Unexpected

The Morning Begins

A frightful pounding on the door and a call of, "Time to wake up!" from an unfamiliar voice made me jolt up, awake and gasping. It was a rude awakening and I was still dirt tired, but I was relieved to be awake anyways. Just because I had fallen asleep quickly didn't mean that I had slept well. During the night dreams, based on events since the alley, had haunted me along with some old terrors of mine. Ever since I was a little girl I'd had nightmares of black shadow men kidnapping me, chasing me, and doing other horrible things to me and my loved ones, including one where they were torturing a friend of mine while I had to stand there helplessly and watch. Last night, however, the setting of my dreams had been the alley, which I was running through for some reason, when every shadow contorted and became three dimensional. The shadows became the shadow men and in my recognition of them and subsequent terror I starting sprinting all the faster down the alley that slowly changed into the underground, almost tunnel like halls of Loki's operation base.

Endlessly I charged through these halls turning this way and that, but I couldn't shake them. No matter how fast I ran they were always only a few feet behind me. As I scurried down another hall I found myself at the intersection that had the cafeteria on the left, so making a sharp turn I rammed through the cafeteria doors and raced to the kitchen. Slamming the door shut I looked at the doorknob, hoping beyond hope that there was a lock on it, and was severely disappointed. No, not disappointed, horrified. I rushed over to the cupboard and tried to push it towards the door to block it off so the shadow men couldn't get in, but it was as if the thing was glued to the floor. Nothing else budged and there was a pounding on the door, signaling that the creatures had made it to the door. I flung myself across it, but they were too strong, practically breaking the door off its hinges. Right before they finally broke through I abandoned the door to the kitchen and flew to the fridge. The shadow men were at the metal fridge door in a second and I retreated to the freezer where I hunkered down against the door and hoped they couldn't get in.

Knocking and scratching at the metal door, the shadow creatures tried to enter but for some reason they couldn't and for a moment I thought that maybe they had left. Raising my head from between my knees where I'd hidden it when I had balled up on the floor, I listened for the shadows, but all was silent. That's when I noticed something changing in the freezer. Just like in the alley the shadows started shifting and peeling themselves off the walls. Shrieking I turned and tried to open the freezer door, but to my despair, it was frozen shut. I shouted for help, begging for someone to come and rescue me, and whacked my fists against the door trying to escape from the shadows that were coming closer and closer, slinking towards me. That's when the knock and shout from the door had woken me up.

I curled back up under the upturned blanket of the bed for a second, just trying to steady my breathing before turning on the lights and slipping out of bed. Groaning, I checked my phone, which had charged all night on the cord that Clint had given me along with my phone, to find that it was five thirty in the morning. If breakfast was to be served at six thirty, I didn't have much time.

Deciding I had to go to the bathroom I pushed my door open to find a pile of clothes and the hairbrush, toothbrush, and toothpaste from yesterday. Grabbing these I crossed the hall to the bathroom and started cleaning myself up. I splashed water onto my face and neck, trying to wipe away the sweat and tears that were clinging to me, then I looked at the clothes which consisted of a better fitting black t-shirt, a pair of jeans, and a long, knit, cream colored cardigan. After slipping these on, along with the convers I had received yesterday, I started working on my hair. Once it was detangled I twisted it into a simple side braid. After I had brushed my teeth, I returned to my bedroom, folding up the t-shirt and sweatpants that had served as my pajamas and placing them on the shelf along with the hairbrush, toothbrush, and toothpaste and took down my pad of paper, pen, and phone.