Chapter 1

  There are many things that can go wrong in life, many, many things.

  You could lose your job, and your spouse could divorce you. You could hit an old woman with a car. Hell, YOU could be hit by a car.

  The only thing that really prevented any of these possibilities was the probability. The likelihood of a plane crashing into the earth and you dying is 1 in 816,545,929. Those are pretty solid odds! Seriously, with over ten million people flying every day, what were the chances of anything bad happening to a single person?

  Apparently pretty damn high.

  Mark refused to get back on one of those damn metal birds. Those devices of death and risk. Nope, the long days spent waiting around with his densely packed duffel bag were at their end; he instead would drive absolutely everywhere.

  He had worked as a consultant for one of the larger firms in the States, but his fiancée still traveled far more than him; she had been hired into a European-based company but had refused to move overseas, opting to be near him rather than to relocate.

  It was ironic that he lived in Europe now. Her company was only willing to give him the life insurance if he was in the country, and the amount of money was more than tempting, even with his substantial salary.

  Of course, he thought he could escape across seas, to leave behind the cold house that was once full of life, full of her. Alas, Mark had learned that while he could escape people, he couldn’t escape himself and the thoughts in his head.

  All of this was going through Mark’s mind. Brought about by a random advert that one of the greedy travel companies sent out to all of those with a bit too much money and not enough common sense.

  The small pamphlet had in large, bold font “EXPLORING BERMUDA” written across its cover. Mark also noticed the smaller print below, saying, “Bring loved ones, lose yourself in the adventure.” With a sad smile, Mark couldn’t help but rub his thumb over the small text. Halting when it was about to pass over the plane on its cover, he sighed.

  Lisa had always wanted to go to Bermuda, but neither of them ever had the time. Whenever one had enough time off from work, the other one was swamped and gone from the house, unable to get more than a day or two to spend with one another.

  Sitting in a sparsely decorated living room painted in a stark white, Lisa had always preferred the pristine look of it. Mark abruptly noticed the time. If he sat here for much longer, he would probably fall asleep, and despite his sadness, he had no intention of going to bed hungry.

  Not one to leave a mess behind, he grabbed the pamphlet off the couch and opened up the trashbin, glancing at it for only a moment before tossing it in.

  Turning to his fridge, he looked through the various ingredients. Rather, the lack of them. Sighing, he closed the refrigerator's door. Mark checked his watch. 6:35 pm was late, but not too late. Amsterdam always had local places where he could grab a bite.

  Grabbing his coat off an otherwise empty rack, he quickly left his home, making sure to lock up behind him.

  Taking in a deep breath, the cool breeze off the canals relaxed him. “Ahhhh, it's a lovely night,” he said aloud. No one else was nearby, but Mark liked to talk outloud to himself sometimes; it grounded him in reality.

  Walking along the cobbled path, he crossed the canal and took three turns, arriving at one of his favorite places. It was a little mom-and-pop restaurant. The owners were an old couple who were Dutch, and despite his overall inadequate proficiency in their language, the couple was still kind to him.

  Of course, this restaurant was no normal local restaurant. God knows Dutch food isn’t even close to being good. No, it was for pancakes, and boy, did the Netherlands have the best of sweets.

  Before meeting her, he didn’t really eat a lot of sugary things, preferring the savory flavors of asian cuisine. Yet nowadays, he couldn’t get enough of it; every bite of chocolate ice cream or whatever treat he bought himself brought her back to him for a few moments.

  Mark’s dietitian didn’t like this, but the man worked out enough so the complaint was mostly ignored.

  Slicing into the chocolate chip pancakes drizzled in fresh maple syrup, Mark thought back to the pamphlet.

  It’s been three years, he thought to himself, maybe I could bring myself to go there?

  The last flight he took was to move over here, and throughout the entire flight, he was clinching the armrest with the tight grip of a man looking for any way out. It was only with the knowledge that panic doesn’t help, it only hinders, that he managed to keep himself in his chair.

  “Is het goed?” “Is it good?” An older woman’s voice broke him from his thoughts. It was one of the owners; she sometimes came around and asked about the food, always wanting to know if she could make it better.

  Taking a moment to register what she had said, Mark nodded, slathering a happy smile over his otherwise morose face. “Ah, yes, they are wonderful as always.”

  The owner’s face lit up momentarily. She knew English, but rarely spoke to him in anything but her native language, which made sense to him, afterall, he was the outsider here, not the otherway around.

  With the older lady moving on to her next customer, Mark’s fork hit the plate with a small click. Lost in his thoughts, he had eaten all his pancakes.

  Standing, Mark placed a twenty-euro bill on the table. The meal was only twelve, but he always felt like he should leave a tip for what the food brought him. While tip culture didn’t really exist outside of the US, he never really adjusted to the way of life around here.

  Leaving the tiny door that led out into the backstreets, Mark headed back home, taking the exact route he had to get to the food.

  Unlocking the door to the house, he stepped in, took off his jacket, and slipped it onto one of the two hangers at the entrance. Mark checked his watch, 8:39 pm. Late enough to lie down, it’s not like he would be falling asleep anytime soon anyway.

  Going through the rest of the motions for the night, he quickly filled a water bottle for his nightstand and turned on the fan in his bedroom. Despite the Dutch bordering a nation known for its engineering, they still hadn’t seemed to discover AC yet.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Lying in bed, Mark closed his eyes, but his thoughts wouldn’t stop turning over, like an engine that refused to stop.

  Going through the countless meditation techniques his therapist taught him, it was several hours before he fell asleep.

  #

  Bzt. Bzzzzt. Bzzzzzzzzzt. BZZZZZT

  Mark’s blaring alarm woke him. 6:30 am exactly, the same as every other day. Incoherently, he grumbled to himself while getting around through the day, pulling on a white undershirt, something caught his eye at the end of his bed.

  What the? He picked up a pamphlet of paper, its tropical destination displayed by both an image and the text, “EXPLORING BERMUDA.” Didn’t I throw this away? Did I grab it out of the trash last night? With a confused look upon his face, he set it back down on the bed, instead grabbing a recently pressed button up of his dresser, dutifully set out by histruely the night prior.

  Strange.

  Even if it was a tad abnormal for him not to remember something as simple as that, he eventually shrugged it off before finishing his morning ritual, only pausing to grab a bagel and a glass of OJ on his way out of the house.

  When he had moved overseas after the crash, he was offered a job at the same company his fiancée had worked for, yet he couldn’t bring himself to work at a place where all he would ever receive was half-felt apologizes and pity. Especially with the several million spanning multiple investments and assets under his name.

  As such, he had denied the job and lazed about in a lonely solitude. It was after two months of perpetual haze that Mark decided he needed to get out of the house. One could only sit in the silence of mourning alone for so long.

  Getting a job at a corporate office, a tiny ways out of the city, he slid back into his old role as a Financial Consultant. This time, he was working with individual citizens who needed his expertise and knowledge in finances. It meant he could stay much closer to home, only having to travel occasional to De Hague.

  Mark preferred helping individuals rather than the large corporate businesses that had stolen from the world. He always regretted taking his first job; while he hadn’t felt it while he was working there, it had drained the life from him slowly, and only when she died did he realize how much of their lives they hadn’t spent together.

  Nonetheless, the new job was pretty close, only three tram stops away from the nearby station. Compared to his commute in New York, the thirty-minute walk was nothing. It kept him in better shape than most Americans.

  Entering the office, he greeted the receptionist, Martha, who was an older Albanian woman. She was always warm when he arrived, but he had seen her when angry, and boy, did he learn to never anger Martha.

  “Hey Mark!” A woman in her early thirties greeted him. “How was your weekend?”

  “It was lovely, you?” Mark replied. Her name was Valyrie, and ever since he began working at the office, she had come up to him on pretty much a daily basis, at least whenever he was there. Now, Mark wasn’t completely ignorant, and he had his own suspicions about her interest in him. Few people, other than those in HR, knew that his fiancée had passed, so he couldn’t really blame her.

  It’s also been two years, and many would say it’s time for me to move on. He thought to himself. Hell, it was half the reason he had cut most of his contact with his family, despite his love for them; they kept trying to pressure him to find someone else.

  It may be silly, but Mark doubted he would ever ‘get over’ Lisa. The connection they had experienced was too strong to forget, nor did he want to. When he had first received a call from her company and the private airline service, he felt like a shattered man and had contemplated ending it. But he couldn’t bring himself to. Lisa wouldn’t want that, and the insistent feeling of wrongness that pervaded his mind whenever he thought of it dissuaded him.

  He had hired a therapist the day after.

  Shaking his head of those morose thoughts, Mark finally arrived at his office, which was quite secluded from the main lobby area and had a small window to the outside.

  Logging into his computer, he checked his email like he did every day.

  Sorting through the business emails, personal emails, and spam, he was just about to delete the random messages he received from those random shopping sites.

  Although he saw something that made him pause.

  “EXPLORE THE BARRIER REEF”

  It was in the same font as the pamphlet he received the day before. Clicking on the email–not the embedded link, you never know what could be malware, he curiously opened the image sent.

  What opened sent a wave of disbelief through his mind. It was the same cover as the paper at his home, but the wording and the tropical island had changed. Instead of the tropical island of Bermuda, it was the beautiful corals that covered the east coast of Australia. With the title “EXPLORE THE BARRIER REEF,” this by itself wasn’t too weird, but the text underneath sent an unexplainable shiver down his neck. “IN THE MEMORY OF OUR LOVED ONES.”

  This is absurd. The Barrier Reef was one of her top go-to places as well. Did the travel agency get hold of her information somehow? In disbelief, he checked the name of the agency.

  Finding Utopia.

  Despite the circumstances, he couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it. Utopia isn’t real. It’s a fictional dream that everyone desperately chases. Still, while he was a bit more amused, the invasion of privacy was incredibly vile. Looking at the number displayed in very small text, he pulled out his phone.

  Dialing it, the phone only rang for a single second before it was picked up.

  On the other end came a cheerful voice of a young woman, likely a young hire. “Hello, this is Finding Utopia, the best service for finding your optimal destination in the known universe.”

  Mark felt the corners of his mouth slightly rise at that. Known universe? Speaking through the phone, he used his best serious customer voice. “Hello, my name is Mark Solomon. I have been receiving some adverts with highly personal information and want whatever data deleted. Also, to unsubscribe from the mailing list, please.”

  The woman on the other end laughed, her voice sounding strangely like wind chimes tinkling in an autumn breeze. “Oh, let me pull that up on our system real quick,” She said. Hearing the clattering of a keyboard, Mark waited, swiveling absent-mindedly in his chair.

  “Aha,” the receptionist's voice spoke up, “Here it is. These ads are being sent to… Lisa Ezaloth.”

  That didn’t explain them arriving in his email; it also didn’t tell him why they seemed specifically targeted to him.

  Before he could bring up this inconsistency, she cut in, “Don’t worry, Mr. Solomon, I have removed all personal information and unsubscribed you from our service. Feel free to call back when you decide to start your adventure!” And then she hung up, just like that.

  Staring at the phone in his hand, Mark couldn’t help but be a little taken aback by the brief and cordial conversation.

  He did find it amusing that she thought he would call back. That type of confidence was honestly the most impressive part of the conversation.

  Shrugging, he pushed the conversation out of his mind and put the spam emails into the trash bin. For whatever reason, though, he couldn’t empty it.

  #

  Later that night, he stopped by a small grocery store and made dinner at home. Going through his usual routine, he once again noticed the small pamphlet sitting on his bed comforter. The tropical island of Bermuda printed on the paper with a shiny ink.

  For whatever reason, the conversation from earlier still lingered in his head, as well as the advert for visiting the barrier reef. In the memory of our loved ones, ay? He thought.

  Rolling onto his side, he faced the other side of the bed. The empty half of the bed. Maybe… just maybe he could find another way to feel her presence again. To not fill in the hole left in his heart, but to grow around it. To find a way to keep living.

  Resolutely, Mark thought to himself. I have a call to make.