Sheltering in Place: First Night
Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, except give everyone nightmares.
Neon Amos 3:7
- - -
After finishing the most refreshing shower of her young life Hitomi toweled herself off and stood on the tiled floor of the medical staff room. She quickly donned the full-coverage underwear (granny panties) and then pulled up the gray sweatpants that had come with the emergency "stranded traveler kit."
They were huge, but she tied off the drawstrings after cinching them to her waist as closely as she could do in comfort. Her bra came back on, which, admittedly, was actually pretty hard to manage with her sore arm, but she did it all in reverse so she could clip from the front and then slid it around into place.
Thankfully, it was a flesh-colored bra, so didn't stand out terribly underneath the plain white T-shirt they had given her. She clipped her barrettes back into her still damp hair, hoping they would hold in place since there wasn't a hair dryer nearby.
The fetched out the final contents of the bag: a tiny toothbrush and some toothpaste. It was weird to her that in the Japanese embassy she was given American dental care products, but who was she to complain? She'd already gotten used to them so: bonus, right?
There was a knock on the door just as she had finished brushing and she said, "Yes! It's OK!"
In came the doctor again, the nurse trailing behind her.
"I was speaking with the head of security, and he wanted me to let you know that arrangements with the Latvian embassy have already been made regarding the case of your former escort," the doctor said.
Hitomi nodded, sadly, "I didn't really know him, but he didn't deserve to die like that."
The doctor nodded and the nurse handed her a small metallic looking tube of some medicinal substance and a roll of gauze.
"In good news, I was able to upgrade you from a futon in the hallway to a couch in one of the waiting rooms - mostly thanks to that," the older woman said, pointing at Hitomi's arm, the one covered in long series of black-purple contusions.
"Oh, thank you! Thank you so much!"
"Of course," the doctor said matter of factly, reading the language written on the tube for a moment, then handing it back to the nurse and motioning for her to step in.
"Just so you know, you're not the only one the embassy has taken in. There's been a steady flow of employees or citizens staying here abroad that have been seeking shelter here. Your room may be a bit crowded. The guards will be rotating through shifts, so if there's trouble, they'll know quickly enough."
The nurse was spreading the ointment over her bare arm as Hitomi considered that.
"That sounds... OK, I'm just sorry to have to be here."
The doctor nodded, standing over them to observe, and continued her musing: "It sounds like we'll round up all our newcomers tomorrow morning and have an emergency planning meeting. Ah, Murata, watch your windings!" she scolded the nurse, who apparently was named Murata.
Sure enough, the nurse looked closer and found she was pinching too much skin, and unwound a loop or two - ew, the gauze made a sticky peeling sound - and redid it.
Oh no, how rude of her, she hadn't even asked their names and the doctor they weren't wearing a nametag or anything. And they'd gone out of their way to give her special treatment with the shower access!
"Oh I'm so sorry, I forgot to introduce myself," she said, "I'm Hitomi Hisakawa, 17, a foreign exchange student. Thank you so much for your help."
"I'm Doctor Nagisa and this is Nurse Murata, it's our pleasure. Now, if you could be a dear and not mention to your soon-to-be roommates that there's a shower in here, that would help keep the general order. I'm sure the staff will figure out suitable arrangements soon, we just were worried about the, well-"
Doctor Nagisa was looking askance at the small metal trash bin containing her bloody sweater.
"Well, that is - did you want us to try to wash that out?"
Hitomi's face faulted, then she recovered, "Oh, oh no! No, thank you though, I think it's ruined."
Nurse Murata had just put a little metal clip in the last loop of the bandage, securing it in place, and told her "Are you sure? I have some really good Japanese color-safe bleach. It can get the blood out."
Hitomi's face must've said it all, because before she could even formulate a response the nurse changed tack completely: "Oh, well, I guess maybe you wouldn't want to wear it after..."
Doctor Nagisa caught on, and declared, "Nevermind, it's probably ruined anyway. I'll see if we can find you something nicer to wear tomorrow if I can get back to my apartment, how about that?"
"Thank you so much!" Hitomi said, thankful they weren't pressing her on saving her sweater from the rubbish bin. "Wait, you don't live here?"
They both laughed, "No! Not at all, I have a nice apartment in Reston. Although we're all sleeping here tonight, you understand. We're in a lockdown," the doctor said, "Alright, well, speaking of sleep, we'll need to make our own arrangements for the evening, so Murata, if you could escort Hitomi here to her sleeping area let's get that going."
"Of course, ma'am," the nurse said, and helped Hitomi off the table she'd been sitting on.
Her arm felt a hundred times better already.
"There's some numbing stuff in that ointment, but it's also a topical NSAID, like ibuprofen."
Hitomi tested a poke of the bandages and failed to feel any major pain, just a warm/tingling sensation like an Icy Hot patch. The soothing sensation of the medicine was divine.
She slipped on her shoes, only to realize now her FEET were sore. Wow. She just couldn't win.
"Don't forget your bag," the nurse said, and Hitomi turned, looking around and finding her laptop satchel that also had her phone in it.
She picked it all up and slung it over her shoulder as usual, then shuffled behind the nurse for a moment as she tried to get her shoes on all the way. Thank god they were slip-ons.
The embassy was weird and surprisingly maze-like. The hallways ranged from narrow to wide and soon she found herself deposited in a small waiting room, with three couches and a table. It was tastefully decorated with several portraits of various famous Japanese landmarks, including Chiyoda and the Imperial palace.
There was someone else already asleep on one of the couches and the lights had been dimmed. Nurse Murata pointed at a pile of blankets and a small bean pillow on the couch at the far end of the room, and Hitomi made her way over to it, waving goodbye quietly.
Sitting down, she opened her satchel and thumbed her phone, finding it at 2% battery life. She rooted around in the bag and pulled out her laptop, then found a plug in the wall that accepted the American-style plug design, and then placed it on a table. She plugged a USB cord from the phone to the laptop and started charging up her phone.
The LTE network was still unavailable, and she set it to silent mode in consideration of her guest. The same with the computer - she hit the volume mute button at the top of the laptop's keyword so it wouldn't disturb anyone when it powered on.
She had the urge to try to do... something, anything, with her running laptop, but she was sure the internet was still down and suddenly she just felt - so - very - drowsy.
It was like her whole body weighed a thousand pounds. Her vision actually dimmed a bit. Sleep.
She needed sleep.
Least of all to let her body stop healing.
Shouldn't she have eaten dinner?
No.
Sleep.
That's what she wanted.
Hitomi stood up and slipped off her shoes. She wrapped one blanket around herself like a mummy, beneath her armpits so her arms were still free. Then she laid on the couch, and flipped the other blanket on top of herself.
There. That ought to keep her from flailing around during her sleep.
She stared up at the dim chandelier hovering over the room. She unconsciously fetched the barrettes out of her hair and placed the on top of her laptop keyboard so she wouldn't forget where they were.
The low lighting still sent shafts of yellowed light glittering around the room as the air conditioning pushed air through the crystals of the chandelier in a low hum. It was very soothing.
Hitomi started to try to think about something, but the drowsiness simply increased, and the low humming of the air conditioning units in the distance grew louder in her ears, accompanied at random by the phantom sounds of hypnagogia.
She was asleep.
- - -
Hitomi appeared in an endless white space, wearing exactly what she had worn to bed (or couch, in this case).
She looked around, but distance didn't seem to exist and direction didn't matter. She wasn't even casting a shadow, but there was light all around her.
Was this a lucid dream? She seemed to be in fairly good mental control of herself. She remembered going to sleep on the couch in the embassy waiting room, and then she was dreaming.
She knelt door on the surface and rapped it with her knuckles, testing it. It reacted like a floor would.
What kind of floor - she tried to analyze it with her mind and rather than wood, concrete, or metal - it just sounded like a floor. The idea of a floor. Floorness.
She waited, and waited some more, but nothing happened.
"Well, this is weird," she said to nobody.
Hitomi was very willing to tempt fate, having secretly hoped that saying something like that would incite a reaction from her subconscious. A little bit of dream entertainment would be nice, you know?
This was a bit monotonous for her tastes.
"Hello?" she called out.
Nothing.
Hmm. Maybe, since this was a lucid dream, she could control it? She exerted her mind, imagining a big pink cherry tree, and willed it to appear in front of her.
Nothing.
Darn.
She sat down, and considered her dreamscape. What was wrong with her? Normally she just had vague dreams full of emotions and lingering memories of the day. What was all this?
Was it related to her strange power?
She tried walking in one direction, then running - she ran for at least two or three minutes full out before she felt completely exhausted.
How the heck do you get exhausted in a dream?
Finally, she sat down and waited, hoping the experience would come to an end.
Time passed.
A few minutes? It had to be at least an hour?
Now Hitomi suddenly wished she had a watch, but she had given up analog watches, even the cute ones, in favor of her phone's clock.
She tried everything she could think of, including taking off her clothes and running around naked.
She yelled, she cried, and finally she laid down and... tried to go to sleep.
What happens if you fall asleep when you're already asleep?
- - -
Hitomi woke up, blinking at the bright light of the chandelier above her, which had been set to be as bright as possible by the dimmer switch on the wall. The door to the room was ajar and the other occupants were already gone.
A knock sounded on the doorframe outside: "Miss Hisakawa, could you join us in the conference room in 10 minutes?"
The voice was male, and not one she recognized.
"Y-yes! Of course! I'll just get ready."
Hunching forwards and pulling her top blanket off she found that her laptop was still on, now fully charged, and that it had tethered automatically to her phone's LTE hotspot. The time was 8:37AM.
Oh wow, she had overslept.
She snatched up her phone, also fully charged, and saw 115 notifications.
115?
115!
Ding!
Make that 116.