It didn't take Ali long to finish up in the bathroom, but she did however, make certain not to look back at the mirror.
The not quite familiar face in the mirror.
She dressed as simply as she could with extra layers, taking into account the time of year and weather that might be waiting for her out the door.
Taking a second to fumble with her keys she left her home.
Ali always found it odd that she had to deal with such an ancient problem in modern times.
People walking, driving and looking down at devices too small or thin for anything but scrap if they got damaged.
It was the world they lived in, she missed it, for the most part, more so on anniversaries of her changed life.
Ali already had an odd feeling about the day.
Rain drops hit as she closed the gate of her home.
Glad for the extra clothing, she quickened her steps to get to the train station
She had a car an old chipped mint green Aston Martin that her grandfather had kept, but with the traffic, the politics of owning, driving or finding a place to park, she couldn't be bothered.
The walk to the train station was short, the train ride wasn't, nor was the transfer but it got her to her destination.
To her Apple farm.
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Ali had a love hate relationship with the train.
It got her to where she needed to go but it had cost her more than she ever expected.
She had received 4 silver coins as part of her compensation for her teeth being forcefully changed.
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At first she didn't think anything of the coins but as a keepsake, a physical reminder that she wasn't crazy, having a bad, bad nightmare or suffering from a hit on the head in a hospital somewhere.
It wasn't until she lost one of the coins while she was on the train that she realized that they weren't normal.
The day it happened was bad, she was sick and the bus she was in had got stuck in traffic.
She had hated the long commute that took nearly 7 hours on her regular train to Cornwall, so she kept her return trips to London for the weekends.
Her job wasn't what she had planned but it was a working apple farm that was now starting to get its footing.
One moment she had the coins in her hand as she was fumbling for something else in her pocket, the complaints and annoyance running through her mind, about the time it took, the need for travel to be faster.
One of the coins, blackened and then shattered while she held it in her hand into fragments.
Then with a pop the pieces went into her hand.
The suddenness of the pain didn't give Ali time to scream blacked out.
Then she woke up with the train in the station.
With a lot of scared and bewildered passangers.
Not surprisingly so.
Seeing how the train was in Plymouth more than 4 hours early.
Ali still tired and sick wrote it off as good luck and people being distracted.
She kept believing that even with the news report.
She believed still until she arrived back in London, after waking up at her destination.
It was then she realized that the trip took well under 2 hours.
After that realization, she tried it a few more times with various results. The remaining three coins still kept in her pocket in a special pouch, Ali wanted to keep them close to her but making sure to be extra careful not to touch or use them up by accident.
At first while things speed up Ali kept falling asleep for the time it took to get to the location, she was going while it happened.
It was like she didn't have enough energy to both travel and keep herself awake at the same time.
What ever it was that she was able to do seem to be getting easier and less tiring over time, she still drifted off to sleep but her body was becoming less exhausted after arriving at her destinations.
It also worked with her driving her own car but after waking up inches away from a grove of apple trees with a banged-up head, slightly bloody from reintroducing herself to her own dashboard in the sudden jolting stop.
Ali had no good way to explain what happened to the people working with her on the farm without sounding like a special case.
After explaining to her coworkers the dangers of not looking where your going and tripping over roots. She had to get one of her workers, Shawn Tipton to drive the car back for her, much to his and her annoyance.
So Ali kept to using the trains.
The main thing for her was that she could live in London and work in Cornwall without giving up her lifestyle.
That was until, she got off the train in Cornwall at Saltash station to find herself staring at two police officers and a man in a tweed suit all looking at her as she disembarked.