Excerpt: AsiaDawn (working title)

The ground is covered in some sort of dusty dirt, and I can’t help but think we’re walking on cremated bodies. This is a long, black room with a very short ceiling. It must sit beneath the entire auditorium, although the part that leads beyond the stage into the seats is barricaded by a cinder block wall that doesn’t quite reach all the way to the ground. There are small overhead lights every ten yards or so, just enough to see by. The walls are cement, but covered in colorful graffiti. I examine the wall closest to me and find signatures from 04, 98, 89, 73, and even 66.
I forget about the probability of asbestos creeping into my lungs and my fear of the dark. This shadowy, dim room is the last place in the school to survive all the renovations. It is the only place that I feel connected to – a place where people I knew might have stood, their footsteps still somewhere in the dust. A room that alumni from any year can say was here while they were here. I never knew this place existed while I was at West, but it is suddenly my favorite room. And suddenly I am sure that Asia did find it. It is the secret, dark, special place that she was always hoping to find.
“Over here,” Anne calls from beyond the trap door. She and DJ are standing under a light halfway across the room. I have to walk around a broken old stove with ancient playbooks falling out of it, a smashed cabinet, and a teacher’s desk with suspicious jars of greenish juice to reach them. The place is creepy and I am certain someone is going to jump out at us, but for some reason it is making me smile.
Anne points to the wall and I see it – orange spray paint, a perfect pretty heart and underneath it, the acronym “A.S.I.A.A.”
“I wasn’t sure if it was her or not because I couldn’t remember her whole name,” Anne admits. “But, I mean really, who else has those initials? And looks – it says 05 in the heart. That’s Asia.”
Amira Soraida Iniga Adalgisa Addario – that’s Asia, no doubt. Or as she occasionally referred to herself when she was drunk or otherwise over-excited, Princess Fascinating Woman of Fiery Noble Promiss.
I wonder when Asia came here, and how she found this room. It must have been after we stopped talking or I’m sure I would have heard about it. Above her orange heart is “A.R.” for Andrew Reynolds. At least she didn’t come here alone. I’m surprised that I’m a little jealous that I couldn’t be here too, even though it was my own fault that I wasn’t. I try to remember how I felt, all the anger and disgust and how tired I was of making excuses for Asia’s behavior, and find that none of it even bubbles anymore. I can’t bring it back – it’s gone from me.
If the air wasn’t so sketchy with dust and other particles, I might have sniffed a little, but instead I turn away. Scrawled in bright blue on the wall across from Asia’s art is a messy line in all capital letters, loud and indignant, one student’s message to the world – “I WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN.”
I have to get out of this basement.