Bite: A Shifters of Theria Novel (33 page)
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Authors: Ilia Bera
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Ilia Bera is a young writer from the golden prairies of Alberta, Canada. Ilia’s schooling years were spent absorbed in a fantastic imagination land, writing everything from screenplays and comic books to short stories and novels.
Ilia spent years working in the film and television industry as a screenwriter as well as on the sets of big budget films across various departments. While not writing, Ilia enjoys relaxing on the beach with her adorable Ridgeback pup.
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AN EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT
CHAPTER ONE
INSIDE THESE WALLS
I called him “the man from upstairs” because it was the only thing I knew about him—he worked upstairs. When he left our floor, he pressed the elevator’s up-button, and then he’d go upstairs.
It didn’t matter what I called him, because I never talked about him with anyone else. If I tried to mention him, I became a crimson-cheeked blabbering fool.
His beautiful face haunted my dreams. An ironic face: confident, charming, courageous, despite being none of those things. He came through our office every week for five years. In five years, I’d never heard him utter a word. The mystery drove me crazy, a mystery is better left a mystery.
Back then, he was the only reason I’d get out of bed, a chance to see his face. An elusive spectre appearing when least expected, emerging from the elevator and parting the sea of cubicles. For five years, I obsessed over him. In five years, I never once spoke to him.
Then, on a quiet summer's day, that changed.
I awoke to raindrops pattering against a nearby office’s window, the same sound that lulled me to sleep. It’d been pouring all day—all week—for three months straight. It always rained in Ilium, save for a few rare days when the clouds sunk down and floated, stagnant in the streets. Even then, the humidity soaked through your clothes, ran down windows, and formed puddles on sidewalks.
I couldn’t see the rain from my desk. I didn’t get a window.
I got a small cubicle in sea of small cubicles: three furry walls, five feet tall, bare, void of any images or colour. It was against company policy to tack pictures to our walls. At least in prison, inmates get to put up pictures.
Like my coworkers, I lived my life at Morgan Insurance.
Unlike my coworkers, I was a dreamer. One day, I was going to figure out my life, rise from the ashes, and make something of my life. My coworkers assured me that would change—that Morgan Insurance was my final resting place.
This was it? Listening to the torrents of rain, looking around an office that hadn’t been updated in twenty-five years. That’s what I had to look forward to? Caroline said she used to be a dreamer, too. So did Andrew, and Sharron, and Michael…
My boss would have given me hell if he’d caught me sleeping at my desk. But it was the summer, and in the summer there were no bosses at Morgan Insurance. Just thirty-two vacant cubicles. The coveted offices were empty. I didn’t get summer vacation. After five years with the company, I was still “too new.” I got three days off at Christmas and a week of sick days.
That afternoon, the office was particularly empty, emptier than before I fell asleep. Waking up from my doze-off, I was the only person there.
With my leftover dinner, I started towards the staff kitchenette, trying not to look into the office windows at the tacked-up pictures of tropical resorts, the resorts my managers were now enjoying. I turned the corner.
My face smushed up against a wall—a wall of chest—the chest of a tall man. I let out a loud shriek. I would have fallen on my ass had two strong hands not grabbed me by the waist.
He looked down at me with that familiar smile, the smile I'd obsessed over for five years; the smile I hadn’t come to realize was the smile of a coward.
Every elusive visit, our eyes would meet and he would smile. No one else ever seemed to notice; no one but me. He was a mystery. And it would turn out, it was his job to remain a mystery.
“I’m sorry,” he said with his hands still clutching my waist, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
I opened my mouth but my vocal chords were in a knot. I stood there with my mouth open, like a complete idiot. Say something. Say anything. Say what? Nothing. He smiled and continued towards his mystery destination. “Bye,” he said with a smile and a wave. Then, he disappeared around the corner.
I just stood with my jaw hanging open. “Bye,” I managed to say, long after his footsteps had disappeared.
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. That one sentence had already echoed a thousand times in my head. That was enough. Enough to give a voice to my fantasy. In my head, I’d already listened to him utter sweet nothings in my ear and recite poetry to me in nothing but his underwear. That poetry may have been the lyrics to Come Sail Away by Styx, but that’s beside the point.
A rush of rain rattled the office windows, snapping me out of yet another dozing daydream.
Those that had left for lunch were now back behind their desks, behind their mundane cubicle walls. The office was once again loud with pattering fingers against keyboards, employees mindlessly surfing Facebook and updating Twitter.
Between the pattering of keys was the ticking of my cubicle-neighbour’s clock. It was a novelty clock with twelve fives and a little message that read, ‘No working after five!’
The clock’s little hand pointed to the five where there should have been a two. Three more hours and I could tick another day off my life.