Cursed Times - Only Yesterday! Sequel to Wattys 2015 winner!

Chapter 36: Trueth - Closed Shop

Seisi's bed was so much harder than hers - the lumpy mattress poked her legs, her neck was going stiff, stretched as it was. But his arms were still safely wrapped around her body, and his closeness was as comforting as it was warming. Trueth opened her eyes, despite her fuzzy vision she noticed  a baby-blue blanket tickling her chin where she had been expecting frilly coverlets and a comforting male body. Somebody had wrapped her tightly and it was that blanket she felt around herself, not the arms of the man whose attentions she kept spurning... . Her  cover started to whimper and Trueth jerked into a sitting position.

Her movement had loosened the blanket and a cautious peep into the cocoon revealed a bright eye blinking back at her. A soft woof convinced her it had been the small black dog sharing its body heat, not her man. All this was a bit much to take in before she had her first cup of the morning. The thought of coffee made her realise how thirsty she was. And how exhausted she felt.

Slowly, she shifted her buttocks on what was no mattress either, but solid ground strewn with spiky pebbles.  Her head swam and she forced herself to scan an unfamiliar greyish environment. An environment that contained quite a few bodies in different poses and postures.

Bodies?

She shot up from her resting place, the dog tumbled from the folds of the blanket and complained loudly. 

Her limp company did not react.

Queasy with tension, Trueth tiptoed towards the closest ragdoll, a teenage boy with ginger frills falling into his freckly face. He wore nothing but boxer shorts, but that was not why he seemed familiar. At least, he was still among the living, faintly, but visibly his chest was moving. Close by, another boy, most likely his twin was lying with similar attire. He too was alive. She exhaled and allowed her muscles to relax their stranglehold on her body. 

She took stock of her surroundings, there were more sleepers, all of them in nightshirts, pyjamas, some had progressed as far as dressing gowns and slippers. Their attire was not the problem; the number of people was. There were far too many of them for her to be able to share her powers and wake them from their slumber. Assuming she could do that at all. Trueth once more scrutinised the nearest sleeper. And remembered where she had seen him.

In Avebury.

She checked the others, most of them appeared to be vaguely familiar. Four of them were more than that, those she had not only seen but spoken to: Myrtle, Damien, the girl from the souvenir shop and the landlord of the 'Whacky Bramble'. The man had lucked out; he obviously liked to sleep in the nude. Trueth shivered and bent down to grab her blanket to drop it over the publican. While doing so, she noticed the toes of her bare feet peeping from under the hem of her pyjama bottoms that were sadly sagging again. She hitched up her trousers and surveyed more of her surroundings.

There was not a single blade of grass in sight, just solid stone and a wall built from even more substantial chunks of minerals rising on their side. Not into the skies, for there were none. She could not work out what was up there; a greyish mist was hiding it all. Their environment felt oppressive as if they had been enclosed in a gigantic bubble inside a mountain.

What was this? Where was she? And most important, where was Seisi?

I am here, a welcome warm voice sounded in her mind. I am trying to establish how to seek access.

Access to what? She projected from the depths of her foggy mind.

Join me and see, he responded. 'Dog?' his voice called from further down the wall.