DR: REUNION

0.1 - Prologue - The Wrong Side of the Bed

She doesn't often wake up with a headache, but when she does it is usually because she'd overdone it the night before. She doesn't remember exactly what she did to earn the vague ache in the back of her head, but she's not eager to find out.

Eventually, however, she has no choice but to open her eyes.

Soft light drifts in through an open window. A young woman sits up on a bed with an embroidered duvet. Her glasses are askew. She's not underneath the covers.

Did I fall asleep with my glasses on?

She adjusts her glasses, rubbing her eyes vigorously with her knuckles for a long satisfying moment before attempting to get her bearings.

At least I didn't sleep with my contacts in again. Gotta keep counting those blessings. My glasses didn't get broken, my eyeballs don't feel like a desert, and... That might be it.

She reaches for her bedside table, ready to take some advil based on the headache that was already forming with her first moments of consciousness, but her bedside table is empty. She turns her head to actually look at it.

That's not her bedside table. That's not her bed. This room is completely foreign to her.

A whisper of panic laces through her heart, but she tamps it down with the sound of her own voice.

SHIZUKU: This is not my apartment.

Her voice comes out flat, neutral even, as if her frantic glances around the room were the product of another person entirely.

The stylings of the room are old fashioned, like something out of a 1950s movie. A bed, which she is lying on. A dresser with a lace doily on it. A rolltop desk. The wallpaper is tightly packed floral pattern, a pale pink and yellow that must have been popular in design at some point, but definitely not now. There are chintzy knick knacks scattered around, including a few items that look slightly familiar; a toy elephant holding a wooden rose in its trunk atop the dresser, a framed poster of the first movie she'd ever acted in on the wall, and the stand she kept her necklaces on to keep them from tangling on the desk. She stares at her own possessions evenly, and feels that twinge of panic return.

Breathe in. Out. What's the last thing I remember?

She decides to speak aloud, as if the sound of her own voice will help make sense of this situation.

SHIZUKU: Last night. I was texting my agent, in my kitchen. And there was a knock at the front door!

Someone came to visit me! That has to mean something! So then I answered the door. Or, I must have. After the knock...? Nothing. Just this bed.

SHIZUKU: Maybe this is supposed to be an attempt at getting me to method act? I could believe that. Sugimoto-san does like to surprise me. But would the film crew really agree to knocking me out?

Is the next film she has slated even a period piece? She searches her memory, trying to find any clues, but draws a blank. With the blank spot in her recollection exposed, she becomes increasingly aware of how frozen she is. Sitting on a bed in a strange room doesn't seem like the wisest thing, even if she's determined to believe that this is all good natured somehow.

SHIZUKU: I need to look around.

Shizuku gets up off the bed, slightly wobbly. She grabs the bedpost to stabilize herself, pausing to take a few deep breaths once more, then wanders out of the bedroom. She's faced with a narrow hallway with different gaudy wallpaper, a staircase leading down, and two open doors. The first, at the end of the hall, reveals a slightly larger bedroom than the one she just exited. The second, between the two rooms, seems to have the calming porcelain of a bathroom.