Jenna woke to utter calm and dead silence. The room she was in was dimly lit, the bed comfortable, the sheets a gender neutral earth toned stripe. It was all completely foreign and she blinked groggily. She felt hung over, and everything hurt. Everything. Her feet, her knees, her back...even her lungs. Her heart beat in an oddly labored way for its slow speed. And she felt vaguely sick. "Damnit." She muttered, trying to piece it all together in her brain. Where the hell was she? This certainly wasn't the apartment. Or anybody else's apartment that she would recognize. This was why she didn't drink...
No, this wasn't a hang over. This was what happened after she slept for hours, after having lived in the woods for days. She was alone, somewhere in the Okanagan, playing breaking and entering with someone's luxurious vacation home.
She sat up cautiously, listening to the house. It slumbered, still peaceful, and she coaxed herself onto her feet, paddling to the hallway and looking around. Nothing. No one. Almost too good to be true.
No, the almost too good to be true came when she opened the first cabinet in the wonderful kitchen. Coffee? Sugar. She slammed all of the cabinets open in a sudden flurry... it was stocked as if the family would return tomorrow. She blinked against a sudden rush of tears, and her knees suddenly refused to hold her up anymore. The blue and white tile floor was cool against her forehead when she finally gave in and let the tears come... shy sobs at first and then a full scale wailing, howling, hiccuping blowout.
Gonna make it through this, Jellybeans. Just put one foot in front of the other. You got the heart to do this.
Hah. She fumbled for the dishtowel hanging from the refrigerator door pull, and blew her nose with a loud snort. Putting one foot in front of the other was what she'd been very good at during this...running the whole way. "Coffee." She muttered when some level of sanity returned, and she used he counters to pull herself upright again. It would just be insanely lucky if the coffeemaker worked...if there was power. She pressed one of the buttons, chuckling at her own stupidity. Of course there was no...
Power. The digital readout on the small appliance blinked to life and she stared at it with abject stupidity and wonder. The world ended, they were invaded by things that should only belong in a horror movie, and this vacation house had power. And coffee. And...she took hold of the taps...
There was a deep grumble, a breathy sputter, and water dribbled out, gaining pressure as it came. "Well, fuck me." She marveled, staring as it flowed. Was there anything more lovely in all creation than running water and a working coffeemaker?
A bath, a working washing machine, dryer, running water and a working coffeemaker, of course. Jenna set the coffee to start brewing, and did another circuit of the house, this time looking for more than things willing to kill her. Her brain had been on standby mode earlier, but not anymore. There was a washer and dryer in the finished basement, along with a complete apartment and... that room that Jenna had at first mistaken for an office. But it wasn't.
"What the?" She breathed, leaning in closer. She'd dismissed the panels as some sort of office computer, but on second glance it looked more like a sound setup of some kind. She'd had some experience with those, helped set up a few in a hotel job she'd had once. But why put this in a tiny, blind room in the basement? And why was there a detailed paper map of British Columbia on the wall above it?
The sensuous smell of coffee brought her out of her trance, squashed that part of her that wanted to know and understand everything it ran across. There was time to figure this out later, when she'd eaten. Bathed. Washed her clothes. Slept some more.
She glanced around thoughtfully. It wasn't nearly as nice down here as upstairs, but it was underground. Safer, easier to hide heat signatures, easier to obscure the much fewer and smaller windows. And it felt less intrusive, less criminal...less like she didn't belong.
Back up the stairs to get her coffee and her pack, bringing them both back downstairs. When was the last time she'd changed clothes? She'd been on the road for awhile even before the attack...the invasion...the whatever. There was a TV in the corner, but oddly, she was loathe to know. What difference did it make, truly? It was over, wasn't it?
She hissed, yanking her attention from the empty screen and back to her pack. No. She just needed to stay in the here and now. Washing machine. Bath, if possible. Deal with what few things she actually had control over, and could change.
She stripped out of her filthy clothes, scrunching her face at the rank smell. Fear sweat was the worst ever, combined with things that were supposed to come, had come, but there had been little she could do about that. The handful of sanitary napkins she'd been carrying had not been nearly enough to hold her through a full period, and during the worst part, that problem had been very, very low on her list of things to deal with. So she'd bled, and had thankfully not attracted any bears or other such things with it.
She started the washer and tossed in detergent, smiling at the sharp, clean smell of lavender in the air. She crammed the clothes she'd been wearing into it, following it with the almost as dirty clothes from her pack. Watching the suds and the brown water through the front of the washer was hypnotic, soothing, and she sat in complete silence, staring at it while she sipped the coffee. It was all she felt up to managing at that moment, oddly fulfilling and comforting.
It was almost a letdown when it finished, and she pulled the clothes out and gave them an experimental sniff. The lavender was great, but not entirely up to the monumental task she'd asked of it, it would need at least another wash or two to completely kill the smell, but it was good enough for now. She pushed the clothes into the dryer and made her way to the bathroom down here. Soap. Shampoo. Conditioner. Everything perfectly laid out for their uninvited guest.
She avoided looking at the mirror as she had the TV. At least with the TV, she'd have to turn it on...but the mirror worked no matter what. She didn't need to know what she looked like. It was irrelevant, and she was pretty sure it was bad. All she wanted to do was stand under hot water and wash the filth away, it wasn't like there was anybody here to see her anyways.
It was heavenly to do just that, scrubbing away days, weeks, of filth, to run suds through her hair until she didn't smell like a wet dog anymore, then wrap herself up in a towel and search the kitchen. There wasn't anything to eat in these cabinets, it was obvious she'd have to move what was upstairs, downstairs.
Again, another trip upstairs, bringing down packets of instant oatmeal, tinned meat, and crackers for now. She'd move the rest of it later, after nightfall, whenever she woke up. What little motivation she'd gathered up was fading fast, in spite of the coffee, but she needed to eat something. She managed to eat some before her eyes got too heavy and she crawled to the bed, sliding between more gender neutral sheets and letting sleep ambush her again.