Without looking back, I sprinted off blindly. The foul breath of the predator blew into my neck.
Run. Go! Corner after corner. Lungs on fire. Side stitching, like someone had jammed a knife under my ribs.
Completely exhausted, I staggered forward, tripping over my own feet. At full speed I crashed unbraked into the rock-hard wall covered with mono-yellow wallpaper.
And awoke breathing heavily with my heart pounding in my skull. My back was leaning against a wooden park bench under the Rhine Tower. A lush green park spread out before me with a picturesque view of the tautly stretched steel cables of the Rheinknie Bridge. The mountain bike was neatly parked next to me, and my blue school backpack lay next to it. The sky was cloudy. Deep puddles testified to a past shower.
What was going on here? Just a moment ago in a stinking, endless mono-yellow maze, chased by an invisible monster – and now ... this?
Briskly, I pulled out the smartphone. It was in my pocket and showed 4:15 pm. The seconds kept ticking dutifully. About an hour after the accident that same day. With trembling fingers, I palpated my head. A thick, scabbed bump had formed on the side, hurting fiercely at the slightest touch. In addition, my skull was pounding.
Was it all just a hallucination? How did I get here? Did I black out after the accident and wander around the city for an hour?
Probably. That would explain it. Somehow.
