Book Five, Chapter 23: Moon

That day and the next were some of the many peaceful days we had at Kimberly’s loft.

We had come to savor them, even though the longer they lasted, the sooner we would start to feel the panic and dread that came with running another storyline.

That night, however, we would not get to relax.

In our first few weeks there, we got used to the occasional knock on the door coming as we went to sleep. Isaac took pride in being able to disengage and send away whatever omen had come to try and trick us into a storyline.

We saw no reason to exercise anything but abundant caution, so it was pretty standard for us to use multiple opinions. He would look, then I would look, and then we would decide what to do to send the omen packing.

Even though the others didn’t have scouting tropes that would allow them to be helpful whenever omens knocked on the main entrance, they still got up and got dressed enough to be ready on the off chance we failed to send away the omen, and we were all drawn into a storyline.

Everyone was wide awake by the time we assembled outside the main door after that night’s knock.

Isaac held his breath as he walked up to the door and put his eye to the peephole.

He froze.

He literally didn’t move for about 10 seconds, then he backed away and looked at me.

It was my turn.

From the icy look on his face, there was something terrifying on the other side of the door.

I couldn’t imagine what it was.

Usually, other sounds accompanied the knocking—something like a person asking to be let in or some ominous growls. When I looked through the peephole, what I saw was Camden.

My friend Camden Tran, whom I had known since I was a little kid, was standing out in the hallway, anxiously waiting to be let in. He dressed like Camden: short-sleeved, buttoned-up shirt with the top few buttons undone, surfer shorts, a necklace with little white shells on it, the works.

He had a smile on his face and strangely seemed to know that I was looking at him as he made eye contact with me even though we kept the lights off on our side so they couldn’t see the shadows.

I knew it couldn’t be him, but the sight of it made my heart jump. I made sure to look at the omen on the red wallpaper. The storyline was titled Suitability. It was dangerous, which made it hard to see what was on the poster, but I could guess it had something to do with shape-shifters or similar, given that my dead friend was staring back at me.

I didn’t need to know anything except how to dismiss the omen, how to send it away.

My hint was helpful: “Be a better stranger,” according to the red wallpaper, was what I had to do to send him away. Normally, my trope told me how to trigger an Omen, but in combination with the rules for Kimberly’s loft, it instead told me how to avoid its automatic triggering.

However, it wasn’t as straightforward as some of the hints had been, which made me dread the day when the hints were so obscure that we could guess wrong.

Being a better stranger to someone who looked like my oldest friend meant something pretty clear to me. I just hoped that I was right.

I found myself afraid to speak, but I took a deep breath and spoke anyway.

“Go away,” I said. “I don’t know you.”

It made sense to me. A creature that imitates your loved ones would probably be thrown for a loop if you claimed not to recognize it.

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I seemed to have guessed right because Camden suddenly looked very confused.

“Are you sure? I thought I was at the right place,” Camden said.

“I’ve never seen you before in my life. Get out of here,” I said through the door.

And then we waited to see if I had guessed right.

Slowly, Camden—or whatever looked like him—turned and walked away.

Dina stood near the door with the sawed-off shotgun pointed and at the ready. If I had been wrong and fake Camden had tried to bust through that door, he would have gotten a real surprise.

No one spoke, but Antoine looked at me like he was hoping I would explain.

“I’ll tell you later,” I said. I was afraid to acknowledge what I had seen because I was low-key afraid the monster would hear and realize I secretly did recognize it.

I took a deep breath, and we all just kind of walked back into the living room, none of us ready to go back to bed.

“I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to that,” Kimberly said.

“Not after Camp Dyer,” I said.

“I miss it so much,” she said. “Scratch that. I miss the real world. But I do miss Camp Dyer.”

We stood in silence for a moment longer. It occurred to me that every base we would ever live at would have some drawback, just like this one.