Camp NaNoWriMo Day 5: A Much Shorter Section

Yep, definitely losing steam.

So I've made an agreement with myself that I'm going to attempt 3,333 words per day, but if I miss some words or a day or two, I'm not going to be pressed about making them back up. 100K is a lofty goal, and it won't hurt me or anyone else if I only get to like, 90K. I think I'm okay purchasing my sanity for 10K words.

Also I think the quality of my project will suffer a bit if I start writing when I'm not vibing with it. That beings said, here's an incredibly short section.

The two chatted a bit and then chatted some more. They drank a bit and drank some more, and by the time Ellen had finished peeing and finished her shower – activities that she did separately out of personal habit and not disdain – Alfred and James were no longer in the living room.
     Ellen peered about the apartment for signs of life. Alfred’s keys were still hanging from a “THINK OF A WEIRD FANDOM” lanyard on the coat tree. She walked over his bedroom door which was closed and leaned into press her ear against it. This action was prohibited slightly by the towel she had wrapped around her head, and the pressure pulled at her hair that was tightly twisted in the towel. She unwrapped the towel and pressed her ear against the door. Nothing.
     Wait, am I supposed to do that with a cupped hand? Ellen thought. She pulled her ear back, observed the wet spot she had deposited on the door, and softly placed a cupped hand against the wood, trying very hard to not let the door wiggle. None of the doors fit very snuggly into their frames, so there was a significant amount of wiggle room. They had established an apartment rule of closing the balcony door every night, because a gust of wind would rattle the doors in the apartment and wake everyone up. Not in a ghost way, just in a ‘wow this apartment is noisy’ way.
     Still, Ellen heard no sound. Not entirely uncharacteristic of Alfred, he was a quiet sleeper, but Ellen silently hoped that she would be able James sleeping. Or any other activity that two individuals may have been up to. Mildly disappointed, Ellen went back to her room and shut the door.
     The sun rose early that morning. Much earlier than anyone would have hoped. Not that any of them had ever had a conscious hope that the earth would continue rotating and spinning as it did typically, but it was safe to assume that they craved the normalcy of it all. On top of that, Ellen didn’t have blackout curtains, so when the sun rose and filled her room with light, she could only ignore it and turn over so many times. She was also fairly hungover, but hungover in that early-twenties ‘I have a bit of a headache and everything underneath my face feels dry’ sort of way.
     Ellen reached down and grabbed her phone off the floor. She clicked the power button and was affronted with the ‘no power’ symbol. This is the real danger of drinking too much, Ellen thought. You go to bed and forget to plug in your phone.
     She sat up carefully. She felt the contents of her stomach shift as she did. There was a bit of an ache there. She felt as if she had only slept for a few hours, another danger of drinking too much. Ellen never slept well after a long night of drinking. On most nights she would be half awake in that twilight-realm of sleep purgatory, half-awake, half-asleep, and only half aware of dream versus reality, turning and tossing with thoughts rushing past. That wasn’t the case for this night, though; Ellen only retained one memory of waking up, but she still felt as though she had serious jet lag, or like it was that day after daylight savings kicks you in the bad way.
     “Bathroom,” Ellen said quietly to herself.
     She plugged her phone into her charger and shuffled her way over to the bathroom. There was a bit of water on the floor – her doing – but Ellen wasn’t wearing socks, so it wasn’t a problem. After finishing washing her hands, she moved to the kitchen to prep a pot of coffee. As it brewed, she drew a tall glass of water. Coffee was great in the morning, and she most definitely had a chemical addiction at this point, but Ellen new it best not to dehydrate herself further, or at the very least if she was going to, it was a good idea to cancel it out with some water. Net zero.
     Ellen glanced at the microwave to her right. The clock read “4:30.”
     She shot the microwave a dirty look. Well that’s not right, Ellen thought. Her face relaxed. Power outage, power outage got it all screwed up.
     The door to the balcony was closed, but the shades were still open, and light streamed through it and across the room. Ellen closed the shades, which only dimmed the room slightly. The sun was blazing through as if it were midday.