A train chased her, its strident whistle breaking the still air. She ran through dark fog, which licked her exposed arms and face. Car grease slicked off her arms like tears, her breath burned, her heart hammered.
She couldn’t see through the thick fog, the night too dark, the air too thick. A light pierced through, highlighting layers of fog, making the world seem both endless and walled in.
The train whistled and she realized she had been running towards it, not away from it.
Adrenaline flooded her system as she threw herself sideways, nearly falling off her bed. It took her a moment to adjust to the encroaching darkness. She pulled her shirt off her clock, which was just too bright for any sane individual seeking a good night’s sleep.
It was just after 3 o’clock. She had slept for barely three hours. Her alarm would be going off in two hours and it would probably take her half that long to get back to sleep, so she decided to get up.
She yawned and stretched, dressing only by the blue light of her alarm clock. She reached down where she’d thrown her coat and yanked, but something seemed to be on it. For a moment, she thought it might be her old tabby Frank, but he’d been gone for almost a year. She jerked her hand back, the weight falling from the coat, and it easily came. Reaching behind her while looking wildly around, she turned the light on and tried to blink away the blindness as quickly as possible.
There was nothing there.
“I need more sleep,” she mumbled, embarrassed even if no one had witnessed her confusion. It didn’t matter. She knew about it, and that was enough.
She threw on jeans and a sweater. She’d left her overalls at the garage, and she would throw those on before her shift. She grabbed her coat and stared at it. It looked much cleaner than she remembered. Two oil stains she distinctly remembered on her sleeve were gone. Maybe the stains had been on her sweater. Damn, that garage could get cold sometimes.
“I’m off,” she said more out of habit than need. She threw her keys in her coat pocket, hesitated for a second before grabbing the watch as well.
She didn’t intend to leave her one precious possession in her apartment. Not until she was certain it was safe, anyway.