The Shadow Of The Secrets

Chapter 4 : Awake

As I hugged the soft, silk duvet tighter around me, keeping in that delicious warmth, a prickle of awareness aroused me to the fact that I wasn’t in my own lumpy bed. It was much bigger, and much comfier than my own.

A surge of uncomfortable aches glided awkwardly through my body, like I’d been asleep for sometime.

How long have you been asleep? How did you get to bed? asked the groggy voice.

The fact that I couldn’t answer either of these questions began to worry me, an uneasy feeling churned my stomach. I suddenly felt as though I couldn’t answer the simplest questions about myself.

A memory stirred, and in that one brainwave, everything from the past day swept over me and filled my head with overwhelming knowledge.

A loud, heavy knock shook me from my trail of thought.

‘Come in,’ I croaked roughly. My throat burned with a thirst I hadn’t even been aware of.

The door glided open silently. Rafe was impeccably dressed, his hair styled in a familiar array of curls. His broad grin seemed to wake me up further as he headed towards me with a tray of food.

‘Morning,’ he smiled, and placed the tray on my knee.

I tugged the blankets further up, trying to cover my flimsy pyjamas.

Pyjamas? I don’t think so. The voice said coolly. Clearly my conscious had woken quicker than  my body did.

I glanced down at myself, I was wearing my jeans and grubby jumper, no pyjamas in sight. 

‘I’m fully clothed!’ I squawked childishly.

‘Yeah. You sort of fell unconsciously into sleep on the sofa, so I brought you into bed to sleep a while. I didn’t think you’d sleep for over 24 hours though,’ his voice help the tiniest thread of concern, but it was clear that he was glad I’d finally woken up.

‘24 hours?’ I whispered curiously. ‘The news?’

‘Don’t worry about the news. Worrying won’t change anything.’ his calm, smoothed tones seemed far too relaxed.

He dumped a red carrier bag at the end of the bed along with the tray, gave me a quick smile and left. If he’d said something I completely missed it. 

I looked down at my hands. My small, sore hands. The rough, patchy red skin looked like it should belong to and old man who’d spent his years building houses, not a 22 year old office worker. My arms and hands ached like I’d done a tough gym work-out, I couldn’t help but wonder if this was the direct result of protecting Casper, or from the running.

How did you do it?  gently inquired the voice.

I let out a long deep sigh, I couldn’t answer. I didn’t even know what I’d done, not to mention how I’d done it.

Impulsively, I stuck out my hand towards the red bag and urged it to come to me.

Nope. No telekinesis.

The delicious smell of the pancakes floated around me, flooding my senses and giving my stomach the prompt to growl like a savage wild bear. I pulled both the tray and red bag towards me, as I edged towards the edge of the bed, deciding it probably safer to eat my breakfast on the floor, than spill all over Rafes’ nice expensive bed.

As I lowered myself to the floor, I caught my reflection in a small mirror near the door, I looked like I’d been dragged through the streets by my hair, it looked like straw! No wonder Rafe smiled so wide, he was laughing at me. My hair was piled high upon my head, looking greasy and wild. The rest of my clothes hadn’t fared much better, my red jumper had black soot stains splotched randomly across it. Whilst my black jeans had mud stains splashed up to my knees, which had now dried and was crumbling to leave a lovely brown trail across the pristine white carpet. One thing was very clear, I needed a shower and some clean clothes.

As if on cue, the red bag slipped from my grasp and the contents scattered into a pile on the carpet. A pair of faded jeans and a oversized multicoloured hoodie. Brilliant.

I demolished the pancakes and juice and hopped up quickly to seek out the shower, pushing those creeping pessimistic thoughts to the back of my mind.

Only one crisis at a time, and at this very moment the major crisis was of just how bad I smelt.

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A/N

A nice short chapter, hope y'all done mind :P

So please can you guys have a think and maybe suggest some actors for the characters so far? PLEASE!

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