Chapter 1 - Unknown
A man stands at the front of a lecture hall wearing a well-tailored suit, “I have always had an interest in the mythical, it boggled my mind at such a young age, the idea that our minds could conjure up a whole imaginary creature and believe it to be in our world. As if our world isn’t magical enough,” he scratched his head and seemed to have a dissatisfied expression.
Nobody was sitting within the lecture hall. As Professor Tate crossed out that section of his speech, holding his notebook he looked out across the empty seats. People hadn’t shown an interest in his lectures for a while, once he could’ve filled the hall with discussion about the history of these mythical beasts but as times passed on, these crowds slowly depleted. He stood talking to himself more and more, stuck on repeat, doing lectures made him happy, he never wanted to stop. Many feared that in going past his prime he was becoming delusional, some even rumoured that he’d imagine people sitting there before him. One person had faith though, a young girl currently studying at a local university burst though the doors of the lecture hall. “I am so sorry I’m late Professor, my bus didn’t turn up on time,” she sat down and pulled out a notepad, it had various pages where she’d scribbled notes about these extraordinary creatures that Professor Tate had described. She logged them as if they were all real, Professor Tate cleared his throat, “Never mind Malorie dear, I was just reciting one of my first lectures here.”
Malorie smiled, “That must’ve been a while ago, did you ever lose interest?” The Professor peered at one of the windows and then walked over to Malorie, he squinted slightly and thought for a second, “You know Malorie, I have seen things over the years I have lived, things I would never believe in. I’ve seen them, but us humans, we’re in denial. We won’t believe anything until we’ve seen it.” Malorie smiled again, she didn’t believe him really but a part of her wanted to. Mal took the idea of life logically and only really came to Professor Tate’s lectures because she loved imagining these wondrous creatures, she wrote little stories in her spare time, so these anecdotes and almost scientific tales gave her the inspiration she needed, “What kind of things?”
“I don’t like telling anyone anymore, why tell people things that they’re never going to believe?”
She really felt for him, him telling her about this was the first time where a part of her wondered if he’d actually seen something that was truly unbelievable, although the present stench of alcohol in his breath convinced her otherwise, “I personally disagree, it’s not at all about whether I believe you or not, if it were truly real I would see the wonder in your eyes as you spoke, the same wonder you have when you’re doing these lectures.” He looked down at his feet, he knew that wonder would never be the reaction to what he’d seen. Malorie could see that this had changed his mood deeply. She looked around at every detail of the room, she wanted to take it all in as she feared this might be her last time seeing Professor Tate, something about him worried her, something she hadn’t felt previously.
“Professor,” she asked. “Sorry dear, I believe I am needed. I must go,” he went to shake her hand and then for some reason he decided not to. He grabbed his worn leather bag and rushed out of the room leaving Malorie alone, just her and her notebook filled with beautiful creatures. She vividly remembered the hairs on his arms standing as soon as he walked away, maybe he was scared of something. If there was something to fear then maybe he was right, or maybe he had some serious mental problems. She left the lecture hall, and walked through the cold corridors, down the stairs, past a reception desk, through the glass doors out into the town. It was raining, she stood as close to the building as she possibly could, she didn’t want to get her bags wet, last time that had happened she had to rewrite three essays in one night.
She stumbled into her flat, drenched from head to toe she clicked her door shut, she placed her bags down and opened them up making sure anything inside them wasn’t damaged, she sighed pulling one of the books out. It was dripping wet, it seemed as though her bag had leaked again slightly. She placed the book onto her heater, she hoped it would dry. She walked into her room with her neatly made bed and nothing more than a plain wardrobe and a desk collapsing onto her bed. She laid there thinking about her Professor, not at all in a weird way, she wondered if she’d done anything to make him run away so quickly, again she thought that maybe some of the things he had told her about may have been true. She decided she’d go back to her heater and grabbed her notebook, checking if it was destroyed or not, she didn’t want to go through that again. As she opened the wrinkled damp pages, she noticed that all of her notes were ruined, all of the sketches completely disfigured, almost horrific. She closed the book and sat there leaning against the radiator, the warmth made her feel tired, so she decided she’d get an early night and go to bed, at only 6pm.
Incredibly early the next morning Malorie awoke feeling energised, she felt no need to slap herself awake, maybe she should go to bed that early every day. If only she had the time. On her way to one of her morning seminars Malorie stopped by her local café, she’d go there every morning, order a drink to take away and on one specific table she would always see Professor Tate sitting there, his head buried in a book, he would always have a takeaway cup too, even if he was sitting in, almost as if he was always ready to leave. When she walked in and made her normal order she turned to see if he was there, but he wasn’t, this was new. He never missed a day grabbing his coffee and dozing off to some light reading. Trying not to think too much about it she sat down at one of the tables, grabbed one of her less destroyed notebooks and revised some notes before heading to her seminar.
Later that day she wandered into Professor Tate’s lecture hall, late again, she knew she couldn’t use the bus excuse again. As she was about to apologise, she realised Tate wasn’t here either. Was he taking a sick day? She wasn’t sure so she waited a little while. Realising eventually that Professor Tate wasn’t going to turn up she packed her things away and headed to the library, she had to make some use of her time, maybe she’d find something interesting to read or she’d find that book that finally motivated her to do her work. She wasn’t sure. Whilst reading through one of the books she questioned whether she had got her timetable wrong, maybe going to bed so early had fucked with her head a bit. It almost seemed as though a few hours of the day blasted by like blurs of nothingness. After finishing her book that definitely didn’t motivate her to do anymore work, she decided she’d take a look through her notebook again to see if some of the stuff she’d written down was still in there. Looking at the damp mess created in her notebook she skimmed through the pages, most of them were utterly ruined, but she noticed on one page some words hadn’t been damaged by the rain, it was odd as they were very specific patches that stayed dry. She connected the words together hoping they would form some kind of message like in the various films she’d seen, she linked them all together and it formed ‘habitat lost help them’. If it was one of those film situations then it was being very cryptic, what is that even supposed to mean? It didn’t quite make sense but maybe it could, maybe it was about deforestation she thought, or maybe she should get some fresh air. She headed out of the library eventually passing the reception desk, she thought maybe it wouldn’t hurt to ask if Professor Tate was in today, “Hello, um, was Professor Tate off sick today? Its just he didn’t turn up to my lecture earlier.” The receptionist, a long-haired individual with a rainbow flag badge pinned to their top replied, “He might be, though he hasn’t said anything about it. I’m sure he’ll be back in tomorrow,” they smiled and continued on through some sort of spreadsheet. Malorie knew she shouldn’t focus on it; she just wasn’t used to her schedule changing without any kind of warning.
She waited a couple of days, each time going to the coffee shop and noticing he wasn’t there, she’d later go into his lecture hall and again, no sign. She thought maybe something weird had happened that day, it wouldn’t do any harm to go back up to the receptionist, so she did, “Any sign? He hasn’t been in for a few days now.” The receptionist closed their book and said, “No sign at all, I can give him a call for you if you want me too.” Malorie didn’t want to be rude and have someone call the Professor whilst he was on a secret holiday or something, but curiosity led her to respond, “If you wouldn’t mind.” The receptionist left their desk and went through a door behind them. Malorie waited a little while and they returned, “Well he’s not responding to his mobile or house phone, I’ll report it, thank you for letting me know.”
Almost a week later she stood in her house on the phone, “yeah, the police showed up a day ago asking about the professor, I didn’t really know what to say, it’s a little weird though, something feels off about the whole thing, I’m totally stumped though… yeah exactly, oh shit, fuck, I’ve got to go, pasta, bye.” Distant laughing is heard as she hung up the phone and rushed to take the boiling pasta off the hob. As days flooded by like the water overflowing from her pasta pot, Malorie still felt stumped. That phrase ‘habitat lost help them’ kept repeating in her head. It was really odd that Professor Tate had just up and left a few days ago. She took a moment and looked at her pile of unfinished essays, maybe this was her way of procrastinating. Her normal way of handling difficult assignments was to simply forget about them and start new projects, as in some odd way that would motivate her to keep working hard. She felt as if she was following something not there, something not believable. She decided she’d stop, she felt like this was going to drive her crazy.
She exited her flat and headed down the paved road to a corner shop named ‘Smith’s Corner’ which was where her childhood best friend Dean Smith had grown up, he wasn’t a student at the university, it wasn’t his sort of thing. Instead, he chose after college to take over his Father’s shop. She walked through the door that greeted her with a polite dinging noise. Dean was holding a box filled with packets of Monster Munch and Invaders, he smiled as he noticed her and her curly brown hair enter the shop, “Hey Mal! I haven’t seen you in a while, why haven’t you sent a text or something?” As he said it he noticed Malorie was looking a little down and tired, “wait are you okay?” He placed the box down and ran up to her grabbing her on the shoulders, in a mock robotic voice, “scanning for unknown errors.” She gave a somewhat unenthusiastic smile and then her face melted back to it’s lost expression, “I’m sorry Dean, something happened and I just lost track of time, also I may have ruined my pasta, this might sound weird but I have this thing on my mind that just keeps repeating and repeating and repeating and.” Dean put his arm over her shoulder and gave her a hug from the side, “yo mate, don’t worry. We don’t need to talk about it.” Dean let go slightly he didn’t want to invade her privacy too much. Malorie shook the down expression on her face, lightened up and said, “so catch me up on the antics of Smiths store of shite.” Dean looked at her surprised, she’d just said that to him after he was exceptionally kind to her. That wasn’t very nice of her, “alright then bitch, it’s actually been okay whilst you’ve been away, just the common people coming in and going back out with their dailies. Jim actually popped in the other day to buy a packet of extra large condoms,” he laughed noticing his anecdote had actually changed her mood a bit, “so what are you here for, some alcohol?” Malorie looked at the cooled shelf filled with drinks that would be the perfect friend to her during her current time of confusion, it may make her feel happier, she walked up to the shelf about to place her hand around the bottle of vodka sitting there, yelling, ‘go on you know you want to’ and she thought about Professor Tate again, he may have ended up in a ditch somewhere due to the misuse of this almost toxic beverage. She instead grabbed a can of Cola and took it to the counter, searching her pockets hoping for some spare change as she hated owing Dean, he’d usually just let her take what she wanted, it was never much. She searched with her fingers and found the round polygon shape of a pound coin, she pulled it out and placed it on the counter beside the can of Cola. Dean looked at the coin and then faced away, his hand came towards the pound and pushed it towards Mal, “The fact that you didn’t even consider alcohol as a solution tells me there’s something really wrong, just take it. I’ll check up on you later if that’s okay?”
Mal smiled and grabbed the can, exiting the shop the door pinged her a polite ‘goodbye’. She cracked open the can and took a sip, as she did all she could hear was the sound of crashes behind her, a symphony of simultaneously falling bottles. Dean screamed angrily from inside the shop, “are you having a fucking laugh?”
She peered through the window to see all of the alcohol on the shelf gone, it was covered all over the floor like a dam had just broken except with the smell of badly mixed drinks, it reminded her of parties she’d used to go to. Dean was just standing behind the counter holding his face up with his hands, she didn’t think much of the situation. As she walked home, she felt that sinking feeling, that feeling you get when you’re being followed or watched. It made her want to walk quicker. Her walk turned into a brisk run home, she tapped the code on the door to her flat and climbed up the stairs to her apartment. She closed her door behind her, breathing heavily. She isn’t a runner. All that was going through her mind was ‘habitat lost help them’, although as it circled round in her head, she closed her eyes and took some self-control. Her breathing calmed. She was definitely going mad, nothing magical was happening, it was just a mere coincidence that weird things seemed to keep happening around her. She noticed the pages of her notebook turning, although there wasn’t a clear draft in her flat. It was odd, he brushed it off and walked into her room thinking that she shouldn’t think too much about it. She then walked back out of the room and stared at the book again hoping it would do something, life was never this obvious about everything. Something was trying to communicate with her, there was something that the universe was telling her to do. Professor Tate was still at the forefront of her mind, he’d always talked about how ghosts and spirits could communicate from the ‘unknown’. She’d always assumed it was his way of handling death and the afterlife. He’d always liked calling it that as calling it death made it sound as if it were the end, he never wanted anything to end. She pulled the notebook towards her as the page rested back into its place, it still read ‘habitat lost help them’ in between the blur of her other scribbled notes. She couldn’t fathom what was trying to be communicated. She sat down losing hope as she noticed an empty bottle of whisky resting beside her table, she hadn’t drunk anything in a while, definitely not whiskey and if she did, she wouldn’t have just left it there.
