Chapter 5: Chapter 5

Leo

Berlin, Germany

Leo woke up to the sound of birds chirping through the open window, sunlight shining on his face. He felt great after what seemed to have been full ten hours of uninterrupted sleep.

‘What a dream,’ he thought, stretching his shoulders and sitting up in the bed. ‘High-speed car chase, rescuing a beautiful girl… Stuff straight out of action movies.’

Finishing his stretch in delight and looking around, he thought, ‘Where am I?’ Leo did not recognize the room he was in, as the single bed he was sitting in, as well as the beige-colored walls with wooden furniture around them, did not resemble his small one-bedroom apartment back in Riga.

The first idea he had was, ‘Did I get lucky last night?’ That was the usual reason he woke up in rooms he did not recognize, due to having drunk a bit more than he was used to and meeting one girl who was willing to entertain his drunk self.

Leo got out of bed and found his clothes folded on a chair. Neat and seemingly straight out of the dryer. ‘That is very odd,’ he thought, getting dressed, not being used to finding his stuff so neatly packed. The room had no signs of a passionate struggle he expected to find from the previous night. He got up and went to the door.

Walking out of the room, he found himself in a corridor that was heavily decorated with various rugs. Portraits hung on the walls and small trinkets sat on wooden tables.

“Hello?” he called out in the corridor in hopes to find someone. No one answered his call.

Not discouraged, Leo walked out of his room in a pair of slippers he could find, toward the staircase to the left, and went down to the first floor. There, the room that stood out the most was the kitchen, with its wide doors. Hungry, he walked straight to it not bothering to check other rooms.

Inside, he found a girl with platinum blonde hair sitting behind the kitchen island with her back facing him, dressed in what looked like a white shirt and beige shorts. Thinking that this was the girl from the last night whose home he woke up in, Leo call out to her, “Good morning!”

“AAAAH!” the girl screamed, startled, dropping the coffee cup she was holding on the kitchen island, spilling it. She whipped her head around to find Leo’s smiling face looking at her and said, “Dammit, you scared me! What are you doing sneaking up to people behind their backs?”

“Sorry, I did not think that I was that quiet coming in here,” Leo apologized.

“Truth be told I just woke up and have no idea where I am,” he continued, looking around the room.

The girl before him paused, and said, “Sorry, it might seem a bit awkward for you then. Tell you what, sit down and I will make a coffee and something to eat while we talk, how does that sound?”

“That sounds wonderful,” Leo answered and sat down where the girl had pointed, next to her vacated seat. Looking around he noticed that the whole kitchen was done in a beautiful modern style, without any handles to open the kitchen cabinets. The furniture looked new, barely used. He deduced that the facilities were not used often or the family had moved to this house recently as everything looked in such a pristine condition.

Looking further outside the window to his right, he saw that he was not in the city center, but outside town, as beautiful greenery spread before him, without an end in sight, making him believe that the estate was quite large.

‘We must be pretty far outside town,’ he thought, moving his gaze back from the garden to the girl who had finished cleaning the tabletop and put a coffee mug before him.

“Would you fancy a toast?” she asked.

“Yes, of course, whatever you have available,” Leo answered, and gathered the courage to state the obvious, “Sorry, but I do not remember much from last night and that also includes your name.”

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She stopped and blinked a few times. “From last night? Yes, right. No problem, I am Heidi, and you are Leon right?”

Leo calmed down, now that the worse had come to pass, and it did not seem that the girl was mad, and nodded, “Yes, but my friends call me Leo. Nice to meet you. Again, I suppose.”

He chuckled awkwardly and shifted in his seat. Looking at Heidi, he saw that she closely resembled the girl that he saw in his dream, hazy as it was now that he had woken up.

“No worries, Leo, and good morning to you too. You are not surprised to wake up here all alone?” she asked while putting together a toast, which Leo found to be craving more and more with each passing minute.

“You had me there. I am a bit surprised to wake up and not remember anything from last night, but as you can imagine it is not the first time I had a bit too much to drink since university.” He decided to switch the topic and said, ”I am interested in the garden you have there, as I have not seen such trees anywhere around Riga.” Leo pointed with a finger toward the garden he checked out before.

Heidi looked where he was pointing and said, “Oh, those? Those are black pine trees my family has cultivated for decades. They are great right? They help to keep the air clean around the estate and also look great if taken care of properly.” She put the toast on the island top next to the coffee, brushing Leo’s question off.

Leo looked at the toast for a second and said before digging in, “Thank you!” Taking the first bite was delightful as Leo found that he was hungry and the white bread together with the half-melted cheese hit the spot.

“I imagine you slept quite well, given that it is well past early morning hours?” Heidi asked.

“Yep, sorry, I am usually a morning person especially after, well… you know,” Leo answered shyly, chewing on the sandwich, feeling his cheeks heat up a bit, as he was not used to girls being so welcoming and open the next morning. “I try to be the first one up to make breakfast and be on the lookout in case the parents are home.”

“Parents?” Heidi asked laughing. “You know that I am twenty right? You do not need to worry, father and mother have been gone for a few days now. We are on our own.”

“Oh, we are the same age then. That is great! I feel calmer then,” Leo laughed and dug in the toast, finishing it up before taking a sip from his coffee. He noticed that his head was feeling lighter, not something he was expecting after hitting breakfast and having such a great and strong cup.

“I do have some stuff I would like to discuss with you, regarding the last few days,” Heidi said while pulling up a chair next to Leo and sitting down, facing him.

‘Few days?’ Leo thought baffled and felt the lightness make him dizzy again while his vision started going hazy, prompting him to lean on the kitchen island a bit and look at his hands.

“What is the last thing you remember, Leo?” Heidi asked.

Leo looked at her and reflected that he had not given it much thought as he assumed he was drinking last night. He thought that, before he met up with her, he had a bit too much to drink, and partied. Then he went away with her and spent the night here in this house. He had no idea what date or day it was.

Thinking harder, it started to come back to him, slowly. He had a job interview that was scheduled for Monday. He was driving from a party and was late, which meant that going out yesterday was true, maybe. But after that, it got hazier.

“I remember driving from a party. I was behind the wheel of my car, speeding,” he recalled looking at her. “Though, that does not explain how I ended up here. Actually, where are we?”

Leo turned around to look at the room again and noticed on the dinner table top a foreign newspaper. Looking outside the window, checking the garden out again, he noticed that the greenery did not resemble anything he had seen back in Riga. All the plants had a more exotic tint to them, as if in a botanic garden.

‘Where the hell am I’?

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