I have to rise and shine at 2:30 in the morning! And as I will probably be so worried about oversleeping and missing my flight, I can’t imagine I’ll really sleep much. But that’s fine. The trip is worth it.

But Story-a-Day marches on. The prompt today is a story starter about someone waking up in a strange place. I wrote an intro. Not sure where it will go, but at least I wrote. Not sure what I’ll do over the next few days, but I’ll have my notebook…in theory.

Thanks for reading.

Farrah May Swan woke up on the floor under the laundry and next to litter box. She did not feel her best. The carpet, she was convinced, hated her, and was trying to eat her skin.

Groaning, she moved. A little. Deciding that was too much trouble, she rested and stared at whatever it was inhabiting the carpet. Cat hair, of course. Popcorn kernels. Mysterious fluff. An earring back.

She managed to touch her ears. Had she even worn earrings? Probably. When didn’t she? Now, she answered herself. At this moment she wasn’t wearing earrings. She pushed herself up off the floor.

Who did she know with a cat?

No one.

She scrunched up her face and thought really hard. No. No one she knew had a cat. No on she knew well anyway. Where was the cat? She looked around. The windows were open. Sunlight streamed in and there on the bed slept a fat, gold-colored cat.

Farrah stretched. “Hey, cat.” The sound of her own voice made her wince. She rubbed her face. No one else was in the room. Just her and the cat.
The room gave away no clue to its primary resident. Male or female? Farrah couldn’t decide. What had she done? Where was she?

Now standing, she stretched again, glad to discover she was dressed. She looked again. Dressed, but was this what she’d worn? Did she wear such shirts with tiny flowers? She didn’t think so.

A movement out of the corner of her eye startled her. She spun around. Her reflection. Of course. She stumbled to the window. The light blinded her. She squinted and shaded her eyes with her hand. Was she on a farm? In a field? Nothing made sense. Wasn’t she a city? She felt surely she was a girl in a big city. But she saw nothing but golden grass.

Her head hurt. With less stumbling, she went to the door. It opened easily. But nothing she saw made sense. Surely she wasn’t the sort of girl who could end up here.