The Allegory Of Triberias: The Call Of Destiny .

Night Terrors

DENEVIEUH,
The Forest of Erydria,
2420AA,

Havillah took a step into the room and sighed.

"As if things couldn't get any worse." She sighed. She had to get used to this. She knew. To the suspicion that came with being a stranger. Wherever she went she knew that the reactions would probably be the same and where she was lucky, she would get to meet a person who was just like Killion or as innocent as little Sophir, who thought her capable of no harm.

Killion, she thought with a bitter smile on her face. Had he found out about her departure or was he still oblivious to the fact?

She took another step forward and surveyed the room in which she had been locked up. The room was a typical bedroom. Typical in that it possessed the one thing that qualified most rooms to become a bedroom. In this case, this thing presented itself massively and was pushed back to one one wall. It stood out like a dark silhouette covered in a white sheet with one pillow and a dark folded fabric square that had to be a blanket or something of that kind. In this dim light she could see that the floor around the bed was bare. It had no rugs to cover it and was essentially made of wood. To be precise, faded wooded panels that unlike the firm terrazzo on the corridor outside, creaked with every step or move that she made around the room.

Apart from the bed and the attached bedside tables, there was no other furniture in the room. There was a single overheard light fixture mounted on a white cardboard ceiling. No light bulb though as she had come to know of these things from her time spent at the Hub. It was strange really that despite it being just a mid morning, with the sun high up with the approach of midday, the room remained darkened as if it were already night.

Curious Havillah looked around. Was there no window in this room? It couldn't be that she was underground? No. She shook her head reminding herself of the journey and the steps that they had taken inside the house. It was quite clear to her that at no point had they descended from the main floor. In fact, the corridor outside was a straight line probably a few metres from the main door and that left the options that the room was either windowless or..."boarded up." She said recalling what had been the bungalow's appearance from the outside.

With this now in mind, Havillah took another look around the room, peeling her eyes open for anything that might standout along the walls. Then she saw them. The dark curtains that covered a part of the wall that was parallel to the corridor and opposite the bed.  Slowly, she approached the corner and pulled the curtains apart only to discover a fifth a wall that had been hidden behind those curtains, one that was quite narrow and also, all window.

"No wonder I had not seen it."

She quietly mumbled to herself.  She looked up to study the glass window. She could now see that it was partially broken with impact cracks on some of the areas.

"This probably explains why it is also boarded up from the outside." She added thoughtfully as she noticed how the boards kept the light out perfectly. The light that should have been streaming in from the bright sun outside.

Exploration done and mystery solved, Havillah now realised that there was nothing else to do and with a smile on  her tired face, she approached the bed and put her knapsack down on one of the bedside tables. Surprisingly, it had not fallen off when Jharey had accosted her. He had handled her quite roughly, but his hands had not once strayed to her knapsack, which also meant that she still had her food with her and also some water left in the bottles she had refilled. At least with that, she thought, she would have enough for the next day or two. Long enough to find out what was really happening there.

"When did I become a detective?" She grimaced as her fingers traced the headboard coming off with a line of dust. "This won't do." She sighed at the dirtied sheet that were not meant to sleep on but rather, to preserve the spring mattress that was lying beneath it. The blanket though and the pillow appeared clean. Therefore she took out the sheet and used it to wipe off the dust. Next she took out the blanket and spread it on the mattress before resting her form on the wooden surface of the bed's headboard.