Desperate drought (Eleven days and counting)
*Mel's in the only kitchen she knows of with marble countertops. She's got the sleeves of her striped shirt rolled up, her dirty hair's pulled into a haphazard ponytail, and her leather pants are sitting low on her hips.
It's clear that she's been here a while. There's a pot of garlic-potato soup being kept warm on the stove (because using a knife to smash garlic bulbs and turn potatoes into tiny, tiny cubes helped, a little), and several dozen almost-identical oatmeal-raisin cookies on a cooling rack (because measuring ingredients and scooping out perfectly-sized spoonfuls of dough required enough concentration that Mel temporarily didn't think about other things). Now she's pounding at several bars of chocolate with a meat tenderizer.
She died six times in the last ten days, searching as much of the mansion as she could, given that it's technically infinite. All, all for nothing: Mail can't be here. Even if he'd wandered into a room that killed him, he'd be back by now. What she really wants is to be rendered magically unconscious until he comes back, but she can't even achieve regular unconsciousness for very long. She's incapable of doing nothing, but there's nothing she can do to find him. Sometimes the myth about being technically insane after three days with no sleep occurs to her, and she almost laughs.
She sort of wants company, but only very specific company, so she's glad this is one of the kitchens that generally sees less traffic than the others.*
It's clear that she's been here a while. There's a pot of garlic-potato soup being kept warm on the stove (because using a knife to smash garlic bulbs and turn potatoes into tiny, tiny cubes helped, a little), and several dozen almost-identical oatmeal-raisin cookies on a cooling rack (because measuring ingredients and scooping out perfectly-sized spoonfuls of dough required enough concentration that Mel temporarily didn't think about other things). Now she's pounding at several bars of chocolate with a meat tenderizer.
She died six times in the last ten days, searching as much of the mansion as she could, given that it's technically infinite. All, all for nothing: Mail can't be here. Even if he'd wandered into a room that killed him, he'd be back by now. What she really wants is to be rendered magically unconscious until he comes back, but she can't even achieve regular unconsciousness for very long. She's incapable of doing nothing, but there's nothing she can do to find him. Sometimes the myth about being technically insane after three days with no sleep occurs to her, and she almost laughs.
She sort of wants company, but only very specific company, so she's glad this is one of the kitchens that generally sees less traffic than the others.*