Day 64 (Part Erin)

Erin slammed her alarm clock and rolled out of bed, cursing the world. She had slept very little the night before, and the sleep she had gotten had been punctuated by dreams of mazes, ballrooms, and utter frustration. And of course, she woke at least once every hour or so to the sounds of the goblins rustling around, rearranging things, or having sword fights (or at least that's what it sounded like) with kitchen utensils. She was too tired to do anything about it.

She shuffled into the bathroom, flipping the light on and squinting in the sudden brightness. She scowled at her reflection, wrinkling her nose so that the deep, purple bags under her eyes became even more pronounced. She picked up her brush and began to pull it roughly through her tangled mane of hair, blearily taking note of the amount of glitter that seemed to have worked its way through her hair.

Back in her room, Erin picked grumpily through her closet and pulled out a dress. Her pants were all still missing, so she had little choice in the matter.
"I hope you're all very pleased with yourselves," she grumbled.

After fishing under her bed for several minutes and realizing that all of her left shoes were gone, Erin left the house and walked to work barefoot in a very foul mood.

"Hi honey." Erin said into the phone, making sure the young man in the computer lab who had been making passes at her all week was listening.
"... Uhh... what?" came Beth's confused response on the other end.
"Yeah, my shift is over at eleven. Where do you want to pick me up?" Erin said, ignoring her.
"Yeah... okay, whatever. Just let the poor sap down easy... Anyway, I still haven't tracked her. They said they were visiting Alcatraz today, but I haven't spotted them. Anyway, it's hard to see anything in all this rain," said Beth.
"Okay, sounds good. I'll see you then," Erin replied. "I love you too." Then she hung up the phone and gave a very pointed look at the young man, who had been staring at her, but turned quickly away and slumped slightly in his chair. She turned her attention back to the screen, where a series of maps were laid out. Beth's red tracking dot blinked steadily on her map of Alcatraz, but Grosland's was nowhere to be seen. She was beginning to worry. Still, she could not focus on this right now. She closed the laptop, shook some glitter out of her hair, and put her forehead down on the desk.

Erin didn't remember leaving work, or even walking home, but she vaguely recalled stumbling into the apartment and collapsing on the floor. The next time she was aware of anything at all, the sun was starting to go down. She pushed herself off the floor, trying to ignore the pounding in her head, as well as the dusting of glitter on the carpet that she was quite certain was going to get them in trouble during their next cleaning check. She wandered into the bathroom, once again hearing the giggling and scuffling in the background. She sighed and glanced in the mirror, where she noticed that some very juvenile things had been scrawled and doodled all over her face in marker. She groaned and started to scrub it off in the sink, as the giggling picked up again from behind her.
"Just tell me what you want!" she cried out, face dripping with water and ink. "I just want to know why--" Suddenly, a thought crossed her mind. She paused as a sudden stillness fell over the entire apartment and the air seemed to fill with a sort of electricity.  She shivered, goosebumps rising all over her skin, then spoke quietly, voice wavering. "I wish--" she said, " I... wish--" she could not say anything else.
Not yet... It's not time. Wait for the others...
Erin nodded as the thought entered her head, almost as though it had been whispered to her....


.... and then she was really really tired and didn't want to write anything else, so she fell asleep face down on the couch after eating most of a three pound bag of saltwater taffy.