“Gee, Lord Obvious. I hadn't quite gathered that yet. Astute observations like that must be why you were a shoe-in for this 'job', eh?” The words had gone unnoticed, poking at her sleep like curious child. She had not been yet awake enough to realize that these were words being spoken, and they were traveling from just down the hall.
Her fingers tapped against her soft cotton bed sheets, struggling to wake the rest of her as her eyes began to nestle behind their lids. After a moment, her slim and youthful fingers pulled the blankets with them, as her frail frame sat on the edge of the bed. Her shoulder-length brown hair was a tussled mess of bed-head, and her eyes were framed with the soft glisten of watery tears as she stretched her short arms and puffed out her petite chest in a robust yawn.
She had been placed in this little home of hers for over a month, sleeping, eating, watching TV, and sleeping again. The cycle didn't bother her, she enjoyed sleeping anyways. And she enjoyed her cartoons, preferably the ones with a large array of colors. She didn't know why she was locked away in this place, but the nurses brought her the snacks and meals that she adored, and would often come in to cook for her. That was the only time she would ever see past the big door, and she would wait once a week on that same day, just to see for a split second into the desolate white halls that the women in white would appear from. She didn't remember much before this, aside from waking up in a bath of warm blue liquid, and being wrapped in a cozy towel and carried to a small white room where she made friends with many of the ladies who worked here. A little while after, she had been taken to the big door, and told that she would be staying here from now on. The nurses who had held her hand and told her many things that she could never remember, had cried the day that she arrived. She wanted to know why they were so sad, but they, instead, held her tightly in their arms, like they were afraid of something.
When she had first arrived, she stood in front of the television, seeing the moving pictures for the first time. It had brought her much joy, to watch two characters fighting like cat and mouse. She wondered how they got into the thin glass box that hung from the wall, and why they never tried to get out. Sometimes she searched for ways to get into the box with them, but usually only on the days that she felt rather lonely. They had become her best friends, these people that cried, laughed, and fought without the slightest acknowledgement of her existence. Perhaps they couldn't hear her through the glass, or maybe she was simply not being loud enough. Either way, sitting in front of that screen in the dimply lit room, her eyes would light up and sometimes a poorly executed smile would awaken on her young face. Today, like any other day, she would get out of bed to see her friends.
Once her yawning fit had come to an end, she pushed herself off of the mattress, her tiny bare feet hitting the carpet with a soft thud. She made her way down the hall, one hand locked securely onto the worn blanket that trailed behind her on the carpet, and the other rubbing the sleep from her eyes with her over-sized sleeve. She was a small girl, and frail at that. Her build was thin, and girlish, and her personality portrayed that of a toddler, but in reality she was no younger than 16. Although her movements gave the appearance of a younger woman, she often showed her true age at certain angles and when wearing certain clothing. She had looked in the mirror many times, but never once did she claim the face staring back at her as her own. She was a child in every way, only stuck in a teenager's body.
When she arrived at the end of the hall, she had stopped dead in her tracks. There were all sorts of people standing in front of her. A boy sat in her favorite spot on the couch, a girl played with something in her hands. It was all strange to her, to see these people in her home. She stared for a moment, her tired eyes sunken with sleep, and her dollish lips open ever so slightly at the confusing sight. Then a soft grumble emitted from her stomach, and awoke her from her pause. Without acknowledging any of the strange people who had appeared next to the big door, she trudged with wobbly balance to the kitchen area, where she reached into the closest cupboard she could manage and selected her favorite box of cereal, before taking a seat next to the boy on the couch and pressing the button on the remote that would play her favorite cartoons. She dipped her small hands in the box that sat on her lap and crammed the child-like breakfast pebbles into her mouth, ignoring the ones that missed, and toppled onto the cushions.
She had no preference to whether the others had noticed her entry. It was something new, seeing these people here. But just like the nurses, they would probably be gone shortly too, and then she would be all alone once again.
