You Gotta Learn to Dance Before You Learn to Crawl

[D/N]

(G080 - Nikki Nelson-Kelly - START)

She'd hide under the bed as a child.

Not because she was afraid of the dark or monsters; for all Nikki's various anxieties she'd never much dealt with the phobic or paranormal. She'd hid because she liked it. It was a hideaway, a safe place to read by phonelight or the glow of a tablet, to scribble and dream.

So she squished herself under this one a while after waking atop it, moving steadily from a comfortable snooze into... whatever the heck she could describe this as. Had she been afraid of Survival of the Fittest? Not really; she didn't think so. Maybe it was just some repression or... y'know, but Nikki poked around her brain a few seconds and decided it was that the whole terrorist thing was more akin to worrying about earthquakes or schools shootings or climate change; stuff that happened, sure, but not exactly on her radar. She'd gone through the emergency drills George Hunter had at regular intervals with all the intensity of a bored minimum-wage employee because, after all, there were so many infinite other fears to cloud her thoughts.

Still, she'd gotten pretty good at quelling those, if she did say so herself.

Grumbies.

Could she do that here? She'd tried so far, she guessed. Not bad.

Because after she'd woken up, there'd been some tears, and almost a panic attack, great whooshing gulps of air that she'd managed to knock off ASAP from and remember how to breathe. And then she'd managed to distract herself, look though her bag, all that great jazziness.

With her regular boring belongings and the extra bag the terrorists had given her, all the water and stuff, it was gonna be pretty bulky, but that was OK. She hoped. She was a better walker than people thought -- she was good at lugging around heft. Just not at doing it quickly. Her actual luggage was gone but her bus carry-on bag still had some snacks, cokes, and whatever assorted junk they hadn't snatched away. That was OK, right? As for the other bag... well it was all there, she guessed. A map that would be a welcome distraction when she looked at it closer, water and protein bars and bread. Not much, but don't think about that yet. First aid kit, flashlight. That random coil of nylon rope must be her assigned weapon. Hrmz.

Still. Keeping on those helped push other thoughts away, at least.

Same went for the house she was in. Looked like the furniture was still there, but not much else. Nothing in the kitchen outside of shelves and drawers and the whole building smelled humid and musty. Like something dead was moldering in the wood just far enough away to be unpleasant. The toilet in the bathroom had no water and the taps didn't work; she'd went ahead and peed anyway. And only realized afterwards that there were those cameras set up in the building to catch everything; a couple of them. Eew. But hey, what else could she do?

Go under the bed, that was it. Cameras couldn't catch her there. And with her prior petty distractions consumed, she'd ended up here to think of more. A nail on the ground, long forgotten and rusty, helped do so right off the bat. Nikki grabbed it and shuffled on her belly towards the wall at the far side of the bed, grunting a bit. It was a tight squeeze. Couldn't roll around like she'd been able to as a eight-year-old. But the bed was just raised up enough and she got all the way to the other side, hair flopping in her eyes, then pushed the edge of the bed away and stared at the white paint on the wall that had long ago started to yellow. She brought up the nail and made a line.

No idea what she was writing yet. And thinking up what to do was the greatest distraction so far.

DONT GET HURT

Her scratchy letters were really rough but legible enough. The writing was literally on the wall for her, she thought, and giggled.

But it was a good first thing to say. It was more helpful than something like "Stay Safe". Because trying to stay safe was being just a bit too optimistic and naive even for her, but trying to not get hurt sounded like a better goal. And it was really really important especially to her, since she wasn't in the best of shape. Obviously. Really obviously. She was gonna have enough trouble trying to tromp round this island without collapsing, if she did something dumb or hurried herself she'd be... let's just say bad.

Distractions, right.

Nikki tapped the nail against the wall. Almost brought it to her mouth to chew like she did pencils and pens sometimes when it was a real tough problem to solve before remembering the first note. See, working already.

Next point. Something good. Something helpful.

STAY +VE

Good, good. Like she'd been doing already. It was a good addendum. Would help her when she met up with anyone else. Negative thoughts and getting hurt just led down, and she was already plenty down already just by being here.

She needed one more. And thought and pondered for almost five minutes. She almost started writing "SURVIVE" before just making a random mark on the wall instead. No, that wasn't good. It was to close to "DONT DIE," which she'd also considered instead of her first one. Survival and death, no let's not have Nikki Nelson-Kelly think those words, at least in regards to herself, shall we? And everyone else, if she could help it. These notes were meant to avoid thinking about dying or trying to avoid it, which in and of itself brought thoughts of dying. Because darkness and death were what they were all afraid or, weren't they?

At least she was. More than anything, more than all her petty insecurities, it really boiled down to that and that's enough into the depths of her psyche Nikki wanted to go while she was under this bed.

She pressed the tip of the nail to the paint.

BELIEVE

Much better.

Believe in what, hope, rescue, escape, victory. She'd figure that out. But they sounded good. And maybe she could suss out a way. She was smart. Maybe even under this bed, away from the camera eyes.

A few minutes later, Nikki's head poked out from under the bed. She reached out and grabbed her own personal stuff, dragging it to the depths with her. And for at least a while, she was eight years old and lost in fantasy. It was great. Even let her take some fantasies out of it when she left the house twenty-five minutes later.

(Nikki Nelson-Kelly continued in Welcome to the ****ing Monkey House)