Fort (Working Title)

Chapter 1

Elizabeth opened her eyes. The ceiling above her had huge square patterns on it, but all of the squares were white. Everything around her was quiet. She felt a sense of being in an extremely spacious room.

She sat up. She felt so well-rested, but something on her head was hurting. She reached for it, and felt a twisted hairpin. Several hair strands were wrapped around it. It was hard to remove the hairpin.

She moved to the edge of the bed and hung her legs over the side as she felt her hairpin with her fingertips, pushing her hair strands from it little-by-little. Finally, she removed the hairpin from her head. She reached for the other side of her head to find the other hairpin still in its proper place. But she removed it also. She placed both hairpins on her bedside table.

Her bedside table was made of wood, but it was low and simple. It had no drawers. The only other things that were on it besides her hairpins were her phone and a snowglobe. She picked up the snowglobe.

She sat still for a while and stared into the snowglobe, transfixed.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud ring. And another loud ring. And another. She put the snowglobe on her bedside table and picked up her phone. "Cherry", the screen read.

She put the phone on her ear. "I've moved in."

"What? It's over? You've unpacked already?" Cherry asked.

"Yes, I spent the last minutes of my wakefulness unpacking and putting everything in their proper places," Elizabeth said. She put the phone on speaker and left it on her bedside table.

"Really? I don't believe you can do that." Cherry's voice filled the room, cutting through the silence. "If I were to move from the city and up to the mountains for the first time in my life, it would take me forever to unpack."

"I fell asleep unpacking," Elizabeth said as she leaned across the crumpled sheets. "On the floor. I woke up later to drag myself to bed, and continued sleeping. Then I overslept. I don't like to miss sunrise. And I woke up with a hairpin stuck in my hair."

"Alright. But I still wouldn't be able to do that if I were you. I mean, you've been in the city all your life. And now you've moved up to the mountains. On your own."

"You make it sound like it's an impossible task," Elizabeth said as she finished fixing her bed. The pillow, mattress, and blanket were white. The bed frame was made of black metal, with tall bed posts on each of its four corners.

"And your house is the only one on that side of the mountain. Were all of your neighbors that bad? You really have to move out there, away from the population."

Elizabeth picked up her phone and replied as she walked out of her bedroom. "You have to admit that there's beauty in living in the countryside. It's fun to go back to Nature. I'm a novelist, and I love my solitude and my peace of mind." Elizabeth was walking through a narrow, white corridor that led to the front door. She continued talking to her phone. "Besides, it's cheaper to live here than in the city. Here, I get to have a backyard. There, I don't even get a garden. There's a garden here. And the path that leads to the house is lined by different kinds of tall trees. Can anything else get prettier?"

Elizabeth opened her front door and stood at the doorway. The sun had risen before her. The leaves of the trees were fluttering in the morning breeze. The sun was shining on them, making them cast shadows on the path that led to the gate. The gate was tall and black. The sky was blue. It was so blue, it looked like a swimming pool.

"But what if there's a serial killer there? No one would help you," Cherry said. "We can't possibly help you from the city. By the time we get here, you'd already be dead."