Unexpected

A Rude Awakening

The shadow men had returned. How had they found me? They always found me no matter where I fled in the underground brick labyrinth. They peeled themselves off of each dark wall, stepping into the dim, yellowish light to give chase to me. I had to escape! I had to figure out where I was! Suddenly I came up to the familiar hallway to the kitchen, but a vague memory of a terrible previous nightmare kept me from running into the cafeteria and kitchen, so I made a sharp turn into my closet of a bedroom. Slamming the door closed I pushed my back against it to keep them out as I didn't have a lock on my door. Panting, my eyes flew around the room trying to find something to prop against the door, but I saw nothing in my tiny room that would help.

My eyes did catch on to something however, a shadow that seemed to slowly swirl, like it was made of dark fog being caught by a breeze. The shadow grew into a shadow man and I shrieked, but it swooped upon me in its ghostly way and covered my mouth with its black hand, cutting my scream short. It then started morphing again as I searched its blank, featureless face and saw a real, human face sprout from it. The face belonged to none other than Ed and I fought against him as he gave me a seductive yet cruel face and pulled at my arms forcing me away from the door and thrusting me down on my bed. His one hand still over my mouth and his other pinning my wrists above my head he got on top of me. He then slowly slide his hand from my mouth down under my chin and was trailing his finger down my neck to my collarbone as I screamed for help, unable to throw him off as I kicked and struggled.

"No one's going to help you, Penny." He cooed as his finger was sinking past my collarbone and lower down my chest.

"Stop! Please, stop! Get off! STOP!" I yelled and immediately he backed off and stood on the side of my bed, stock straight like he was in the military. His eyes were now the bright turquoise of the Tesseract.

"Whatever you say." His voice was hollow and lifeless.

I gasped as I came to myself, my eyes flying open for a millisecond before I clenched them shut again and tried to steady my heartrate. It was just another nightmare. After my whole ordeal the past five days it was no wonder why I was having so many nightmares, but why must they be the shadow men? Why must they be about Ed? The mind control? Why couldn't my mind just let me rest in peace? I gasped slightly as I realized my fists were bunched up into tight fists, my nails digging into my poor palms even through the wrappings, the stinging soreness returning with a vengeance after the pills had worn off. My neck hurt, too. I must have slept on it funny... wait... sleep... falling asleep... I'd fallen asleep in... oh no! Where was I?

My eyes sprung open again and I sat up hurriedly. The room was pitch black for a moment until my eyes grew used to the gloom and fell upon the flickering light of a candle on Loki's drawers next to where the scepter lay. My heart raced again and I could feel my cheeks burning as the realization of what had happened blared through my mind. How embarrassing! I'd fallen asleep in Loki's room! Oh, what must he have thought when he looked up from the Harry Potter book to find me fast asleep? Loki! Where was he? I glanced about in the dark and, as my eyes started getting used to the shadows, I caught sight of a shape lying on Loki's king-sized bed. It must be him, asleep.

I was still in the chair I had been in the night before and I'd been sleeping sideways on it with my legs over one arm and my head using the other arm for a pillow. Slowly and silently, I stood up, moving the blanket that had covered me as I slept from my lap. It lay pooled on the floor now that I had thrown it off when I had startlingly sat up. Had I had that blanket covering me last night? No. No I don't think so. Loki must've covered me with it. That was actually rather sweet I had to admit, but my embarrassment quickly drowned that thought out. Once I was standing straight I picked up the blanket and quickly, yet neatly folded it and placed it on the chair cushion. Glancing at the table I saw that the tray was still there, so I quietly picked it up and carried it with me across the room to the door. I could hardly breathe as I turned the knob and pushed the door open, expecting the dim light from the hallway to wake Loki up. I couldn't talk to him now; if he awoke I'd probably melt from pure embarrassment and horror.