Zuflucht

22

I groggily sat up and yawned, the warm sun blazing in from the closed glass windows covered in advertisements. I looked around and noticed Curt asleep on the bare floor while Milly was laying her head on his chest. Richard was no where to be seen and Aashant-

"Ash!" I whisper-yelled in realization, hoping that my daughter was at least listening distance away. I quickly shot up from my spot, but immediately regretted it once I felt dizzy from still being exhausted. My legs ached slightly and I felt feverish from sleeping in such a hot room.
I bolted towards the door and attempted to open it, taking in a deep breath once I realized it hadn't been messed or tampered with.

"Ash!" I repeated once again, trying my hardest not to freak out from fear for her.  I looked over in Curt's direction from the loud panting that Milly began to make from the heat.

I need to open a door or something...

Wiping the sweat from my brow, I made my way towards the two closed wooden doors next to each other beside the main desk; stepping over a snoring Richard in the process.
I chose the door to the left and twisted the knob slowly, not wanting to make too much noise before I opened the door to an empty, putrid smelling bathroom. The humidity only added to the rising bile that I tried to push down as hard as possible; not wanting to wake everyone by me vomiting.

Quickly closing the door, I breathed in deeply from relief once the terrible stench was gone and gave myself a minute to breath before I planned on opening the other one.

If I wasn't fully awake then, then that smell definitely did the trick...

I composed myself and braced myself to open the door, already knowing this room was gonna smell awful from the rotting body that we found when we first checked the place out last night. With my hand on the doorknob, I began to twist it only for the whole door to quickly open itself from the other side. Ashanti's little form quickly came into view as she was trying to make her way out of the room until I appeared in her way.

"Oh, sweetie!" I breathed out in relief and bent down to her level to hug her. She gave me a confused look before she hugged me back.

"Uh, what's wrong mom?" She asked with her eyebrows squeezed together in confusion. I ignored her statement and leaned back to examine her form and make sure she's okay.

"Why weren't you beside me? What are you even doing?" I asked quickly while wiping the sweat from her own small forehead.

"Nevermind that. I've got to show you something!" She whispered excitedly. A small smile graced her delicate face as she grabbed my hand and dragged me into the room, making sure to shut the door behind her so we don't wake anyone up.

"How long have you been awake?" I asked while holding my nose from the terrible smell.

"Just a few hours, but anyways you need to hear this." I walked over to the desk she was leaned over to see what had caught her attention so much. In front of her, there was an old radio that looked to be years old. She pressed one of the buttons, and music quietly started playing from the two speakers on both sides.

"How is that even possible? There's no power?" She looked at me with excitement before she shook her head.

"Don't even need it. This is solar powered!" She couldn't help but tell me in excitement. 

"I got multiple different CD's too! I tried the regular radio stations, but everything is static so I thought why not try a CD or two." She skipped through multiple songs on the disk before she stopped at one she liked in specific.

How is my daughter smarter than me...

"Are you sure all the stations don't work?"

"I tried them and couldn't get anything. I don't think any are playing anything." She skimmed through more sets of CD's before she stopped at one in specific.

"Who is Journey?" She asked while holding up a music album and tossing it in a small pile with the rest. I couldn't help but internally cringe at my lack of parenting.

"Hey, give me that." I snatched it back up and for what reason I'll never know.

"You seriously don't know who Journey is?" I couldn't help but jump as Richard interrupted and stood in the doorway.

"She's only been hiding in a storm shelter all of her life." I snapped back.

"How is that an excuse? Everyone knows who Journey is."

I could only roll my eyes before turning my attention back to the radio.

"What are y'all doing with that? How did you get it working?" Richard moved over and watched as Ash flipped through different tracks again before changing the disk to a random one.

"I saw it charging in that window over there so I checked to see if it worked. No stations worked, but the CD player does."

"You moved the antenna?!" Richard snatched the radio and turned it back to the live station, the static noise once again illuminating the room.
I now noticed Milly come into the room with her ears perked and small nub of a tail at attention. She calmy walked through and planted herself beside Ash's feet.

"Calm down I didn't hear anything. Everything's static." Ash spoke for herself. Richard chose to ignore her and continued turning the dial and moving the antenna in multiple places.

"Shit." He mumbled to himself after nothing but now annoying noise kept playing over and over.

"What's going on?" Curt's deep voice cut through the air and all four of us found ourselves turned around looking in his direction.
His sleepy form stood at the door and his shirt looked to be lightly soaked in sweat while his hair was slightly messy.

"Milly?" He asked in disbelief. She turned around and looked at him before getting back up and standing next to him instead.

"The damn kid lost the station."

"Excuse me?" I butted in.

"Let me see if I can find it again. First, let's get some air and secondly let's get the hell out of here. My nose can't take much more of this smell..."