The Map That Leads to You

Chapter Two: A New Beginning, Or Not?

'Safety Comes First' shelter was tremendously different than the previous shelter we lived in. It was like a mansion compared to the old dump we used to stay in. Everyone who worked here had optimistic sneers coated onto their faces, and glistening teeth. It was almost as if their teeth shone and blinded my eyes. Everyone around here seemed so sympathetic and organized.

By the time we got off the bus, it was quite late. 2:16 AM was the last thing I saw when I looked at the clock that was loudly ticking, so they asked us sincerely to go to bed and sleep. Everyone could choose their own beds, so as usual, my friends and I slept next to each other. The beds were astoundingly comfortable, and I haven't felt this relaxed in years. I didn't know why I felt like I've been holding my breath for a long time and could finally breathe, maybe it was because the bed was extraordinary or because I was just extremely pleased that I was finally out of Jeskoland and in Lorkshire. I was relieved.

The sheets and blankets were white, but they were the ones that made you feel warm. I snuggled the sheets and closed my eyes as I sniffed the smell of the flower detergent they had used to scrub the blankets. It had taken a while for me to take my mind off the differences but I eventually did and I felt myself slowly falling asleep, drifting away in silence and into darkness.

...

Everyone was still asleep when I had opened my eyes. The light was too bright that I had held my arm in front of my eyes, guarding my red, strained eyes. It hurt to look at the light, so I lazily got up and went to close the curtains, trying not to make a noise as everyone was asleep. I could feel and hear the rattling of metal coming from the curtain against my hands and into the receptors in my fingers. I was wide awake but my friends were still in deep sleep. It was about six in the morning, and everyone must've felt exhausted from such a trip. Andrea clearly must've been freezing that night as she covered herself entirely under the blanket. You couldn't even see her face, foot or arm. Not a trace of her existence.

I proceeded to shake them to their consciousness. I began with Philip, who was right next to me. It took nothing but a whisper in his ear to wake him back up to reality. He rubbed his eyes as he slowly sat on the bed. His brown eyes gazed at me as his nose dripped with blood. His nose ached in pain as his whole face reddened. He didn't panic because it was normal and it happened frequently. After wiping it with his thumb, he got up to go to the toilet and wash his hands and face.

While he was gone, I woke up Adam and Iris. It took a longer while to wake them up because they had drifted back to sleep every time I woke them up. It seemed that maybe they were dreaming, or joyful in their new life. When they eventually got up and sat on their beds, they began to whisper a few things to each other while I walked over to Andrea's bed. I didn't think much of it. Maybe they were whispering because everyone was asleep. I'm sure they wouldn't have hidden anything from me, but from the way they spoke to each other and looked back at me, I began to suspect that they were keeping secrets. I pressed the bump that was under Andrea's blanket to wake her up, assuming it was her under the blanket, but it felt too tender to be a human body under there. I threw the sheets off, into the air, and heard it softly land on the floor to find nothing but her plain white pillow.

The noise of the blanket caught Iris and Adam's attention. They flinched and looked at the bed as confusingly as I was, questioning what a pillow was doing in Andrea's bed. Where had she went? A few seconds passed and Philip walked back into the room. Silence lingered in the room. He gawked at the three of us, trying to realize why we were so confused, but it only took him a split second to realize that Andrea was nowhere to be found.