Before

The old stone slabs stood tall in some places, short and broken in others, a crumbling mass that only barely resembled the manor home it once was. The roof had collapsed in recent years, though the house itself had been abandoned so long before that no one knew how long it had actually stood empty. When the roof had finally gone, it revealed a winding staircase to nowhere, reaching up into the sky, like an alien tree.

An picked her way through the rubble, looking for a place that could still hide some sort of treasure. Cloth that hadn’t rotted yet, or bits of metal or glass that belonged to the Before. Even if most didn’t know what they had been used for, there was a big enough demand for trinkets from Before that she could easily trade it for food, even if it was just enough to get by. None of these things would be found in the rubble under the sky, though, so she trudged deeper, into the places where the floor upstairs still provided shelter for the downstairs, to places where walls still stood, for the most part, making a semblance of rooms.

These places were dangerous. They were good spots for animals and strange insects to burrow and hide, and sometimes another person will have beat you to the spot and not take kindly to your presence. An tread carefully, keeping all of this in mind.

Far in the back, in the shadows where little sunlight could breach, behind half walls and piled debris, she found a door. It was rare to find a door in one of these places that was completely intact. This one was intact and closed, the wall it rested in whole. Wall and door both looked to have been scoured of any paint or paper, stripped by the passage of time as storms and strong winds found their way into the somewhat sheltered place.

She approached on quiet feet, listening for the sounds of any movement around her. When she heard nothing, An grasped the knob and gave it a halfhearted twist, her breath catching in her throat as it turned easily and the door opened on silent hinges. She was so surprised at the ease in which it opened, at the fact the knob turned at all, that she didn’t notice the interior at first, but when she did, she stared at it in open mouthed shock.

The room was pristine. The colors hadn’t even faded, as far as An knew. At least, she had never seen colors so vivid and pretty; it had been so long since Before that even the colors in books had faded. It was a bedroom, with a large canopy bed. A woman in town had a canopy bed, but only scraps of fabric hung down from the posts to decorate it and it had a thin straw mattress. It was still more than what a lot of people had. But this was covered with in diaphones white fabric, the mattress thick and topped with a blanket covered in small blue flowers. It looked so soft….

Other things around her she only recognized from the few books she had managed to get ahold of, or not at all, but it was the bed that called to her. An slowly walked over to the mattress and sat down on it. It gave slightly beneath her weight. She pulled her legs up on it and laid down, her head on a pillow. She had never lain in a bed like it before. She had never had a pillow or any kind of mattress, just a few threadbare blankets and the ground. This… she felt as if she were floating on a cloud. She closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep, the door quietly closing.

*****************

Ann woke up to the sound of the alarm and rubbed her face. What an odd dream. Though, it was hardly unusual for people to be having dreams like that now a days, what with lockdowns and threats of war. She shook it off and got up, getting her day started. She and her kitchen staff had a banquet to prepare for. She showered quickly in her adjoining bathroom, dressed in her chef’s uniform, and put on just the bare minimum of makeup. She finished it all off with the heart shaped locket her mother had given her when she graduated. It had been her grandmother’s and she felt it had brought her great luck. She fastened it around her neck and tucked it into her top.

“Alright everyone,” she clapped to stop the gossiping as she entered the kitchen. “We have a full menu tonight for the governor’s banquet. We need to start the prep right after breakfast.”

No one moved, just stared at her. That’s when she noticed that none of her staff were present, just the staff needed to keep the place running at all hours, those who lived at the governor’s mansion, like herself. She also realized they had tear streaked faces and they hadn’t been the ones talking. They had the television that was mounted in the corner of the kitchen on and the excited chatter of reporters had been what she was hearing when she entered.

“Oh, Ann,” the head of housekeeping breathed. “The banquet’s been canceled. There’s been an attack…”

“What? Where? Here?” Ann was starting to feel panic set in.

“In DC,” the other woman clarified, and Ann turned her attention to the television, the screen showing a devastated landscape that used to be the White House. “The President’s on Air Force One and is supposed to be making an announcement soon.”

Ann pulled out her grandmother’s locket and clutched it in her hand, praying, as she waited with the others.

*****************

An woke up with a start. She propped herself back into a sitting position, trying to shake the cobwebs out of her head, when she suddenly realized she wasn’t on a bed. She knew she went to sleep on a bed in that strange, perfect room, but she found herself sitting on the ground, bare stone covered in dirt and leaves. The sky was bright overhead, as if no time had passed. More importantly, there was no ceiling, and the walls only stood in broken segments, one which held the remains of a broken door.

She didn’t remember laying down on the ground to take a nap, that would have been foolish, but that must have been what she did, she reasoned. She must have fallen asleep and dreamed she had found the room, and in that dream she dreamt of another time, and place. She couldn’t explain that dream. She didn’t know what a ‘governor’ or a ‘banquet’ were; she must have made them up.

Mentally chastising herself, she lifted her right hand up to rub across her eyes when she realized she was holding something. She opened her fist to find a deeply tarnished, heart shape piece of metal. Locket her brain supplied, fresh from the odd dream. She rubbed it, realizing it must be made of the gold metal so many liked to have and would be quite valuable. It still had its chain, and the clasp still worked. She put it around her neck as if she had done it dozens of time before, thinking of the dream, the room, the words she didn’t know, the things she had never seen before. Things her dream-self knew.

She found a few pieces of colored glass, worn smooth. They would have to do, she thought, until she nearly tripped over a large round piece of metal that was caked in dirt, the edges curved up to form a shallow bowl, only a small chunk broken from one side. This would get her plenty if she played her cards right. So would the gold but, she considered as she placed her hand over the heart pendant hidden beneath her shirt, some things were worth keeping for herself. Maybe she would dream again of that world, the one she knew, without knowing how, was from Before. That world that was so unfamiliar yet made her think home.