I took in my surroundings. The front door led into a small kitchen area, which led on to a small lounge. Beyond that was a small corridor, with a small bedroom and bathroom leading off from it. In case that wasn't clear enough, the place was….small. It was actually quite pleasant though. Despite the fact that the place had clearly been there for a long time, the carpet and furnishings were clean and in good condition, as was the fitted kitchen. Again, it would have been easy to forget that this wasn't an apartment in a busy urban city.
There was a knock at the door, and on opening it, a girl stood in front of me holding a box which she passed to me, before retrieving two other boxes from behind her. She didn't say much more than "here you go", very businesslike in her mannerism. I smiled, thanked her and attempted to get some sort of interaction going,
"it's Olivia isn't it? I'm Sophie", but she clearly wanted to be gone as quickly as possible, so somewhat bemused, I carried the boxes into the lounge and closed the door.
One of the boxes contained clothes. A couple of pairs of shorts, t-shirts, a warm sweater and a pair of boots, socks and underwear. There was also clean bed linen and towels. Another contained food basics - eggs, milk, butter, cheese, flour, vegetables, cans containing various foods, tea, coffee, sugar etc. The last contained a few toiletries and cleaning products - soap, shampoo, toothpaste toothbrush, hairbrush, deodorant. What struck me was that most of it, from the bag of flour to the toothpaste, had 'Dharma' written on it, together with a small spiderweb-like symbol. Looking closer at the small print on the packaging, along with lists of ingredients and expiry dates, 'The Dharma Initiative' was clearly printed. Maybe this Dharma Initiative was who these guys were. They were clearly from the US (judging by all of the accents I had heard so far anyway), so maybe thats where we were - on a small island off the west coast. I made up my mind to stop being so cautious and ask the next person I saw exactly where we were. First thing first though, I needed to eat and drink.
I opened a can of baked beans and started to devour them cold, straight from the can. The banana's had helped satisfy my hunger but the beans were better. I then drank 3 glasses of water straight, before heading to the shower to clean 3 days worth of seawater and dirt out of my hair and skin. The shower was refreshing and most welcome, as was peeling off the ragged shorts and t-shirt that I had been wearing. I got dressed into some of the clothes Olivia had given to me (that thankfully just about fit), and decided to step outside to see if I could get any answers. I loitered on the porch just outside the door for a while. I didn't want to risk running into Benjamin or anybody else in authority that may decide to change their minds and kill me. There didn't seem to be anyone around though so I cautiously made my way towards the centre of the village. A lady, mid 30s-ish walked by and I smiled and greeted her. She merely scowled at me and kept walking though. I spotted a familiar face - Ethan, but even he didn't seem to want to talk. After seeing my disappointed face though he did sigh and stopped for a moment.
"Olivia said she bought you some supplies. Anything else you need just go and speak to David in the large building over there. He's in charge of food, clothes and equipment." he offered.
"So, who are you guys, and where are we?" I tried, feeling a little more confident than earlier. Ethan clearly didn't want to get into this conversation with me though so brushed me off with "Ben will talk to you when he's ready. Until then just sit tight and relax".
Disheartened, I walked back to the house and curled up on the sofa. I must have been exhausted as within minutes I had fallen asleep. When I woke I could see it was dark outside the windows. There was a clock on the wall that showed it was 22:00pm.
Feeling a little unsure of what to do with myself, I stepped outside my door. I almost jumped when I noticed that a man was sitting on a chair further up the porch outside the adjoining house. I immediately recognised him as being the dark haired man that had played a large part in saving my arse earlier, when Benjamin was deciding what to do with me. He had distinctive features with the the most striking dark eyes I had ever seen on a man. He was beautiful.
"Hey Sophie, my names Richard. Richard Alpert. How are you settling in? Do you have everything you need?". It was the first time anybody had been friendly towards me since I had arrived at the barracks and his warm tone lifted my spirits slightly.
"Hi" I replied, hoping that now would be my moment to get some answers. "Yes I do thank you. Though I must admit i'm very confused about everything. You were there earlier when they were deciding what to do with me weren't you?"
"Yes I was. I'm sure things will become clearer for you in time, though I can understand you being confused". He seemed to want to be nice, yet was holding back just like Ethan, but I couldn't leave it at that again - I needed answers.
"Can you at least tell me where we are? and what you're doing here?" I pushed. Richard was hesitant but smiled and looked almost resigned.
"I will give you some answers, but not right now. I have an early start tomorrow but will be back tomorrow evening. We'll talk then" I realised that I wasn't going to get anywhere tonight, so left it at that. He said goodnight and made his way inside.
After putting the clean sheets on the bed, I collapsed into a deep sleep, and didn't wake up again until morning.