She wakes up in bed. Not her own. Comfortable enough, but not her own. Sunlight shines golden through curtains onto blankets, warming her stomach. The room glows in yellows and browns, and to her it can't be anything other than morning. This is correct now, but not always. Time at the station drifts. The days don't lengthen or shorten greatly, but when the sun rises and sets slides back and forth in faux seasons.
She sits up slowly. This isn't where she went to sleep. She looks around, a room furnished in a way that reminds her of her mother's old bedroom at grandmother's house. Her backpack is on a chair by the desk. She knows this isn't her mother's room. She would feel at ease if she knew how she got here.
The sunlight is no longer gold. It's dimmer, gray. She figures the sun is behind a cloud. She is right. It stays gray. Most of the time at the station, it will be cloudy, with a breeze. The sun and sky show sometimes. There will be mornings of rain, of snow, of howling wind and occasional hail, once someone wondered about it. They didn't realize then. They will not realize for a long time.
She lays back down a while, not sleeping, just revelling in a warm bed. She thinks she was on the road, sleeping in a car, or camping with a sleeping bag. Part of her is worried that she is not remembering things. Part of her is just glad she's inside.
A glance around. Woodpaneled walls. A nice desk in a late 70s style. A shelf with rows of drawers beneath, spanning a wall with one of the windows as a dresser. A bookshelf next to the door. The carpeting is a color somewhere between pink and orange, ugly on its own but blending well with the decor.
She looks again at the bookshelf. Did the books change? Before they were gray and even rows across each shelf, like faceless
Encyclopedias. She thinks of a story recommended by a professor after class. Now? There are a mix, still mostly hardcover. Some are textbooks. Some are novels, a few of her favorites sprinkled in. Some of them are reference books. All different sizes and colors, like a bookshelf should look like. She isn't sure if the anonymous gray encyclopedias were ever there. She is sure. She isn't. Just her brain backfilling a quick glance. Right?
She sits up, swings legs over the side of the bed. She lets her toes touch the carpet a while. she missed this. Her glasses are on a nightstand. After a while she gets up and digs meds out of her bag. She makes the bed. Normally she never does, but she feels like a guest. Maybe she crashed her car, or had to abandon it, and someone picked her up. She can't recall, why won't anything come back to her why why why why where's her phone?