Writing journal

[assignment] You awaken to find yourself in an abandoned warehouse. What time is it? Walk around the place. What do you see? Smell? Hear? What happens to them?

The smell of half-burnt coffee is what wakes me up. It shouldn't. It should be the soft wetness of the dog lapping at my hand, or the voices coming from around the fireplace. It should be the dust-filled cover I'm laying on.

With what feels like an inhuman effort, I lift my eyelids. All around the window frames, jagged shards of glass break the morning sun into blinding beams of light, and I have to raise a hand cover my eyes.

“Morning,” someone mutters, not directly to me, yet I feel somehow acknowledged. I return the greeting, then a fit of cough shakes my lungs and the small pomeranian that was licking my hand runs away with a whimper.

Someone hands me a mug of coffee. It's one of those metal mugs people use to go camping. I absentmindedly grab it and immediately burn my hands, earning a raised eyebrow from one of my new companions. Well, that did wake me up.

I thank him.

The morning is still cold and I watch my breath materialise in front of my mouth as I take a deep breath. I stand up, sleep still deep-set in my bones, and walk to the edge of the floor, where it's collapsed. I look around. Judging by the tall, metal-framed windows, the large open space and the red-brick walls, this place must have been a warehouse at some point. Most of it is gone. Bombings, probably, back in the days.

The open belly of the building gives onto what's left of the city. Every roof, every street, every wall is covered in a thick, green layer of perennial vines. The city has been swallowed whole by kudzu. The vine grows so fast it quickly surrounds and kills any other plant, I learnt. Snakes breed within and birds have learnt to stay away from it, leaving this place eerily silent.

I take a sip of coffee.

We can't stay here too long.