She didn't know where she was. The sheets she was lying on were clean, but the bed was uncomfortable and creaked when she stirred.

Lilian kept still, staring at the wall, breathing hard. Maybe it was a dream. A boring dream. A boring, smelly dream.

When she failed to convince herself she was still asleep, she pushed herself up. She wasn't hurt, and she was still fully clothed, in her denim capris and green shirt. Her wallet was still intact, still contained seven dollars and some odd change. Her cellphone, too, although the battery had died. She ran her hands through her hair. It needed a good washing. How long had she been here?

She stretched and cracked her neck, and got to her feet. The room smelled like rotting wood. Faded wallpaper peeled off the walls, and the window had been shattered. Pieces of glass twinkled in the setting sun.

She exited the room and found herself in a long hallway lined with doors, each one numbered. An apartment building? No, the room she'd just exited had no kitchen. A hotel? How had she ended up in a hotel? A... very old, dirty hotel. She turned and looked at the number on her room; 312. So she was on the third floor of a hotel. Where?

"Hello?" There was no answer. She couldn't decide if that was good or bad. No one was around to hold her hostage, but no one was around to help her, either.

Sunlight filtered in through a single window at either end of the hallway. Lilian creeped along, her sandals clapping against the floor. After a dozen doors she found the elevators; they weren't working. She wasn't surprised.

She continued on, trying all the doors until she found the stairway. It was too dark to see much farther than the first couple of steps. She rubbed the goosebumps on her arms. What choice did she have?

Her footsteps echoed as she made her way down the stairs, lowering each foot slowly, one hand touching the wall for stability. The walls felt like cement, with a thick coat of poorly applied paint. She caught a nail on the wall and cursed, flapping her hand and then sucking on the injured finger.

She came to a door and opened it. It stuck against something halfway open. She slid through the small opening. Something scraped against her arm. "Ah, ah, ow!" She inspected her arm; blood welled from the wound, but it was just a scratch.

There was light here, more than there had been on the third floor. A large desk was blocking the door. It was on its back, drawers gone.

Debris littered the floor, and she walked carefully, trying to avoid anything sharp. The second floor was wide and open, and she found another staircase fairly quickly -- or what was left of it. When it was new, it had most likely been a thing of beauty, a huge winding staircase with golden railings and plush red carpet. Now it was destroyed, a crumpled heap of rubble. She peered down at it; the wreckage piled up high enough that she could make it if she dropped down. Maybe.

"Hello! Is anyone here?"

Again no answer. She dreaded going back to that pitch black stairway, and she could see doors that led outside just beyond the ruined stairs.

She adjusted her position so that she was above the highest part of the pile. "I'm not wearing the right shoes for this." She closed her eyes and swallowed down laughter; now was not the time for hysterics.

She got on her belly and shimmied off the edge, feet first. When she could bend at the waist she stretched her legs as far as she could; she felt herself slip. For one sick moment she saw herself on the ground, torn apart and bleeding and dying, and then she was falling. She scrabbled for purchase, closed her hands around a splintered railing. The railing swung around with her weight and snapped, sending her tumbling down to the ground. She screamed.

She hit the floor with a thump and rolled once, twice, stopped on her back. Her body didn't have the decency to be stunned; she could feel every single cut and scrape and new bruise. Her calf felt like it was on fire, hot and wet and shrieking pain up her spine.

"Oh god," she sobbed. She struggled to move herself, get off her back. She rolled onto her stomach, pushed herself to her hands and knees. Every part of her body protested. She could see her own blood, on her arms, her legs, on the floor.

"Help!" Her plea came back to her, unanswered. "Oh god, oh god. There has to be someone! Someone, help me! Please!" But nobody answered, no matter how many times she called, and eventually she gave up, and rested her head on the floor. She closed her eyes

and woke up on a bed. The sheets were clean, but the mattress was full of lumps, and groaned when she moved.

She screamed, clutching at herself, her chest, her legs. There was no blood. She was okay. She was fine.

She didn't know where she was.

"What the hell," she said, her voice cracking.



This work by Gabrielle Kinsman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.