Avery Weston (touchophobic) wrote in playinghouse, @ 2012-04-15 00:24:00 |
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Current mood: | uncomfortable |
Cold
Who: Avery
When: around 8 a.m.
Where: his room
Avery was dreaming that he was encased in some sort of cold metal box. A safe, a locker, a drawer at the morgue, a coffin? He had no way of knowing, because he couldn't see anything. Strangely enough, he wasn't worrying that the unknown cold place was dirty inside, teeming with microscopic germs. No, what he was worried about right now was the chill, because surely he'd freeze. Gradually, he became convinced that he was outside the house, buried beneath drifts of snow, more and more falling to cover him over and steal his breath. It grew shorter and shorter, and each pained exhale felt laced with frost. Was it really possible for one's teeth to knock together? Before he could find out, he awakened with a gasp, at first disoriented as to where exactly he was.
He had part of a pillow and the blanket over his face, which might account for how he'd been dreaming he could barely breathe, and he pushed it away. As he inhaled and then exhaled, glancing around his still darkened room, he realized that the cold he'd felt wasn't part of the dream. It was real, leaving him shuddering even as he lay beneath a sheet, blanket and duvet. How had it gotten this chilly in here? He had already developed the habit of checking the thermostat every night before he lay down, and he usually left it set on about 74 degrees. Had he accidentally nudged it way down?
Avery got out of bed, wincing as the cold air in the room hit him. Dressed in pajama pants and a t-shirt, he made his way over to the wall next to the door, where the thermostat was placed, and squinted at it. The digital readout said 74. He punched it up to 80, figuring that he would turn it down again when the room warmed up. He heard it kick on, and as quickly as he could, he hurried back to the bed and got beneath the covers again, huddling up in a ball and tucking them around every exposed part of himself except for his nose. As he lay there, he tried to decide if maybe he was getting sick. It wouldn't be that surprising. Despite all the precautions he tried to take, how he pulled his sleeves over his hands to touch things and used gloves when he could, there were a lot of other people here who probably weren't anywhere near as clean. There were germs on everything.
After he'd spent a few minutes fretting about whether it was the flu or just a virus of some sort that was causing him to have chills, he realized that he wasn't any warmer. Being too cold made him very frustrated, because he wasn't used to it. Like it wasn't bad enough that there were tons of snow outside, now there was this! Getting up again, he walked back to the thermostat, rolling the hem of his t-shirt up over his hands and lower arms. The readout said 80 degrees, but he'd be surprised if it was fifty in here. Was his thermostat broken?
Avery had to think it over, shivering all the while, and he was still undecided as to what he should do once he had. Finally he stuck his feet into the pair of slippers that was next to his nightstand and unlocked his door so he could step out into the hall. Empty, and it felt just as cold as his room did. He stood, his hair rumpled from sleep and his arms goosebumped, glancing to one end of the hall and then the other. There were no answers suddenly revealed, so he went back into his room, deciding that maybe he should take a quick shower, get dressed and go try to find out if the arctic air was limited to his room or his floor or if it was the entire house.