As she was waiting for the escalator to take her up the last level, Marceline couldn't decide what she wanted to do first. It had been quite some time since she had broken out the paints, or had a self indulgent solo jam sesh, or settled in with literature of some kind. Finding something engrossing to stream on TV while melting into the sofa like an overly buttered semi-mashed potato surrounded by heaps of junk food sounded like something she needed to invest some hours into as well. She wondered if this kind of enthusiasm for solitary was a common thing.
Eh, no sense in wasting a full minute of concern on the thought.
When she had turned the key to unlock the door, it felt. Different. Instead of the sound of the soft click and the feeble feeling of the lock being shifted to the unlocked position, the key turned in the knob smoothly, no unlocking to be done. Strange. Either the lock needed updating or she had perhaps forgotten to lock up when she left with Keila earlier. Probably that.
Marceline decidedly shrugged it off. No sense in worrying. Almost all of the building's occupants knew one another and would probably notice if someone was robbing her blind. Additionally, hauling a bunch of stuff down four flights of slow moving escalators didn't seem fitting to the metier of burglaring.
She kicked the door shut behind her and sank into the sofa, drink still in hand. Despite all the things she had pondered over doing first, what she really felt like at the moment was a bath. Not only would it be refreshing after a day of sticky rides and the sound of vomiting, It would set the perfect tone for the relaxing late afternoon and evening she was looking forward to.
The buzzing in her pocket pulled her out of the oncoming reverie.
Ash: hey babe
It didn't take even a full second after opening the message before she had tossed her phone carelessly to the other end of the sofa. She then got to her feet and made her way to the bathroom located in her bedroom since the one in the hallway only had a toilet and sink. Why the apartment designer thought it made sense to have a whole one and a half bath wasting floor space in a single bedroom unit was beyond her.
When her bath was ready, she sank into the brink of boiling water with her half-finished drink propped on the tub's ledge. It was decidedly just what she needed after the hypersensitivity from the drastic temperature change on her skin subsided. She hadn't bothered bringing her phone with her. The world could wait the half hour she needed to become a cozy steamed flesh raisin. The meat in her body was surely getting stewed to fall off the bone perfection. It was dangerous how close she was to drifting off to sleep. It was a good thing she had a fear of any form of suffocation to keep her awake.
The water turning lukewarm was her cue to get on with the evening. She flipped the switch for the water to drain and stepped out of the tub, wrapping herself up in a fluffy white bathrobe.
An all encompassing yawn tore through her throat and into her chest as soon as she was in arms length of her bed. 4:35pm shone on the clock sitting askew on her night stand, no doubt showing signs of having been violently hushed at some point by a sleepy Marceline. Naptime was the temptress threatening to engulf the last few hours of her weekend but the crisp sheets and plush bedding splayed unkempt before her made submission difficult to successfully refuse.
CRACK.
…
Her head hurt. A lot. It throbbed like it did when she was sick, but… she didn't recall being sick recently. Or remember ever going to bed.
Every inch of her body, especially her limbs and extremities, felt fuzzy and unusually burdensome. For some reason, despite being awake, her eyelids were requiring an extravagant force of will to try to crack apart. She managed to eventually, just enough to notice the funny lighting through the murk of sleep.
It was dark save for a bit of soft flickering amber light. It was relaxing to say the least, but not at all the type of illumination she was familiar with seeing in her bedroom. This would be one hell of a naptime if it weren't for the throbbing in her head and the near immobility she was currently experiencing.
With the grandest of efforts, she was able to shift an arm a bit and with that realized quickly that none of her appendages were going to be of much use at the moment. What was more displeasing than that was how moving her neck was absolutely out of the question impossible.
Sleep paralysis is so annoying, she thought. Marceline hadn't experienced it since she was an adolescent, but she recognized the symptoms.
The haze of sleep was starting to take over again. A fork in the road. Not being able to move was unnerving, causing her to reflexively attempt to fight it. On the other hand, she could easily relax and go back to sleep since she was partially in such a state anyway. If she didn't think about moving, she was actually rather snug.
After a few moments she deemed further efforts futile and let the high tide set her afloat to carry her back into slumber.
Eugh. A blinding sliver of sunlight all but violating Marceline's retinas through her eyelids was how her morning started. Her neck creaked as she turned it a bit to the side to check the time. 6:42am. Crap.
Twisting ungracefully in the bed, she felt her body seem strangely out of order like she was a sagging bag of crushed gelatin. The result was a Marceline burrito rolling straight off the side of the bed and onto the carpet with a muffled thump followed by a sleepy groan.
In the four years that Marceline had had this job, not once was she ever late to work. She took utmost pride and pleasure in her job and was generally orderly when it came down to time management things. Stumbling to her feet, still brawling with a bit of entanglement, she scrubbed a hand across her face to rid some of the sleep fog and saw that yup, she was now seventeen minutes away from being overdue.
The next ten minutes flew by in a wild anxiety-riddled blur, cutting every little action down to a few seconds max. Breakfast was woefully vetoed, and somehow, putting on pants and cleaning her teeth ended up meshed into a single adjoined proceeding. After she was very hastily clothed and washed, she swiped her keys and wallet and plunked them inside her backpack containing her work things, then lunged ungracefully into the sofa to fish out her phone. It would most likely be dead by now. Thankfully, she kept a spare charger in the car so calling her boss on the way wouldn't be an issue.
Only, turns out it wasn't where she remembered throwing it the day before. Marceline really didn't have time for this. She resolved to yanking all of the three cushions off the sofa. No phone to be seen.
Face scrunched in confusion, she let out a frustrated sigh and ran a hand through her sleep-mussed hair. She must be losing her mind.
Addressing that however would definitely have to sit tight she thought, as she leapt off the sofa and whooshed out the door, pausing only to twist the knob locked before blundering down the escalators and clambering into her car. She couldn't recall the last time she had had to mad-dash like that.