Six months had lapsed and the nightmares gradually slipped away. Vinhorian’s visits became lesser by the day and then they just stopped. It was weird at first, to not have that man in his dreams; he had to admit, he was getting used to his nightly visits but at the same time, he was pushing Vin away. He had to, or he’d go crazy. Life had to move on; he had to go back, face reality and face consequences. So the twilight zone was a beautiful dream, let’s keep it at that.
Kevin called him a few days ago, something he’d expected to happen. They couldn’t get away from each other; there were unfinished matters to solve. So when he was told that there would be a reunion, he had assured the older man that he would be there. And why not, they were going to Hawaii.
The instructions were simple; they would arrive in Hawaii on their own and hop in a cab that would take them to the address that Kevin had given. Chances of being detected were a lot smaller that way.
“This is the mansion?” He asked when the cab driver stopped. It was right up there on a hill, the building was dully painted white with chipped corners and weathered stains. He shivered involuntarily, feeling the hairs on his arms standing on ends.
“This is the one son.” The cab driver said, already getting out of the car and proceeded to retrieve his luggage from the booth.
Nick followed the man and slammed the door shut. “It’s kinda old.”
“It is. Build before world war two and she just stands there, against all odds.”
“Wow, she’s a beauty.”
“You said she was old.”
He laughed. “With age comes beauty.”
“I thought with age comes wrinkles.”
“Depends on how you look at it. I’m sure it’s beautiful inside. All that history she holds within.”
“Write that down boy, could be a song.”The cab driver chided as he closed the booth. There were only two pieces of luggage with him; a backpack and a duffel bag.
“Will do...Here,”Nick said, handing him the ride fare and a generous amount for a tip. “Thanks Ron, you’re a big help.”
“No problem kid; if you need a ride anywhere, call me, the others too.”
“Definitely.”
The living room was huge and richly furnished with antiques. It was warm and comforting and immediately, he was lost in a different world. It felt like being back in the early 40s. He dropped the bags and walked further in, wondering if he should shout out to see if anyone else was there. He decided not to. He wanted some time alone, just appreciating this beautiful place. However Kevin knew such place existed was beyond him, but he wasn’t complaining.
As he walked further in, he heard muffled voices in a distance. It became clearer as he followed the voices, and it took no brain scientist to recognise who they belonged to. He was brought all the way to the back, in the kitchen area. It was huge, just like the kitchens in hotels. And around the work shift table where he assumed the cook did most of his work, were Brian, AJ, Howie and Kevin, deep in conversation.
He stood there, unnoticed, breathing in the sight. Would they leave this mansion still together, or would it mark the end of the Backstreet Boys? He shuddered at the thought. He wanted so badly to be on stage with them. They belonged up there together, it was their domain.
“Nicky, you’re here!”
He almost jumped. Almost.
“Howie, you can see!” He blurted out, matching Howie’s high pitched voice.
“Damn my ears.” AJ groaned. “Too many echoes in this place, what did I tell ya?”
“Are you gonna stand there or join us?” Brian said, grinning like he normally would. Nick felt part of his burden lifted off his shoulders. He was afraid Brian was going to avoid him, for some reason or another.
“Wait, stand there, I wanna show you something.” Kevin said, smiling slyly. Nick raised an eyebrow, waiting.
Kevin got up from his seat and strutted his way over. He heard groans coming from the guys. Nick laughed. “You can walk.”
“I can walk.”
“Cool.”
“Yeah, back being the tall one.”
“But not the tallest.” Nick grinned. Kevin rested an arm across his shoulder and gave it a pat. “Don’t go there bro.”
-
Everyone was rested and at ease, Kevin couldn’t be any happier. Things were going great and everyone was at their best state of mind. It would be perfect to start things off and work things out. Back to reality, back to business. Back to finishing what they started, solving their ride to nowhere. Only this time, they won’t be driving. Not for a while at least. He wasn’t looking for another accident.
Everyone was hanging around in the living room. Nick was sitting on the carpeted floor, busy typing something out on his laptop. AJ was filling in crossword puzzles, Brian was doodling on a sketch pad that he had found lying around one of the rooms earlier and Howie was reading the local newspaper.
Kevin cleared his throat. “Guys, I think we’re comfortable enough to talk.”
“About?” Brian asked absentmindedly, eyes still concentrating on his drawing.
“About us.” Kevin replied.
AJ groaned as he erased what he had just filled in seconds ago and then looked up to meet Kevin’s eyes. “We ordered pizzas; I think we should talk after we feed ourselves. It’s gonna arrive soon anyway.”
“Yeah, let me finish this first, won’t take long, I promise.” Nick added eyes still glued on the laptop.
“What are you doing anyway? You’ve been quiet for an hour now, that’s a record.” Howie asked. It received giggles from Brian.
“My homework.” Nick replied casually.
“Homework?” Kevin asked.
Nick nodded. “I got bored so I applied myself in College, private candidate.”
“Whoa. Never saw that coming.” Brian laughed.
“Yeah well, I figured we live only once, take the chance when you got it.”
AJ nodded silently. Not even in another world would Nick be in high school, his heart whispered. He shook it off immediately, that wasn’t real, he reminded himself.
“Writing a paper?” Howie asked, hiding behind the papers he was reading.
“Algebra.”
“Huh.” Kevin smirked.
“What?” Nick asked. “So I had to remember stuff from high school kay? Jessie made me do some exercises.”
“Jessie’s tutoring you?” Kevin asked.
“Yeah.” Nick nodded.
Brian smiled, remembering the early days when he and Nick would head to AJ’s house for lessons with Jessie. They always played basketball after lessons.
“What’s the square root of 136, quick?”
“Eleven point six or twelve if you round it off.” AJ replied as he filled in another puzzle. “You think the pizza dude got lost or something, I’m-”AJ couldn’t finish his sentence; everyone was staring back at him. Kevin especially, looked pale. “What?”
“Dude, you’re a genius! It’s correct!” Nick gleamed. “I checked on the calculator on the laptop, see?”
“Hey, I didn’t totally throw my high school education out the window kay?”
“Yeah but, who memorises those things? I can’t even tell you right out the square root o...425!”
“20.6, but that’s not the point.” AJ replied. “I just remember them okay, now back off.”
“356.”
“18.8, shut up Brian.”
“Gentlemen, we have a hidden genius in our hands.” Howie chuckled.
“And he said he didn’t understand shit about our accounts.” Nick snickered. “You could have caught Lou red handed if you want to.”
“I say we hire Accountant AJ Mc Lean for our future deals.” Howie laughed.
“So we’re still together?” Nick asked. Everyone went silent. Kevin swallowed the huge lump in his throat that refused to go away. In the other world, AJ was good at math. But that’s not real Kevin, that’s your dream!
AJ literally ran up to the main door when he heard the doorbell. “Food’s here!”
“Or maybe he’s like, suddenly a genius because he cracked his head open.” Nick joked, breaking the silence. Brian laughed along. “Yeah, maybe that’s it. This college stuff makes you think smart Nicky.”
“Ha ha.”Nick retorted, rolling his eyes. “Funny Brian, glad you didn’t lose that in the accident.”
“Hey, you guys know that a huge fire broke out yesterday about an hour ride away from here? It’s really huge in the paper. 24 killed and hundreds injured.” Howie said.
“Yeah? Glad we weren’t here yesterday then.” AJ said, opening the boxes of pizzas, which caught Nick’s attention.
“Homework’s got to wait.”
“I’m sorry for the victims...tough man.” Kevin said as he reached for a slice.
“Yeah, but if we were here yesterday, we could have helped, in some way.” Brian said as he took a bite from the pizza. “God this tastes heavenly.”
“Sorry Brian, you didn’t meet the minimum height requirement to handle a hose.” AJ joked.
“Hey, don’t look down on short people man.” Kevin said. because I was short in another life.
“Yeah, we can help too you know.” Howie chipped in.
“Yeah? Like how?” AJ teased.
“He can be a paramedic; you don’t have to be tall to be one.” Nick replied casually.
“Yeah, in another life probably.” AJ said.
Brian swallowed. He couldn’t give up now, he had been strong enough to fight it, and it would be a waste to start falling back.
But wasn’t Howie a paramedic in the other life? Didn’t he die in the line of duty?
No he didn’t, because that’s your stupid dream talking, now wake up!
“So, can we talk after we eat?” Kevin asked.
“Can I finish my homework first? Just one more sum to go. I promised Jessie I’d email them tonight.”
“Let me take a look at it?” Kevin asked.
“How about you do it for me?”
“Not in this life.” Kevin smiled. Nick passed the laptop over and happily took the second slice.
Kevin wiped the grease on his fingers on his pants; it wasn’t a time to be the responsible one. Nick had minimized the document and he was about to click it open again when a folder on the desktop caught his attention.
“Nick, what’s this brotherhood folder about?”
“Oh, that’s the book I wrote.”
“The one you decided not to publish?” Brian asked.
“Yeah.”
“How come?” Howie asked.
“After the...disagreements we had...I decided it wasn’t the best of time to release it. Things change.” Nick explained.
“Can I?” Kevin asked.
“Go ahead.” Nick said. “We need drinks people.”
“Then go get it.” AJ said.
“This house is huge man, think it’s haunted?” Nick asked.
“Why don’t you try out that theory?”AJ suggested.
“Like how?”
“Go get us drinks, if you don’t come back in ten minutes tops, we will know something’s wrong and we’ll come looking.”
Nick rolled his eyes. “Sure, I’ll just tell whatever thing that ate me to come after you next.”
“You do that.” AJ smiled. Nick groaned and got up to head for the kitchen, leaving the fits of laughter behind.
Kevin clicked on the document marked ‘introduction’ and was met with the first page of the book. There was only a single sentence in the middle of the page, simple for everyone to see, yet it held so much meaning for all of them, especially Kevin.
“I’m going to check on Nick, I don’t think he can bring back five drinks without dropping one of them.” Brian said to no one in particular. He left before anyone could say anything. Howie was done with the papers and with nothing else to do, he snatched the sketch book that Brian had left on the table and flipped through them.
“Brian can’t draw if his life depended on it.”
It got AJ’s attention. “Let me see!”
There were doodles of cartoon faces. “Even Baylee can do better than this.”
“I bet.” Howie laughed.
“Well, at least he wasn’t drawing dirty stuff in here.” AJ said.
“I was expecting to see pages of Leighanne’s name, you know how easily he misses the wife.”
“He’s so lucky. Think we’ll ever get married?” AJ asked.
“Sure, when the time is right. Getting married is easy J, but staying married for the rest of your life, that’s the challenge.”
“D, this is America, people divorce as much as they fart.”
Howie laughed. “Then we have to warn Nicky.”
-
Nothing could ever prepare Brian for what he was about to see the moment he reached the kitchen. A can of Coke was lying on the table, the content spreading across the table and dripping to the floor. Nick seemed to be hyperventilating as he struggled to open a medicine bottle. He looked almost blue and his hands were trembling too much.
Brian rushed towards him and grabbed the bottle, pried it open and poured a few on his palm. Nick took two of them and quickly swallowed them down. Brian guided him to a chair and motioned for him to sit while he rushed to the cabinet, searching for a glass. He finally found one and quickly ran to the sink, filling it with tap water. By the time he got back to Nick, he was almost breathing normal again.
“Here, drink this.”
Nick whispered what Brian assumed was a thanks, and took a gulp.
“You okay?”
“I can’t eat pizza.” Nick said. “Any greasy food for that matter.”
“Cause of the accident?” Nick nodded.
“It won’t be forever right?”
“No, just till the end of my life.” Nick replied, snickering as he said it. “I still eat them sometimes you know, but just a small piece. I totally forgot about that tonight.”
“I’m sorry...but we can go through this together. I need to lay off the grease myself; we can start a new diet or something.”
Nick bit his lips. “Does this mean we’re okay?”
Brian smiled. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you alone before we have the talk with the guys. The accident taught me a lot Nick, if one of us had died, I would have regretted the way we left when we were angry at each other. What I’m trying to say is, I’m sorry, for not being there when it mattered most. I love you, you know that right?”
Nick smiled. It was like a dream. A beautiful dream. “I know that now, and I’m sorry too, for not being honest from the start.”
“About what?”
“Well, I know this is going to sound shocking to you, but back in the Millennium days, I took diet pills that pretty much killed my liver. I’ve been on medication ever since, those antibiotics, they’re not exactly antibiotics.”
Brian stood still. That really happened? That was true? What does that mean?
“That was true?”
“What?”
“You taking pills because you thought everyone thinks you’re fat...that was true?”
“I never told anyone that, how did you-”
Time stood still. Both looking at each other, wondering if the other was thinking the exact same thing. Did it happen?
-
Kevin clicked on the next page.
Forever, Kaos
It got him thinking of the play AJ was going to direct. That play was Finding Brotherhood. It couldn’t be another coincidence, could it? Kevin felt the hairs on his neck standing on ends. It was too much, what was real now?
Could Kaos be K? It would make perfect sense and yet that was just a dream! A DREAM!
Kevin was pulled away from his thoughts when he heard the gasps from Howie and AJ. He looked up; both of them were staring at Brian’s drawings.
“That scary huh?” Kevin asked as he closed the laptop, not wishing to go further.
“Why are you in shock?” Howie asked AJ.
“Why are YOU shocked?” AJ asked.
“Is it because of this?” Howie asked, pointing to the picture. “Do you know this name?”
“Do you?” AJ asked.
“Stop asking me back what I asked you! ”Howie cried.
“Why are you even paranoid?” AJ asked. “It’s nothing okay.”
“Nothing? Going ‘Aaahh!’ is not nothing.” Howie said.
“Well, you went ‘Aaahh!’ too.”
Kevin shook his head. “Guys come on, you’re being childish. You’re arguing over some picture Bri-”Kevin stopped.
How did Brian know?
Brian knew?
-
Put two and two together, it was safe to say that Brian wasn’t crazy. He knew it was real. The whole damn thing was real.
“It really happened huh?” Nick said, breaking the silence.
Brian looked up, trying to read his friend. Were they talking about the same thing? “Depending on what you meant by happened.”
Nick took a deep breathe. This was either going to sound like the truth, or that he was crazy.
“Vinhorian Alni.” There point blank, he said it.
Brian couldn’t get the words out. His vision was blurry; he knew he was going to break down on the spot. He nodded.
“Lets go, we have to tell the guys.” Nick said. His legs felt like pudding, his entire body was trembling but he forced himself to walk. All that time he lived in fear, it had all been the truth. Everything was real. Everything.
When they reached the living room however, Nick and Brian were greeted with another surprise.
“Did we miss something?” Brian asked, looking expectantly at the blank faces of Kevin, Howie and AJ.
“Did you do this Brian?” Howie asked.
“It was in your sketch pad.” AJ said.
“How did you know?” Kevin asked, handing him the sketch book. Across the page, written in bold, was the name Vinhorian Alni.
“It’s real guys.”Brian said, surprising himself when he felt himself smiling when he said it. “We didn’t make it up. Vinhorian Alni is real. The twilight zone was real. Don’t you see? We got our second chance.”
-
It would take them a while to realise that they didn’t have to search far to find me. But they will eventually know. For I am all of them, meld into one. I am the raw emotion, pushed away inside them so deep, that it took a little intervention for them to find me.
One of these days, they will understand, they already found Vinhorian Alni.
THE END
This story would not have seen the end if it hadn’t been for the help and motivation from a great friend, Mare. No amount of thank yous will be enough, just so you know, you’re appreciated. ;0) Also, huge huge thanks to YOU who have taken this ride with me. To those who felt this story is good enough for your feedbacks, I know sometimes it’s a hassle so I really appreciate the time you took to email me with your kind words. So I shall end this boringly enough with, till next time, that’s all folks!
