I don't have a huge amount of experience writing fiction. I've done a handful of unfinished things all of them in the last year so bear with me. There will be grammatical issues but hopefully I catch enough of them in proofreading to keep them from being too distracting. I'm a little worried about leaving this unfinished, and with that in mind, as of this first post I have written four chapters, fully plotted 6 chapters, and outlined all three parts.
The story, as planned, will take place in three parts with nine chapters in each part. I am just posting this first chapter now as it's the only one I have proofread and will give me wiggle room to keep up. I'm hoping to post a chapter every two or three days, I make no guarantees about that though. Wish me luck, we'll see if I can finish this thing.
Oh and one final thing. There will be profanity and possibly discussion and words some might find objectionable. I don't foresee anything overtly sexual happening though.
Part 1: The Third Floor
Chapter 1: F—k, I’m Awake Okay?
Sara’s head was banging. The headache had woken her up but despite the pain, or maybe in spite of it, she had no intention of getting out from under the covers anytime soon. She pulled up the covers over her head blocking the warm light coming in from the bedroom window.
Her efforts seemingly in vain and unable to fall back asleep, despite her best attempts, she sat up and rubbed at her aching head. The banging continued and as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes it began to dawn on her that the banging wasn’t in her head. Or at least it wasn’t just in her head. Someone was knocking at her door. Who would be knocking at her bedroom door?
Something wasn’t right. She pushed the covers aside and slung her legs over the side of the bed. She was naked. Something really wasn’t right. She didn’t sleep naked. Why was she naked? As the last shreds of morning drowsiness drifted away it began to dawn on her that she wasn’t in her bedroom. What the hell had happened to her. Panic started to rise.
Looking around at her surroundings didn’t illuminate much. She was in very nice hotel room. A large bathroom adjoined to the bedroom and she could see an antique clawed bathtub through the it’s open door. The other door led into a large airy room that appeared to be filled with expensive Victorian furniture. On one wall there was a very large antique wardrobe with an anachronistic flat panel display affixed to the front of one door marring it’s old world charm.
The knock, which paused occasionally but did not stop entirely, was coming not from within the bedroom but from a door in the adjoining room. Sara could only guess it was the door to the hotel room. She roughly yanked the sheet from the bed and wrapped it around herself in a makeshift dress. It was then she noticed that the room wasn’t the only thing wrong. Her body wasn’t right either. It was similar but a lot of things where off. Her tan was gone for one thing.
Whatever had happened to her her body could wait. Maybe whoever was so insistently banging on her door would have answers. She headed over to the door, tripping over the long sheet and swearing on her way there, and looked through the peephole. The peephole gave her a wide angle view of a very tall slim woman.
From top to bottom she looked like a carefully designed knife. Sharp, cold, and beautiful in a dangerous sort of way. Her black hair was very short, cut in a man’s style, which highlighted her sharp high cheekbones and smooth pale skin. She wore makeup but it was minimal, just enough to highlight but not hide the natural beauty of her face. She was dressed in a perfectly tailored pale gray suit. The sleeves of the jacket where cropped just above the elbow and the trousers just below the knee. The latter highlighted the lack of shoes on her perfectly pedicured feet.
Sara had no idea where she was, her tan was gone, and her body was all wrong, but she didn’t really want to open that door dressed in nothing but a sheet.
“One second, I need to get dressed," she called out and the cessation of knocking seemed to confirm the woman on the other side had heard her. She stumbled her way back into the bedroom, tripping over the sheet, before realizing she didn’t exactly need it anymore and tossed it aside. There where no doors in either room other than the door to the hall and the open door to the bathroom. So no closets, but there was the wardrobe.
“What the hell," she thought as she looked inside the wardrobe, her cheeks coloring in embarrassment at it’s contents, “well, that’s not going to help.” In spite of the wardrobe’s surprising contents she couldn’t shake the feeling that everything was as it should be.
She closed the doors and looked at the screen. It was displaying a timer that was counting down. It currently read “42:32:06” and the six became a five then a four then a three as she watched. Hours, minutes, and seconds and above the timer in large red type “UNAVAILABLE UNTIL:”. So also of no help, at least for a bit better than forty two hours. With no other choice at hand, she headed back to the door, and opened it, once again clothed in the sheet.
“You wouldn’t happen to be able to spare a pair of trousers?” she asked the woman, her voice a bit more timid than she had expected of herself.
