Salvationia

“Murray Saints,” a woman’s voice called over the speaker.

I turned from my lunch table to see her: medium height, brown skin, black wavy hair resting just above her shoulders. I don’t know why nothing struck me about her the first time I saw her. She was the blueprint of my type, but I was already in a bad mood being here and my eyes were already set on the girl I had met a few days ago. We were all spread out in seating. The girl I liked Gwenda Honey was seated with some other girls across the way. I tried to make eye contact with her since my name was called up, but she was busy eyeing something else in the cafeteria, twirling on the short strands of her plain brown hair. I should have been thinking about work and my future, but instead I was worried about getting laid.

Kebs nudged me with his elbow.

“You won something!”

“Probably nothing,” I muttered. I was sitting with the new friends I made arriving here at the airport. We quickly called ourselves “the gang” that consisted of me, Kebs, Annie, Mick, Lulu, Suey, Jo, and a few other dudes. So, there were like ten of us at this table talking about how we ended up at a job for troubled youth just out of high school. Some of us were put here against our will while others like me didn’t have much of a choice anyways.

This was my life: a dull city, a dull job I had just been hired into, and a dull outlook on life. The only part that wasn’t dull was the friends I had made. The first three days were spent unpacking and assigning us rooms and one day unwinding. On the third day now, they were trying to make it not so drabby I supposed by doing a raffle before announcing our team leaders. Sitting through orientation, they were pulling names out of a hat for prizes. It was probably all corporate nonsense meant to warm us up for what we were about to go through, but I played along with everyone else. The job came with on-campus housing, which was all I could afford. Back in my hometown I could barely pay rent. The world felt bleak, and I had no family to fall back on anyway. As for the relatives who could have helped, I’d rather scrape by on my own than live under their roof.

Yes, my name is Murray Saints, just as that woman had said into the microphone. I stood and walked up to the small stage to claim my prize. The woman handed me an envelope passed to her by the chief executive standing next to her without so much as looking up from her top hat of names. She was ready to announce the next winner. Her oversized glasses hid most of her face, and I couldn’t see her eyes. I’ve always disliked glasses that cover half a person’s features; eyes are the first thing that opens one’s soul to you I always thought. I noticed at her bosom a peculiar necklace, so unique looking I almost wanted to ask her about it on the spot. It was a golden cross with a heart in the middle and the ends also embedded in golden hearts. They looked like cupid arrows.

The chief executive loomed beside her with the Team Leaders. He reached over and crushed my hand in an overzealous shake, nearly wrenching my elbow.

“Open up the prize here!” he exclaimed.

Inside the slip was a gift card to a place called Galvin’s Sanctorium Emporium.

“Congratulations, boy! Thirty dollars’ worth!” he boomed.

I heard snickering throughout the room. It wasn’t the flat-screen TV someone else had won, but it beat the five-dollar McDonald’s voucher, I guess. Still, I couldn’t shake the sour feeling rising in me. Maybe it was the change of weather. Fall was ending, and I’d always hated that. If fall represented dying, then surely winter represented death. I always longed for summer. But I would have to wait another six months in this dump to feel the sunshine again.

“That concludes our prize draw! Now you all are dismissed to check the bulletin for your chosen Team Leaders!”

Me and the boys of our gang looked at each other with big eyes, rubbing our hands as we dashed off with the hundreds of other people. Last night at the bar we were talking about all the hot babes, so we hoped to get the hottest team leader. Everyone hoped for some girl named Penelope. To be honest I didn’t get a good look at the team leaders except for one whose name I learned was Lassie when I pretended to get lost from my room when I arrived because I thought she was hot. I thought I would at least get her and if not getting Penelope would have been funny as the guys would be absolutely jealous of me.

Approaching the bulletin board with me and Kebs trying to swivel our way through the sardine like crowd we faced the music.

“Woo!” Mick shouted. “I got Penelope!”

A bunch of guys high fived and started hooting. I hurriedly looked for my name under all of the team leaders. I prayed for it not to be another man. Please, don’t be a dude, please don’t be a dude…

And then I saw her name.

“Carmen Santos…” Kebs read out loud for me with his arms folded.

“Are you on her team?” I asked him.

“Nah, but you are.”

I felt disappointed that one of my best friends wasn’t going to endure this year with me. Yeah, we just met the other day but he pulled me aside and told me he could tell we were going to be friends for a long time.

“Whose Carmen?” I asked. Before Kebs could reply someone pulled the fire alarm. Everyone scurried out as you could hear the Chief scream.

Later that night at a jazz bar downtown…

“What the hell is a wonder emporium?” I asked the fellas at the bar after orientation. The gift card looked like a ticket to the circus that read Galvin’s Sanctorium Wonder Emporium. I stuffed the gift card back in my wallet and went back to drinking. Nothing felt as good as a cold beer you could barely afford. We almost were all punished for some kid pulling the fire alarm earlier, but this was our last night out all together before we would all be divided at work. After that it would be harder to meet up all at once.

“Ah,” Mickey said. “Must be one of those vintage shops.”

I did like vintage shops. Anything old and painstakingly crafted for beauty was my ongoing aesthetic preference.

“Let’s hope it’s an X-flick store instead.” The guys laughed.

“We all know the chief is a pervert!”

I laughed along too until a sudden wave of depression hit me. I turned away so Kebs wouldn’t notice. I hated it when people asked me what was wrong because I felt like a wimp.

I didn’t know why I was so depressed. It had been that way my whole life. I was born with a question mark over my head, practically, and got punished over and over for asking. The more questions I asked, the fewer answers I seemed to get. Everyone around me, even my friends, seemed so lost in the world we lived in but happy. Me? How could you be lost and happy? Maybe my friends didn’t realize how lost they were. Or maybe they weren’t lost at all. Maybe they had found their place in this cruel world, and I hadn’t. Sure, like my friend from my hometown said, I should be grateful. I’m not in a war-torn country (yet), I have food in my belly, I have no health issues (yet), I’m young—feeling forever 21—and I have a job I already hate, but a job I have nevertheless. I sound ridiculous complaining already. But I can’t help it.

“Did you guys get your team leaders names yet from the bulletin?” Kebs elbowed me because he knew I wasn’t paying attention.

“Oh yeah, I got the hottest babe on the panel! Jane!” one guy blabbed.

Everyone booed.

“What?”

“She’s not the hottest.”

“Yeah, it’s definitely Penelope.”

“Yeah, right.”

“At least you all got a woman! I got some dude named Bartholomew.”

“Who name’s their kid that?” everyone roared in laughter.

I was half listening, thinking intently on Gwenda Honey and her big, doe eyes and her slender figure in that tight black dress. My phone was buzzing with a new text message. I hoped it was her and it was.

“Oh, what about that dame Murray got assigned to?”

“Me?” I said, looking up from my phone briefly. Gwenda was sending me texts to meet her that night at her dad’s place. He so happened to live outside of town in some mansion. There’s no way I’d miss that. She had permission to stay over there while I was stuck in the dorms with a bunch of smelly dudes. I mean I’m bisexual but most of the guys here were an absolute no for me. I had like fours hours left til curfew. Enough time to get laid right?

“Yeah, that one girl.”

“I don’t recall.” I went back to texting Gwenda.

“The Indian chick!”

“She’s not Indian, dumbass,” Kebs said.

“Lulu said she was.”

“Lulu wouldn’t know the difference between a stick and a dick up her ass.”

“Her name is Carmen,” I said, getting up from the table. “And that, my friends, is a Latina name, not Indian.”

I would know. On my Filipino side of the family there were a lot of Spanish names. Something that surprised my Mexican stepfamily. It’s not like we were both colonized by the same people.

“Where you going, hot shot?”

“Oh, just meeting up with a special someone…”

“Ohhh, you’re going to see that rich bitch Gwenda.”

“Yup. And hopefully I get to really see her if you know what I mean.”

All the guys laughed. “You don’t wanna talk about the MILFs on the job.”

“Ew, I’m not interested in those old hags that are gonna boss me around. Catch you all later.”

Well, I was going to see Gwenda. But she made some excuse just as I got a taxi to her neighborhood that night. It’s weird seeing a rich girl at a behavioral correctional job program, but she did say she was rebellious against her mother or whatever that meant. Maybe she was lying about being rich. Driving back as I stewed over my untouched potential hardon, I passed by a store glowing brightly in the middle of all these closed shops downtown and realized it was that emporium where my gift card was at.

“I’ll get off here,” I told the driver. I got out feeling a storm coming. Grey wisps reached over head like long witch fingers. I shivered and made my way inside, checking my wallet to pull out the gift card.

“Hello?” I called out into the shop. The door was unlocked but the lights were out inside. I didn’t want to stay too long. The skies were getting darker. I prayed a taxi would slip by or else I’d be stuck walking in this weather. Also, curfew was almost up.

I stood there hearing nothing but the wind outside the glass windows of the shop.

“To hell with this,” I muttered, tightening up the buttons of my coat. Just as I was about to step out, a burst of light blasted all around me as if I had stepped onstage.

“Welcome, welcome, my child! My name is Galvin Galvarino!” A hearty, cheerful voice sprang up from behind the counter.

I spun around, startled, to see a man wearing a peculiar mask. It was cream white with heart eyes, one upside down and blue, the other upright and pink. His mouth was stitched, and the man’s hair was long with thick black curls.

“Um, are you closed?”

“What? Does it look like I’m closed?”

“I came in and all the lights were out.”

“Just saving some electricity.”

A thunderous boom rippled beneath my feet. The lights flickered.

“Okay, this is creepy. I’m out.”

I turned away but the man reached his hand out.

“Wait!” he cried out, stopping me in my tracks. “The company sent you, didn’t they?”

I looked back at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Your company gave you a gift card! To buy anything in my antique shop!”

“Yes…a measly thirty dollars. Not sure if I’d find anything I’d like here.”

I looked around to see what appeared to be mostly junk. Weird gadgets, dusty old books, and other unmentionable things.

“Look around! Look around! I don’t charge much.”

“I did look around. Sorry, sir. Look, just take the gift card back.”

“Maybe I could offer you something else instead?”

“Like what? Can you make a good meal out of thirty bucks?”

He laughed. “I’m a wizard. Once you have my gift card, I have to give you something.”

I stared at the vintage sign above his head. Galvin Galvarino the Wiz Wizard…known throughout the four corners of the universe.

“Tell me something you really want. Anything.”

“I want a girlfriend.”

He burst out laughing. “Something more realistic. This isn’t a charity!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well look at you, pal! Depressed, broke, probably some kind of half-breed. What woman wants a man with that much unresolved trauma!”

I rolled up my sleeve as he backed away.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding! I’m a bit mixed up myself!”

It was now dark out. I cursed.

“Just tell me what you want. Besides the girlfriend thing. What is it that you truly want?”

I stood there staring at the floor. As everything around me and my thoughts and worries melted away I felt one question pop up. A question I had asked since I looked beyond my crib. This question was at the forefront of my mind always even if I didn’t realize it or wanted it to be. Because I knew there was probably no answer for me.

“To find the meaning of life. Of everything.” I finally said looking into his plastic mask.

“Bingo!”

Suddenly the toys all around us began to bang their pans and buttons. And the vintage sign above me suddenly flickered on.

“What the hell?”

“Oh, they’re a bit animated when I figure out something, no worries they’re not technically possessed. Told you I’m a wizard. Look, I got just the thing for you, Mr. Saints!”

Galvin bent over, searching through a pile of dusty books. Books flew past me, almost hitting me in the face.

“Aha!” he cried out with a huge moldy book and slammed it down in front of me.

The cover of the book was so dusty I could hardly make out the title.

“Sal…salvationed?”

Galvin smeared the cover of the book.

“Salvationia!” Galvin’s mask lit up. “It’s a choose-your-adventure game! Sort of…”

“Sort of…”

“I’m a wizard. I told you that. This book is a game slash portal slash monumental saga. Basically, I will transport you into the story. The story focuses on answering your question.”

“What is the story about?”

“Don’t know until we get there!”

“We?”

“I have to supervise you in the story. I’m the narrator essentially.”

“I’m confused.”

Galvin sighed in the direction of his puppy toy on the counter between us. “Get a load of this one.”

I just stared at the book.

“Anyway, you and I will be transported into the book. No worries about your life out here. Time basically freezes in reality once we are in. You and I will be in a home base of sorts. When I’m at the home base, I will explain to you the story the book assigns for you to follow so it can answer your desire. Got it?”

“What is Salvationia?”

“Its what they call the Dreamverse.”

“Dreamverse?”

“This game is a universe of humans’ dreams. No more questions. You in or no?”

“Whatever. Sure.” The guy was a loony toon. But maybe this was like D&D or something. “Here’s the gift card.”

“Excellent! You wanna go tonight or tomorrow?”

A part of me thought it’d be best to just ditch this dude with the gift card and leave and so that’s what I did.

“I’ll be back tomorrow morning.”

“Great! See you then!”

Galvin suddenly and forcefully guided me out the door and slammed it shut. He went behind the counter and began to rummage through his towering piles of books again.

“Weirdo…” I muttered before luckily calling over a taxi to get home.

I thought it over that stormy night in my room, staring at the ceiling, imagining my future and it made me sick to my stomach. I heard a group of feminine laughs outside the window, girls from the corps just coming in from the late-night bar. They struggled to keep the umbrella over all their heads as they ruffled through their pockets trying to find their badges to get inside the building. I sighed, longing for a woman’s touch, longing for a bed to be no longer warmed by my own presence.

I couldn’t sleep. And if I couldn’t, I wouldn’t for a long time. Fuck it, I thought. I got up from bed. That place was open 24/7 practically. I was going to play this little game of his and see what happened. I fetched my long brown trench coat and hurried out of the room and down the hallway to the stairwell. There were cameras everywhere. By contract I was supposed to follow the rules here. Security, to my luck, was busy staring at their phones because of a big game in the city. A woman in a trench coat and big red hat was walking out. She greeted them and they still didn’t look up. I hurried out from behind her. She turned a corner thank god and didn’t greet me. I let out a sigh of relief that I had escaped.

Just before I could reach the gate to swipe my badge, someone grabbed my shoulder. I jolted.

“What are you doing?” a voice said among the thousands of raindrops thinning out around me. I turned, barely making out her face. It was all shadowy out here. She lifted her hat a bit. She was the same woman I had sneaked out behind. Then, staring at her face wearing a different pair of glasses much lighter looking, I realized she was the woman I was assigned to work with, the Team Leader Carmen Santos.

Her face was much more expressive up close with the human version of sad puppy eyes, but nothing about her looked miserable despite that. She wasn’t smiling or frowning. Merely just gazing at me with blank eyes and a narrow concentration as if she were studying my face too.

“None of your business.” I shot back at her, the badge finally activating the gates.

“If you leave you may never come back,” she said. Was this woman going to tell on me?

“What if I don’t want to?”

“Then don’t.” she shrugged shaking her head.

Without another glance at her I ran toward the direction of the emporium. The longest fifteen minute jog of my life.

Galvin’s Wonder Emporium was now lit up so brightly you probably could have seen it for miles. Still nobody but Galvin was in there being weird as usual.

“Ah! The child changed his mind.”

“Stop calling me that. I’m older than you I bet.” I said taking off my drenched hat and coat.

“Yes, yes…but you’re a child at heart. I treat those as such.”

“Whatever.”

“Come over now! Let us begin the journey!” he opened up the little door at the side.

Walking past, I noticed a necklace on the counter. It looked exactly like the Carmen woman’s necklace. Then it hit me that she wasn’t wearing it when she grabbed me.

A jingle came from behind me. My eyes must have bulged out in horror when I realized it was that lady. Was she following me?

“Carmen! Carmen!” Galvin went around the counter. I panicked about to run out the door, but Carmen blocked my way.

“Here to spend your thirty-dollar gift card, Murray? Don’t spend it all now.” She laughed.

“You gonna tell on me?” I said back with arms folded.

Carmen shook her head. “Does it look like I care? What you do outside of work hours is none of my business as you said.”

I had snuck out. She could have reported me. But she truly didn’t seem to care. I guess at the gates she was just curious where I was going. But why did she say if I left I may never return in a cryptic sort of way. Maybe she was in cahoots with Galvin?

She walked past me towards Galvin.

“I’m here for my necklace.”

“Ah, yes, yes…the necklace.” Galvin slowly pressed his palms together. “I actually…couldn’t fix it like I said I could.”

“Ugh,” Carmen sighed snatching the necklace up. “I knew it was too good to be true.”

“Fix what?” I said stepping beside her.

“Nothing.” She said about to put the necklace back on.

“Wait, there is one last resort we could try out to revive the necklace.” Galvin said.

“And that is?” Carmen asked suspiciously, clasping the necklace behind her neck.

“Do what Murray’s doing! Right now!”

“Standing like a deer caught in headlights?”

What a bitch…I thought.

“No, no not that! Who would want to stand around like a clueless moron like Murray!”

“Hey-”

Galvin put a finger to my mouth and I smacked it away.

“What Murray is doing is entering the adventure book! Salvationia!”

“Salvationia? Is that some kind of game?”

“Yes! Sort of…well a choose your adventure story.” He lifted the heavy thing off the floor. “This baby can answer any question in the universe, and it will give you the correct answer! Only thing you gotta do is play along in the adventure and find the answer yourself. Which you will! Just takes time.”

“How does this work?”

“I will transport us into the book. I’ll have to come along.”

“How long will this take?”

“As I said to Murray time is frozen in reality.”

“That sounds quite intense.” Carmen said with a smile. “I don’t know if I wanna go through all of that right now. Might come out a different woman after it all.”

“Indeed you might.” Galvin nodded. “However, you will come out a different woman with a complete answer. Now basically you have a question and its how do I fix my heirloom magic necklace. The book will show you the journey to the answer. So, what do you say I can kill two birds with one stone tonight!”

“Do we only get one question, or can we ask more?” She pressed on.

“You can ask more during your journey, but it will take longer to get answers out of the book’s universe.”

Carmen looked up at the ceiling tapping her fingers on her arm.

“Alright. Let’s see what happens.” Carmen glanced over at me with an odd look as if she almost wanted to wink. She probably thought Galvin was pulling our leg. I thought so too. But I was already here and she was too. Why not give it a try and entertain this nutjob.

“I’ve portaled to other worlds before though very briefly. This one sounds a lot more advanced.”

“You’ve portaled?” I raised an eyebrow at her. “Like astral projection?”

“Sort of. I know the basics of getting the fuck out of dodge.”

Galvin stretched out his arms. “Well, what are we waiting for!”

We both sat across from each other with Galvin in the middle of the store.

“Righto! So how this works is we hold hands! Kumba ya!”

Galvin stuck both hands out to us. I took his white gloved hand cold as if he were a live corpse.

“Now take Carmen’s hand.” He nodded at me.

I looked at this woman who looked back at me with an unreadable expression. Her hand was warm and soft, something a friend of mine described my hands to be like. She softly gripped my hand as I relaxed in her hold.

“We are going to repeat a chant and then we are going to vortex into the book.”

“Sure…” Carmen half smiled. I did too. It was all metaphors wasn’t it.

“Repeat after me…” Galvin cleared his throat. “Step through the veil, the Dreamverse calls,

Past waking walls where silence falls. Speak it again, and paths unwind—Back to the world you left behind!”

Carmen was already on it repeating the chant back perfectly.

“Step through the veil, the Dreamverse calls,

Past waking walls where silence falls. Speak it again, and paths unwind…Back to the world you left behind!”

I struggled.

“Murray’s ruining it!” Galvin kicked at my heel lightly.

“I’m trying I’m trying!”

So, we sat there repeating it about three or four times until I got it.

“How long do we do this?”

“You’re breaking the chant again!” Galvin cried out tightening his hand on mine.

In a fit of annoyance, I yelled. “STEP THROUGH THE VEIL.”

A crack of lightning crossed Carmen’s face as she stared at me.

“The Dreamverse calls!”

The shop began to shake.

“Past waking walls where silence falls. Speak it again, and paths unwind…”

Galvin began to nod faster. “Yes! Yes!”

“Back to the world you left behind!”

Suddenly a pause. The pause of silence was so deafening I heard Carmen snort.

I groaned. “Galvin, I knew this was-“

The book flew open and before I could even register what was happening, Galvin let go of both of our hands laughing and falling into a dark pit below us. His laughter was so loud it was like a God booming with laughter in a vast cave. I screamed falling into a dark blue abyss. Carmen was falling too, not screaming as much as me but was hurriedly looking all around as we fell.

“Murray!” she called out. “Take my hand!”

Just as she said that I could sense us falling a little slower. Carmen’s face once for a brief moment filled with fear was now filled with determination I had never seen before. I could make out in the portal ridges and what looked like tiny doors in the distance. I realized she was going into action. She had said she had done this before. And of course I was already regretting my decision seeing that crazy man Galvin wasn’t bluffing at all. I reached out to her trusting her completely, but before our fingertips touched a black wave of obscurity cut through between us like a hefty wind. I cursed and then a loud boom filled my ears, forcing my eyes shut.

Darkness overcame me again with nothing but Galvin’s laughter.