In the next room, Rob clambers over Julia, trying to not to wake her. Calvin swears hoarsely, mouth dry with hangover. Emma feels blindly along her dresser, single minded in her determination for coffee.
Erika is staring at her hands. She isn’t sure how long she has been awake.
Her fingers open and close as the others in the barracks begin their morning routines. She knows their dreams from the way they make her feel disconnected, disparate, underwater--but she isn’t sure if she had slept.
The feeling subsides as the rest of the guards rouse themselves and leave for their duties, and Erika was left alone with the smattering of slumbering night guards. By the time she is dressed, the events of the previous day are beginning to catch up to her.
Erika stares down at her hands again, now over the sink.
She is aware of the messenger before they knock, but neither opens the door nor responds as they approach.
“Master Freeman is wondering where you are.”
A ball of impatience, frustration, paranoia, spite. Buzzing like a fly around the dumb beast of Erika’s awareness. She says nothing, waits for the messenger to move from hesitancy to worry to impatience to indifference before leaving. Erika waits until they are gone from the building.
Erika runs her fingers through the tangles in her hair and tucks it behind her. She sees her gloves on the bedside table--where she left them the day before. She puts them on.
She spares a glance towards the mirror--as long as she can stand before she has to look away. There’s someone who stares back at her, the same person it was yesterday. A woman: severe, grim, scarred, muscular. Erika sees her every day, but doesn’t recognize her---she can’t feel her at all.