The short distance between her sleeping bag inside the closet and the bedroom window feels entirely too long but even with the planks of wood nailed over the glass, she wouldn't be safe sleeping on the bed itself. Better to stay out of sight and out of mind.
Red light flickered through the gaps between the planks, sending harsh shadows across the room that leapt out at her from the corners of her eyes. Everything felt wrong somehow, like she'd been through this before and it hadn't gone well but she shook it off and rationalised to herself that she'd barely been awake for ten minutes.
The broken shards of mirror she'd assembled into a mobile by the window gave her a chance to check for danger before she'd made it even halfway across the room. So far they showed nothing, giving her the courage to make the final few crouched steps up to the glass to peer out at the newest roadworks.
It was easier to think of them like the old council-planned chaos of the older days. The days her parents looked back on with fondness and exasperation for delayed journeys and inconvenient diversions. She'd been too young to remember then as they were. Both the roads and her parents.
She hadn't seen them for five towns and hoped she wouldn't be seeing them outside, half-buried beneath tarmac with bleeding eyes begging for a merciful death she was too scared to provide. They rarely lasted an hour like that but god was it an awful way to go.
After a silent count to five she finally looked.
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