Long Form Roleplayers

THE TRAVELER
After falling back asleep from my nightmare, I am able to sleep soundly for the rest of the night. However, when I wake up, I am confused, and unable to figure out if what happened all last night was one giant dream or not. Here's what happened...

I had my opening training session with Max, we bond, he takes me out to dinner, we bond more, and then he gives me this wolf pendant that he's worn all his life, and the keys to his apartment. We go to bed together, I wake up in cold sweat from a brutal nightmare... And now I'm here. I'm in the hotel room in Germany I was supposed to be spending my two weeks in when trainings were dismissed each night.

The wolf pendant... I check my neck, gone. I check my bag, which somehow ended up in the hotel room too, nowhere to be found. However, keys fall out of my pocket.. The keys to the apartment. I take it with me as I go to sit in the lounge chair in my hotel room, inspecting it to see if it's real. After inspecting the key for what could feel like ten minutes, I get dressed, take my bag, and go to check out the hotel.

I try to retrace my steps from when Max took me from the hotel to his apartment, and after following the paths I could remember, I finally find the complex. I get to the apartment unit and use the key to enter it, only to find the entire unit completely empty. No furniture, no sign of life, as if no one ever lived here. After thoroughly checking each room in the unit, I find a business card on the kitchen counter of the apartment. Contact of the person who owns the entire building. I find where in the building he's located, go down, and knock on his door. I asked him if anyone ever lived in that unit, even named Max, and he said that no one ever did and no one ever named Max lived in the building, let alone the unit. I give the owner of the building that key I had found and used and disappointingly leave the building.

What's real, what isn't? According to everything so far today, it's like Max never existed, like everything that happened yesterday was all a dream. But it wasn't. Otherwise, how did I still have the key he gave me before I went to bed with him? That key doesn't explain everything though. I remember everything so clearly from yesterday. The only period of time I don't remember was when I passed out after showering from training to when I woke up on the mats. Could that be where reality began to distort?

No... It couldn't be. It can't be, because there was dinner and going to my hotel, getting my bag and belongings, and then the intimate moments on the couch, getting the pendant AND the key before going to bed. And waking up from a nightmare IN that same bed. WITH him. And then to wake up in the morning, not in that bed, but in the bed of the hotel room that I was supposed to have already checked out of. Nothing makes sense right now.

After walking around the city for an hour, I find some rest at this park with a water fountain at its center. I just sit there, continuing to wonder what really happened, what was real... And if any of this really was real. After getting lost in thought for another hour, a piece of paper blows by and gets caught on the handles of my bag. I slowly remove it and unravel it. All it says is,

"I'm sorry.
The White Wolf"

On the back of the paper, which I didn't see before, is an illustration of a wolf. Same design, angle, and pose as the carved wolf's pendant that he gave me. After I got that note, an idea struck. I went to the city's central library and went to their art history section to try to locate the era in which this illustration of the wolf would have been found in. With the librarian's clearance, I am able to take so many books to this "Study Room," a small, isolated room whose key feature is a fireplace.

As I tore through each book, hitting dead end after dead end, I am at the last book in the pile. After flipping so many pages, nearing the end of the book, I find the same illustration as the back of that note, but right when I find it, a mysterious, all too coincidental wind drops the note to the ground, and as I go to try to pick it up, it is supernaturally picked up and flies straight into the fire of the fireplace. Feeling defeated, I take it as a sign to just try my best to let go. He who sent the note does not want to be found.

Disappointed with how the day ended, I take a walk to the water fountain again, sit on a bench to face it, and take out my phone to email my personal fitness coach from back home. All I tell him is that plans fell through in Germany, and I just need to go to the next stop on this tour. After a few minutes, I get a ping back. My next stop, Spain, for some pro-submission wrestling training.

Luckily, the ticket I had received for the flight to Spain was for a night flight, so I hightailed my way to the Frankfurt Airport and within the following half-hour, I caught the flight out to Spain. Whatever mysteries I experienced today, at this point, I'll leave it behind.

Published: 2022-10-01, viewed 42 times.