“Excuse me?” He was at a loss. How was he supposed to engage this hostile creature?

  “I saw you staring at the moon for like five minutes. It’s the fucking moon. You’ve seen it thousands of times before. We have things to do. Now! Let’s go!” She motioned impatiently to follow her as she made to leave.

  He raised his hands in a placating gesture to halt her.

  “Hello, I’m Tim. You are…?” He wanted to get some sort of grip on this situation, bring order to what was currently a confusing mess.

  “Oh. We have to do this…? I’m Rachel.” A sardonic smile was plastered on her face like she was born with it. “I’m here to save your everlasting soul.”

  Hit with that bombshell Tim was feeling anything but more normal.

  “And mine, I guess. So let’s get going! We’ll talk as we walk.” With that she turned and left. The message was clear, she was going with or without him.

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  “Ok, ok.” he hurried a few steps to catch up to her back, making a quick assessment as he did.

  He appeared to be dressed, that was good. A familiar rectangle weighed down his left front pocket and a quick tap found a wallet in his back right. No keys of any sort.

  Rachel pushed through a set of double doors just to the left of the nurses’ station, ones that would normally require a buzz-through. Realizing that, Tim looked around. No one else was anywhere in sight. And he still didn’t hear most of the noises that he normally would. The low hum of elevators and ice machines had begun to creep its way into the periphery of his consciousness, though he still didn’t hear any people or televisions or beeps. The no beeps was the most obvious void.

  Rachel walked down a short corridor and took a left. An elevator bank stood thirty feet down the hall from them, across from a small seating area. The couch and two chairs there currently sat vacant. She reached the elevators and pressed the down button. He had surmised they were on the second floor from his view and room number. He ambled up behind her and decided not to speak yet. It still felt eerie in here and he didn’t want his voice to be the thing that broke the spell.