"Isolde, could you bring these plates to table 27, 19, and 13?"
"These boxes need to be put away. Isolde, take care of them immediately!"
"No matter how much I teach them, they can never fold these sheets as crisp as you do! Isolde, please redo the beds in room 205, 457, 354, and 505. I'm counting on you,"
AAAAAH! If I have to hear one more request after the other, I fear I might finally snap and go crazy! It sure isn't easy juggling three jobs in a week, and with the string of holidays just around the corner, I might as well have thrown myself under the bus.
But what choice did I have? I couldn't loan money, on top of that, I'm already two months salary behind on my college fees. At this point, I'm really going crazy. Ah, I could already feel my soul leaving my body and drifting to the spiritual realm. This tired body of mine. Goodbye, World!
"Isolde Margareth, could you answer the question on the board?"
The voice in front of me called out my name, catching me by surprise as it managed to drag me out of my sleep. My eyes immediately snap wide open as all drowsiness left my body.
By now my professor has been staring at me with expectant eyes. I stare at the writing on the board, completely clueless. What was it about this theory again?
Alas, the professor answered the question herself when I sat still in my seat unable to form words in my head. I sighed.
I need to pull myself together! I don't have time to get left behind.
With wet gloves clinging to my hands, I quickly swiped off food from plates to the sink before scrubbing them clean with a rough sponge like a madman.
Scrubbing plates, fixing hotel beds, waiting tables, and attending classes, studying.
My young adult life was easily swept away by such a busy life.
All these work everyday is starting to take a toll on me. My vision began to blur as the plates in front of me doubled. I shake my head, I still have an hour left before I can go home.
"Isolde, when you're done scrubbing those plates, go bring in the boxes from the back to the kitchen. If not refrigerated soon the meat will attract flies," My boss instructed from the doorway that lead to the diner's area. Without waiting for my reply, he immediately disappeared in a hurry to the busy crowd outside.
Even when the place was packed, he still refused to hire new workers. Now he's dripping from head to toe in sweat as his skinny figure ran from table to table taking orders. Whether he actually managed to write those down correctly, I never would have thought I wouldn't have that luxury to know.
As my vision gradually began to worsen, the ground disappeared beneath my feet as I came crashing down the dirty, unmopped floor. A couple plates shattered around me, the sharp shards piercing through my skin but the pain didn't bother me at all in that state.
I felt numb. Numb and cold. In a distance, I could hear the cook call my name as he appeared around the corner but my body wouldn't move, and my lips could only quiver an empty response. Soon the blurry vision turned to nothing but darkness.
I hope someone else went to bring in boxes. I'd hate to let those products go to waste. Oh well, I guess they'll have to hire someone else to do that job.
...
....
.....
Huh? I'm pretty sure I've just died from overwork and exhaustion. Is this a loading screen for when I finally reach heaven or hell? Everything is just...black.
I try to look around in case something catches my eye but to no avail. Alas, I, alone, stand in the middle of this abyss with no where to go to.
I say I try to look around but when everything I see is black, it's hard to tell whether I actually moved at all in this state. It's akin to waking up in the middle of the night without knowing the power had gone off.
It's almost like you woke up and suddenly became blind.
I take a step forward as slowly as I can, the ground beneath me feels cold like marble but I keep walking. A flash of color momentarily flashes my sight as I moved and I look down to see my feet. That was when I noticed other things too. I could see my hands, limbs, and my entire body. A long, white nightgown with long, puffy sleeves that I have never owned nor seen before clung to my body.
Was this what they had me wearing in my wake?
As I began to notice more of myself, the scene around me also gradually began to change. As if leaves had ground and circled around an old, abandoned house, bits and pieces of a hall also began to form around me.
A dark night. A scenic moon whose rays of light fogged through the windows.
And blood.
My eyes widened in horror at the gruesome sight before me. The brief calm and relief I felt just mere seconds ago were immediately replaced with fear and panic.
A lady, who seemed much older than me, hovered over me with this petrified look. Her auburn eyes were wide with anger as her mouth gaped in her sunken face. As if she was yelling at me with fury. Her white hair paled in comparison to her skin as it rained all over her lanky figure.
But what really terrified me about this angry woman was not the horrific look on her face, nor was it the fact that she stood over my body which sat on the floor, but the blood on her eyes which trickled down her sunken face eventually dropped on my own terror stricken one. And the blood on her chest, which had a knife still stuck on to it, lead down to my hands that held it.
Isolde...
My breath failed to catch up with my chest as my fingers trembled around the knife.
Isolde.
As I sat there in fear, the woman had not moved an inch from her position, and the lack of breath that failed to pass through her dry lips had me praying she had not died by my hands.
I didn't kill her. How could I have killed her? It was me who should have been dead!
"Isolde!" A voice snapped me awake as I trembled in fear and panic. The scenery I had been in before had also changed. This time, it was already day time.
The halls of a mansion which I saw in my dreams were now nowhere to be seen. And the lady too, was gone.
I use whatever bit of strength I had in my arms to push myself up, only to find that myself in a bed that wasn't my own.
Surrounding me, wooden walls of an apartment I didn't recognize were littered with multiple headlines of news and papers with scribbled writings, and pictures of people I had no idea of filled the room at random.
With colored strings attached to those papers, you would have assumed the owner of this apartment was a crazy detective trying to track down a wanted criminal for years.
"Isolde, I've been trying to wake you for a while now, have you been pulling all-nighters again?" A man I had recollection of, spoke to me with a voice filled with concern and accusation. His dark skin paled in comparison to his chocolate brown hair, and his red eyes, like cherries, fixated themselves on my as his hand rested on my shoulder. His thick eyebrows had knitted themselves on his slim face.
"Uhm," I hesitated to answer. To be exact, how could I answer someone I didn't know!? And where was I? Don't tell me my boss really couldn't have cared at all and gave away my unconscious body to the next person he saw to deal with me. But then how would this person have known my name?
He raised a brow at me, face now contorted to full confusion as all signs of concerns faded away. "Isolde? Are you still half asleep? Maybe we shouldn't let you go by yourself again,"
There he goes again. Speaking as if he knew me for a very long time. I try to rack my brain in case I over exhausted myself too much to the point of amnesia but I really had no clue who this person is!
Well, there is one way to know.
"Who are you again?"