The faint chirping of birds swelled, ringing louder and louder—a painful alarm inside Kyle's skull. His eyes struggled to open, lids gummed shut by dried tears from the night before. A violent surge of nausea, cold and deep, clawed its way up his throat, mirrored by a throbbing vengeance at the back of his head.
Fighting to summon what little willpower he could muster, Kyle slowly pushed himself up from the floor, bracing his weight on his palms. He rolled onto his stomach, finding it increasingly difficult to fight the ugly, vengeful monsters that seemed to be gaining power over his system. The nausea coil tighter as his head spun faster. Wishing for the unopened, forty-year-old bottle of whiskey his father had left behind, Kyle forced himself onto his feet.
Once vertical, the spinning intensified. He lunged for the bathroom, dry-heaving violently, bringing up only bile and the ghost of the supper he hadn't eaten. He knew the rule: if you're going to drink, especially hard liquor, you have to eat—or at least manage a snack—before passing out. Only an idiot intent on self-punishment would drink like that on an empty stomach. Deep down, he hoped this act of brutal self-neglect might earn him points with Seraphina—Sera—who was definitely still furious and holed up at her mother's house.
Maybe visiting his own mother wasn't such a bad idea. After all, she had always been there for him. Why should this time be any different? After the last of the dry heaves subsided, Kyle staggered to his feet, swallowed some Tylenol, and, slowly, the memory of the dilapidated group home from the previous night returned.
Kyle walked toward the door like a car with a transmission slipping in and out of gear. Reaching his vehicle, he felt profoundly unbalanced—like he'd been at sea all day, and his inner ear was still fighting to adjust to land. He pulled out and drove to a nearby barista for a double cappuccino with a triple shot of espresso. With the Tylenol, that should take the worst of the edge off. He grabbed a few other supplies from the pharmacy next door and set a course for his sister's college campus.
Just as the medication began to take hold, he started circling the campus. He vaguely remembered that the road he'd taken door-to-door the night before didn't connect directly to the street where the hospital was located. Consulting his phone for directions, he looped around to the opposite side of the school, away from the student living area, near the gym and performing arts buildings. The roads here were a tangled mess of snake trails. He navigated the fastest route, desperate to avoid the freeway, which would have meant circling the entire city and adding an hour or two to his trip.
He finally arrived at the rear of the college, near the residential area, and found the exact fence line he had followed in the dark. Pulling up, he spotted the same old man from the night before, sitting outside in his chair, staring across the distance like a neighborhood watch sentinel.
As Kyle approached the building entrance, the door swung open to reveal a short, wide Asian woman with a completely blank expression.
"Hello," Kyle began, realizing he had no credible reason to be there. They'd never let him inside to question these people like he was a cop, his mind still foggy.
In his wavering state, a plausible story surfaced. "Hello, my name is Kyle. I live in the area. Up until a few weeks ago, I used to visit my grandmother at her house to talk and read to her. Since she passed away, I thought maybe I could do something similar here today—with one of the residents. Something to help me cope with my loss. I thought maybe they'd also enjoy a visit."
The short woman looked him up and down, paused for two agonizing seconds, squinted, and then stepped back to let him inside.
As Kyle closed the door, she handed him a clipboard to sign in. He moved slowly inside. The overwhelming smell of an unventilated house, mixed with old, stale medication, hit him hard—threatening to send him back to the bathroom. Fighting the nausea, Kyle rounded the corner into the sitting area where the old man was entrenched in his chair.
Kyle sat next to him and repeated the story he'd given the woman. He edged closer, but the old man visibly flinched away. Kyle quickly assured him he meant no harm.
He started a simple conversation. Suddenly, the old man put on his glasses, peered at Kyle, and said, "I know you."
Kyle smiled, trying to manage the situation. "Yes, I've been talking with you for a while now. I think I know you, too."
"No," the man insisted, his tone sharp. "I remember you from April 11, 2005, at about 9:30 PM. I watched you walk along that fence."
Kyle tried to rationalize. "You mean last night, when I came up here and talked with someone at the door? That's what you're recalling."
The old man grew testy. "Don't try and tell me what I can and can't remember, you little shit."
Kyle decided the man's belligerence must be part of the condition that landed him here.
Just then, a Black woman in her fifties approached with a tray.
"Okay, Mr. Denning, it's time for your medication."
Kyle quickly asked the nurse, "Sorry, do you know the name of his condition?"
"I know the condition of all the patients here," the nurse assured him calmly. "Mr. Denning has Hyperthymesia; he can recall any minute of his life, no matter how long ago." She paused, letting the fact sink in. "He also has Prosopagnosia—the inability to tell the difference between genders."
As she walked away, the facts collided in Kyle's hungover mind like a lightning strike: That's why he thought he knew me—Kara!
Kyle gripped the old man's shoulders as he tried to finish the juice and medication.
"The night you saw me that April, do you remember anything else about me or your surroundings here?" Kyle asked urgently.
"No… no… no… YES! You got in that car. That big, ugly car with all the lights on it. The black one with purple writing on the side that said VIXEN and all the faces."
Kyle jumped up, thanked the man, and sprinted from the building back to his car.
He raced home, his mind working faster than his vehicle. What kind of car would have "VIXEN" written on the side? Was it a radio station that had given her a ride? What was that car used for?
He burst into his house, dove onto his computer, and started searching for "Vixen" in every context he could think of: the band, the definition, clothing, even the DC comic. If only Google hadn't gone downhill so badly, he thought. Unless you're shopping or looking at porn, Google's pretty useless now.
Kyle switched to the Wayback Machine and discovered that, in his area, Vixen had once been a dance/go-go club. Suddenly, he realized it was his birthday. While it might be a coincidence, this was the perfect excuse to check out the Vixen location. Maybe they knew something about Kara or had witnessed what happened.
He knew he couldn't call Sera yet; that would only push her further away. He'd have to run this mission alone. He took more Tylenol and passed out for a few hours, building up his strength. He had no idea what tonight held—whether he'd come face-to-face with the person or group who killed his sister, or walk into a place completely repurposed with a new crew.
Waking as the sun began to set, Kyle stumbled into the shower. He realized he should've done this before visiting the elderly people. The woman at the door probably smelled the stale whiskey from the night before. The coffee had only masked the stench of a homeless drunk looking for mentally ill people to talk to.
Sounds crazy when I think about it, he admitted. Maybe I should slow down, or I'll end up running this mission right off the rails and blowing everything up, just like I did years ago. All he was missing was a torn undershirt and a broken-down car—that would've guaranteed twenty-four hours in lockup.
He finished showering, put on shorts, a T-shirt, and socks. He had a few hours to kill, so he picked out his clothes for the night and laid them on the bed. Sitting at his computer, he cleared out emails to pass the time.
Later, parked in front of the address that once housed VIXEN, he looked up at the building. A huge neon-red sign now glowed above the entrance: STRAGULARIUM.
Whatever the hell that means, he thought.
He walked past a long, red velvet rope and approached the front door, stopping before a big, square-jawed man and a skinny Black man, both dressed in black and holding clipboards.
"Can I get in?" Kyle asked.
The Black doorman scrutinized him. "Really, bruh? You don't look like someone who belongs in this place."
Kyle bristled. "What does that mean? What kind of place is this—some hip-hop joint?"
The doormen exchanged a look and burst into uncontrollable laughter.
The doormen man, wiping tears from their eyes, looked at Kyle. The black doorman said "Alright, man, come on in. I think you need this place more than any of us right now. Ha ha… man, fucking hip-hop joint."
Still laughing, they stepped aside.
Kyle followed a long, dark hallway. At the far end, he could hear faint music and see flashing lights. As he got closer, the volume increased—club music, mixed with industrial and maybe even post-punk.
He rounded another corner into a different corridor. This time, he saw people clad in latex and leather. Some women had their breasts exposed. In one corner, two women were giving oral sex to a man.
As he continued down the hall, he passed rooms filled with activity.
In one, a man in shorts was strapped to a cross, wincing as a woman put out cigarettes on his skin before whipping him. In another, a woman was strapped on her stomach at a tilted 60°, being penetrated by three men while others masturbated in a circle around them. The last room on the left showed a woman strapped over the lower half of a man who was also bound, while two other women forced her mouth onto his erect penis.
Kyle asked aloud, "What kind of sick, twisted place is this? Are these political prisoners or something?"
He rounded the final corner into an open space. Red and white lights flickered. A DJ stand stood at one end, but it was too backlit to see clearly. Off to the right stretched a long bar. Tables circled the walls, filled with the darkest perversions humans could conceive.
In the center, a thousand sex-crazed monsters seemed to be consuming each other. All dressed in black—some masked, some leashed, some with pierced genitals so elaborate they seemed unusable.
Kyle reached the bar and asked for a drink. Sonya, with most of her chest exposed, handed him a glass. He sat down. She watched him with an unsettling intensity, like a wildcat studying a rabbit that had wandered into the wrong cage.
Kara was nearby, talking to another bartender. She turned her head and saw her brother.
Kyle's eyes locked onto her face. Without thinking, he launched out of his seat, yelling over the booming music:
"KARA!"
For a fleeting second, her eyes widened slightly. Then she looked away, then back again—her face a mask of artificial calm.
"Do I know you?" she said, pretending not to recognize the emotional mess at the bar.
"Wa—wa—Kara! It's me—Kyle… your brother!"
She maintained the cool she'd mastered from Abraxas and Jade over the years.
"Not anymore. You don't belong here, kid. You should just go home before you get hurt."
Kara started to walk away. Kyle followed, confusion washing over him—more overwhelming than the argument with Sera.
"I thought you were dead, or kidnapped, or something… I see now you're just a sex slave."
He trailed off, his confusion deepening by the second.
"WATCH YOURSELF, LITTLE BOY!" Kara snapped back, blazing with contained rage. "In a place like this, you'll never know who's the slave and who's the master. I'm about to go upstairs. If you follow me, I'll make sure you end up a slave—and it won't be the way you think. GO HOME. Don't try to find me again!"
Kara ascended the stairs toward her office, and Kyle's eyes lost her in the darkness.
He kept staring at the void where she had vanished, until several figures began sensually rubbing different parts of his body. He violently shook them off and headed for the door. His entire world had been turned upside down in less than twenty-four hours.
And all of this—on his birthday.