The bright crimson light faded. The pendant fell, cold, against Zaria's skin. It took a couple of minutes for the spots to fade from her vision after being blinded, and she waited patiently before moving. When the bright spots faded, they were replaced with darkness.
Confused, she reached out and made a patting motion in the air in front of and around her, stopping when she knocked her fingers against a hard surface. She followed the surface, pulling her hand closer to her body until she found the edge. It dropped sharply toward the ground for only an inch or two before tucking back in. Not wanting to stick her hand under anything, she followed it back upward and began to push her hand outward this time, slowing even more when the surface slanted suddenly downward like the curve of a bowl.
At the bottom of the dip, there was something that felt like metal with little holes leading down below the surface. It felt familiar, so she walked her fingers further. The sides curved back upward to what felt like the same height of the original surface. Cold metal knobs knocked against her knuckles as she raised her hand above the surface. Stretching her arm straight outward, she met a wall, and she slowly walked forward, keeping her fingertips lightly touching the surface until she felt an inclined surface sticking out from the wall. She pressed it, blinking hard against the sudden flare of light.
"I thought so," she muttered, looking down at the smooth marble counter top below her hand. The bathroom around her looked like it belonged in a high-class hotel. Rich walnut cabinetry, smooth white marble, and polished chrome fixtures gleamed under the complimentary lighting. Awareness of the danger that came from being in an unknown situation took her only so far, and she hurried back to the toilet and sat for the first proper time in a month.
"Oh, my gracious, my butt is so happy to be sitting right now," she moaned as she relieved herself. She made kissy noises at the plush toilet paper, promising herself to always have a roll with her in her backpack the rest of her life just in case. Maybe set up a shrine in her home whenever she got back there, say a few words to Saintess Charmin every day before leaving.
After she was done, she washed her hands in the sink before rifling through the little basket of amenities under the counter and coming up triumphantly with a bottle of mouthwash. Another 60 seconds were spared as she swished and rinsed, and the joy was lessened only by the gritty feeling still on her teeth. Wherever she was, whether it was a different part of her own universe or another one that had beautiful, high class bathrooms, one of her next goals was getting a toothbrush and toothpaste and brushing at least four times in a row.
She stared at herself in the oval mirror over the sink as she moved the mouthwash around in her mouth. Her skin, which was normally the color of rich espresso, was a dusty shade of brownish gray from all the dirt and ash caked onto it. Lips chapped from the dry air sat plump on a face thinned out from not enough food and too much stress for too long. After spitting out the wash into the sink, she winced at her clean lips, the broken skin more prominent without dirt caked on. She looked around for a washcloth but came to her senses when the subtle beep of a door lock sounded from the other room.
"Shit shit shit," she chanted quietly as she looked around for a hamper to drop the filthy hand towel in that she used to dry her hands. A click, and she could see a dim light illuminate the room outside of the bathroom through the open door.
"Is somebody there?" A hoarse voice called from somewhere beyond the door.
Zaria closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Finding no other options, she placed a polite smile on her lips, turned off the bathroom light, and walked out into the other room.
Although a light had been turned on, it appeared to be set at the lowest of the dimmer settings. She could barely make out anything as her eyes adjusted to the far lower light levels. The main body of the hotel room was large but not expansive, maybe 28 square meters. A large chunk of that was a bed that looked even larger than a King size and sat just to the side of the bathroom door. The bed was between her and the only exit. She reinforced her customer service smile before apologizing to the man she could make out slumped against the closed door.
"I am very sorry, sir," she said with her smoothest you-asked-for-a-manager voice. "I was let in here to take a quick shower, I was not aware this was somebody's room. I will just let them know that there was a mistake so that I can take my shower elsewhere and you can go about your evening."
The man did not move away from the door or speak, his shoulders rising and falling raggedly. She squinted and tried to make out something more than his shape, but it was too dark. After a moment of no reaction, she walked toward the end of the bed and tried again. "Sir, there has been some kind of mistake, so if you would please step away from the door, I would be happy to leave."
"Is this some new kind of play? After drugging me, you play the sweet innocent in hopes that I will be gentle?" He scoffed and pushed himself away from the door, walking unsteadily toward her while pulling at something around his neck.
Her service smile slipped a notch, and she raised her hands in front of her in a placating manner. "I don't know what you are talking about, sir. I am clearly filthy and have come in to wash up. I have no plans toward anyone. If you believe that you have been drugged, then I suggest you lay down and call the police. I can have someone call for you if you have no phone, if you would just go and lay down?"
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
He stared at her, a dark shape outlined by the dim light of the only lamp in the room. A long second later, he obediently sat, or fell, onto the bed. She hurried to the door. Just as her hand touched the knob, she sensed someone behind her. "I will apologize in advance," that hoarse voice spoke in her ear, and then she was turned around and pushed against the door.
"Hey! Back off -" she shouted before being cut off by thin lips forced onto her own. She twisted her head to the side and felt her dry lower lip split, bringing out a squeal of pain. "Get off of me!"
His face was too close, and a hand came up behind her head and held her in place while his lips attacked hers again.
"Asshole!" She screamed at him and drove her knee straight up between his legs. He doubled over, and she reached for the lamp sitting on the entryway table. She brought it down on his head with a crash. The man fell to the ground in the new and total darkness, and she quickly opened the door, fleeing out into the bright hallway beyond. Blinded again by bright light, she squinted and could make out a closed stairwell door just inches away. A rattle behind her back and she was leaping toward it, opening it and passing through before the room door could open completely.
Not wasting a second, she raced down the stairs. She skipped the last few before each landing and flung her body toward the next set. At the bottom there was a door on the same side as the one she went through to enter the stairwell, and on the back wall of the stairwell was a door clearly marked 'Emergency Exit-Alarm will Sound'. Somewhere far above, there was the sound of a door opening and voices yelling. She slammed through the emergency exit and took off down the dark alleyway beyond. The blaring alarm echoed off of the walls of the buildings lining the sides.
The alley let out onto a road not much larger than an alley itself, with large trucks that looked like the delivery trucks she was used to, but with smoother corners and tops, like loaves of bread. Darting around workers and trucks, she ran along the road for a few buildings, running out onto a much larger road before slowing down.
To her left, further behind the hotel, she could make out more buildings, growing progressively larger until they nearly scraped the sky. For a second, she considered running that way, but to the right, there were large crowds of people walking along a cross street. So she went that way to hide in the crowd.
The thought to run and hide was too strong. Perhaps if she had been attacked while minding her own business, she would take the chance of getting help. Being in a room she was not supposed to be in, and no way to explain why she was there without lying? Who would believe that she had been the one attacked? She walked quickly toward the end of the block and slipped into the crowd of people.
The side of the road that her brain told her had to have the hotel entrance on it was lined with dozens of restaurants and shops, brightly lit up and pulling in people from the sidewalk in front of them. Across the street, there were no buildings, just a hill sloping down toward a wide beach with waves gently lapping the shore. The ability to hide there seemed less, so she stayed with the crowds and turned away from the direction she came from, keeping her head down.
Several blocks later the crowds were thinning out and her dirty appearance was starting to get uncomfortable side eyes, so she crossed to the opposite side of the road to walk down the hill and along the beach that lined the road there. Her plan was to draw as little attention as possible, so she kept her pace slow and steady and tried not to look behind her to see if anyone was following. The one time that she did look, she could see the hotel was much more distant than she had thought. To the side, she could see a towering skyline that looked nothing like any she had seen before. She acknowledged that she had not seen every major city, but by the number of skyscrapers surely she would have seen pictures of this one before.
At night there were fewer people enjoying the view of what looked like an ocean and she wandered along, untying her uniform neck kerchief and wrapping her head with it like some of the people that looked like housekeeping or service workers she saw walking along the street. There was nothing that she could do about the fact that her skin appeared to be much darker than anyone else she had seen so far, except to lower her sleeves down to her wrists and hunch her shoulders to look more like a defeated worker at the end of a long shift.
Zaria walked along the beach for some time. The sound of the busy restaurant and shopping areas faded as she got farther away, and soon, all she could hear were the waves on the shore and her own scared breathing.
"I don't think this is my world, either," she whispered to herself. Over the ocean, the moon was full and brilliant with the sun's reflected light. Across the sky, over the buildings, another smaller moon hung in the sky. "Nope, definitely not my world."
Ahead, the white sand of the beach ended against large rocks, and the grassy hill behind them turned into a cliff where they hit the waterline. Zaria angled toward the road again, following the sidewalk into a much quieter area that she assumed was most likely a residential one. Here and there, music floated out of small restaurants or bars surrounded by gated up shops. She was just beginning to wonder if she should figure out a spot where she could rest for the night when she saw an older woman across the road playing tug of war with someone over a purse. Not stopping to think, she ran toward the woman and a man wearing a dark surgical mask over his face.
"Hey, let go of that!" She shouted as she approached. The man looked up and then dropped the bag, taking off in the opposite direction. Several items fell out of the bag when it snapped back against the woman, and Zaria knelt down to help her pick them up instead of chasing after the purse snatcher. "Are you okay?" she asked her, handing her a pair of keys with a cute cartoon cat holding a pink heart.
"Yes, yes, thank you so much!" The elderly woman gushed at her, stopping with a start when she saw her face and clothes. "Oh my child, what about you? Are you alright? What happened?"
Zaria glanced down at her clothes with an embarrassed shrug. "It's a long story."
"Don't worry about me! You get home and clean up, that bad man is gone, and I am fine."
"Uhm, is there somewhere like a 24-hour shelter here?" At the woman's confused expression, she elaborated, "Like a place that allows you to shower and sleep for free? I was kind of left here and I don't know where anything is and I don't know anybody..."