The Sleeping Girl

Chapter Seven

Mike and I are walking around in an outdoor shopping area, hoping that my mark will all of a sudden start burning. Which sounds strange, I admit, but I simply could not think of anything else to do. Nothing. I'm amazed at how I am the Sleeping Girl, the one that the fate of society - and the world - is riding on, yet I can feel so useless. Be so useless. In fact, if it wasn't for Mike and Carmela and Ev and everyone else in society, I'm sure that I would just be moping around in my large bizarre room, and wouldn't have even figured out that my mark helps. I realize now more than ever that society is a team, and that we all must rely on each other. I know at least that I must.

I am told that this shopping area is just the same as the mall that Carmela and I shopped in two days ago, excepting it is not connected in one large building, but rather is a great deal of stores you walk around in outside. Which is actually easier for me to adapt to than that other one. Tis more similar to the markets that we had when I was growing up, that were all just a large mass of tents and booths with vendors.

I feel immensely more comfortable here than I felt in the other mall yesterday. I'm not sure if it's because of the similarities, or I am just adapting. Either way, tis good.

I am really, really, incredibly, super nervous today. We only have five more days to find the next Girl, and are no closer than we were when I awoke two days ago. No closer than when I was still asleep. No closer than before I was born.

My mark has revealed me nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

I'm getting desperate.

Really desperate.

I tighten my grip on my bag, feeling the familiar shape of the weapons inside. I want to hit something, kill something. I tend to get really physical with my emotions, be it crying on killing something. I'm glad that I have calm people like Mike to help me out, prevent me from slaughtering the whole world.

Speaking of Mike... "Are you okay?" asks Mike. "You look stressed."

I roll my eyes. Way to state the obvious. In fact, I daresay I'm always stressed. Being the Girl is in no way a stress free job.

"I am stressed!" I exclaim. "We only have five more days!"

"You could think about it that way," he says, calmly. I'm in awe at how he can conjure up this, this, calmness, when if we don't find the Girl, all hell will break loose. In a way. It's quite amazing, actually.

"Or you could think 'at least we still have five days'," he continues. "A lot can happen in five days. Don't give up faith yet. Half full, not half empty."

I look at him confused, momentarily distracted. At this point, I am glad for any distractions. "Pray tell me what you mean by 'half full not half empty,'" I say. I'd like to think that my speech patterns and vocabulary are starting to fit in better, and it may be so, but the truth is that there are still millions of things about this new century that I do not know.

"It's an expression," says Mike. "It means be optimistic. Imagine you half a glass of water, but only half of the glass has water. And you want water. You could imagine that it's half empty, and then you just feel, like, irked or something that you don't get a full glass. Or you could think that at least it's half full, and you still get something. Basically, look on the bright side. You get me?"

I nod. "Yes. I suppose you're correct, Mike. It's just so hard to be optimistic... I mean, I wake up after five hundred years to find out that if I don't find the next girl within seven days... well, you know. And then I get attacked... by vampires yesterday, my second day awake. And two days and nothing! And-" I'm rambling and I can't stop, don't know how to stop, have to say something to stay sane. This is the world I'm in now.