"Multiply Untitled Story by multiple writers" Part 1

 

Lea was admiring the waterlilies in the purple pond when she heard the television. Or, what she thought was the television. They sounded like muffled yelping and distant raining. Maybe she had left the television on.

 

The noises were inching closer. Somebody was definitely calling away. Lea was distracted and decided to wake up.

 

Lea fluttered her eyes open to the dark of the room. The television wasn't on.

 

She did not remembered turning on the television before sleep. Lea could not even remember sleeping. In fact her head felt heavy. It was alcohol. Lea remembered it had been a bottle of champagne. Intoxicated, she and Pablo had discussed art. After all they were in Paris for their honeymoon. She loved it when her groom spoke with fiery passion and gesticulations on Rembrandt and Van Gogh. If Pablo had knew about her dream, he would have claimed that Lea was in an Monet's painting! Pablo had lived and breathed art.

 

Lea heard something trailing off like the wails of police sirens. She couldn't believe she was right here in Paris! Pablo had chose France and Spain for their honeymoon. It's the 'Picasso Journey', he proclaimed. He had wanted to follow the artist's development from Paris to Madrid and Barcelona.    This was their first night in Paris and everything had been wonderful. They had cruised along the Seine river in the sunset and had dinner on the Eiffel Tower. Drunk and madly in love with one another, they went back to their hotel and had crazy rockstar sex.

 

Lea closed her eyes and smiled widely. Two whole weeks of Picasso, wine, sex and shopping, she would need all the energy she could muster. Maybe they could even conceive a child in the most romantic city in the world...

 

Then in the dark, she heard a sharp rap on the door. It had left swiftly the way it had came, almost as if she had imagined it. But the residual blunt in her ears had cast a sturdy ripple that stirred her awake.

 

Lea sat her tired eyes up and waited for a second knock. Or a buzz. Or a voice informing her of a room service she hadn't ordered. Their room was classically kept, with exquisite wallpapers and an large oak door. It had a bolted cylinder lock and had to be opened noisily with an iron key.

 

Maybe a guest had walked past their room and brushed against their door. Lea listened for slamming of neighboring doors or the metal cage closing for one to get into the tiny elevator. There were none, save for Pablo's snoring by her side.

 

Lea turned in the bed, sandpapering the blankets and faced the door. It remained ten feet away, solid bolted with a thin ray of light streaming beneath it. The uninterrupted light showed that no one was at the door. It must had been the sound of water pipes in the bathroom by the door. Old buildings do that sometimes. Hotel Violette was at least fifty years old. Lea had read the hotel's history at the reception while Pablo was checking them in two nights ago. Pablo had difficulty in communication as he spoke little French and the elderly receptionist spoke minimal English and was quite deaf. Lea swore that she could remember the name of the receptionist. His name had sounded like a cough.

 

'Jacques.' Lea smiled triumphantly as she closed her eyes lazily and snugged the covers closer.

 

Maybe old Jacques was making his rounds along the corridors.

 

To fully assure herself that she could go back to dreaming, Lea decided to check the door again. It was a preservation instinct of hers; checking gas before leaving her house, logging on emails before sleep or texting her assistant before the end of the day to reassure that she was infallible and invulnerable. The urban lioness in the downwind. Lea looked at the door for the final time and saw something disturbing enough to sit up straight as an arrow at the edge of the bed. Pablo groaned in protest as he rolled over to the other end. 

 

The light beneath the oak door was disconnected. A pair of shadowy feet broken the line of light.

 

What was the damn time? Lea breathed heavily. Suddenly the room had became claustrophobic. Three, four am? She remembered Pablo bringing her back to their room around midnight. Had they locked the door? Completely? What if the spring in the lock was loose and the door was not fully locked? Was their lock an easy lock to pick? All you need was a hairpin. Maybe they should have gotten a hotel with cardkeys in the beginning. Lea thought about Nellie from accounting. When Nellie had her honeymoon in Switzerland, someone tried to break in unsuccessfully. Nellie's husband had the chair against the doorknob. The person fled when the chair was making too much noise and woke Nellie's husband. The shadow beneath the door stood still. Lea focused her sight on the brass doorknob, half expecting it would be agonizingly twisted to open. Then burly men with accents would rush in with shinning knives and plastic cables. There were nothing viable in the room to defend themselves with. Maybe Pablo could still hurl the table lamp and put up a fight, but they would eventually gut him like a lamb and spilled his blood all over the velvet carpet. This was Europe after all. Crime did not exist with solely with pickpockets, tourists had been kidnapped, raped, organ-harvested and traded off as sex slaves.

 

The shadow as if read her, moved away from the door. The horizon of light resumed uninterrupted, running from one end to another seamlessly.

 

Lea sat there staring. She realized that the alcohol in her body was completely purged by both adrenaline and her running imagination. She could felt her forehead moisten. What now? Is the person still there? Is he pretending to leave? Would he return again when she sleeps?

 

The only way to find out was through the peephole.

 

But Lea didn't want to look through the peephole. What if she saw something? Something or someone just leaning close to the door and stared back through the concave lens. Eyeball to eyeball.

 

'Pablo, honey!' Lea hissed and shoved her husband's shoulder. 'Wake up. Now.'

 

'What is it?' Pablo mumbled to his bride. 'Is it morning already?'

 

'Someone's at the door.'