Elrich Saga Yellow Springs Book One

Chapter 15 I Shop 'Til I Drop Part A

Chapter 15 I Shop 'Til I Drop Part A

The next morning was a bit of a blur. Crue had gotten up first and his waking up had woken me up. The hangover wasn't the worst I've ever had, but it still wasn't pleasant. All I wanted to do was kill the sun for being so damned bright. I threw my arm over my eyes with a groan.

"Toilet." Crue staggered about. Why on Earth, or rather Elrich, was he yelling this early in the morning. I decided I would kill him too when I got the pounding to go away.

"Eri, damnit, where's the toilet?"

Right, I was feeling more than a bit of pressure down there as well. I should do something about that. I untangled myself from the blanket and sat up. No, I did not want to sit up. Sitting up was a bad idea. I had almost decided to lay back down, but I had to go.

By some miracle, I managed to make my way down the hall silently counting doors as I went. The fourth door on the right was the shared toilets for the guests. There were three stalls and a magic stone hand washing sink. A window was slightly open to let in the slightly chilled morning air. Stupid air being all cold and making my face hurt.

Crue had followed me and made a beeline to the back stall. I finished my business and was quite proud that I was able to aim in the state that I was in. Go me!

I splashed water on my face. That not being enough, ran my head under the tap. I could smell myself and it wasn't pleasant. That woke me up a little, sticking my head out the window to let my hair drip outside helped a lot. I used my hand and squeezed out what water I could. The pounding in my head lessened a bit.

I sweat a lot in the night and my clothes smelled like beer. There wasn't a lot I could do about my outer clothing. I had fallen asleep in them without changing. The best I could do was change my under clothes and wash up. I plugged the sink and used a dirty undershirt to wash my naked body. I dried off with another undershirt and wiped up the water mess I had made on the floor. Putting on clean underclothes and socks made me feel better, but I wasn't looking forward to putting on my green over-shirt and the pants Crue had let me use. I was running out of clean clothes. I would have to figure out how people did laundry here.

Crue has made it back to the room before me and was drinking water from a cup that Daisy had left.

"Take this," he handed me the half-full cup and a paper packet. "You'll want to drink that first," he pointed at the cup and picked up the other packet. I drank the water.

He refilled the cup and opened his packet. Tossing back his head he dumped brown powder into his mouth quickly following it with drinking the entire glass of water. His face made me not want to try the stuff.

"It's bitter as hell, but it will help with the headache. It's refined willow bark. Good for fevers, headaches, minor pains." He handed me the glass and I filled it.

I tried to do as he did. I tipped my head back and let the powder in the packet fall in. Sweet Giblets! I began to choke. It was bitter was an understatement. I tasted like chewing aspirin. I drank my water and refilled the glass and drank that too. The nasty taste lingered. I wasn't certain if it was going to stay down. My gag reflex was working in overdrive.

"Do you have willow bark?" Crue asked.

"We have aspirin that's pressed into tablets so you don't have to taste them."

"Wouldn't you choke?" He shook his head in a sardonic way then began to wash his face in the sink. He smelled just as bad as I had. I handed him a fresh undershirt. He shook his head.