The Ongoing Adventures of Stupendous Girl!

Götterdämmerung (Part 3 of 7) 07 Sep 2009

The first time Lewis woke up in the small, uncomfortable cot in a strange basement, he had no idea where – or even when – he was. The last thing he remembered was, during a madcap race to Kentville, being pulled over on the highway by a cop, and then finding out the cop was, instead, an assassin who gassed him into unconsciousness. After that… what? He had no idea how long ago that was, where he was, or why he’d woken up there, though he felt so groggy and weak that he was sure he’d been drugged and out of it for at least a couple of days. (He later found out it was 13 days, which explained why he fell in a heap and his legs refused to support him when he first tried to slide out of the bed and stand.) In those first terrifying hours though, all he knew was that his life was in danger, and he needed to balance the desire to gather information with a need to be quiet and discreet.

During that first fall, when he discovered how weak he was, he also terrified himself by the huge clatter he made on hitting the unfinished concrete floor. That no one raised any alarm or came to check on him was, after some time, a source of comfort, but it still took several hours before he’d worked up the nerve to climb the wooden staircase and tentatively try the door to the rest of the house. It was three full days of exploring the house, piecing together as much information as he could about who it belonged to, before he felt even the least bit confident that no one was coming back to check on him. It was the next day before he had the courage to leave the house, do a quick scouting trip around the neighbourhood in the effort to both figure out where he was and what was in the area. Not coincidentally, this coincided with when he got tired of living off of canned vegetables, soups, and crackers and wanted to replace the past due milk, mouldy bread, and rotten meat he’d found in the kitchen with whatever he could.

With time, he was able to figure out two essential things – first, he found enough money lying around the house to buy food, and he found a small corner store at which to buy it, enough to last him a few days at least and give him time to think. (His own personal effects were nowhere to be seen). Second, he’d developed a pretty good (and surprisingly accurate) working theory of what had happened to him, a cause in which his discovery of money, and the wallet most of it was in, helped greatly. It also meant he had all the ingredients for long term safety and survival in this place – he had money, he had ID and credit cards with which he could conduct the ordinary business of running a household, he could, with some work, pay bills, buy necessities, sleep with both eyes closed. He had both time, and a safe haven, and he knew what his situation was.

Page 1 | Page 2