Trudging in groggily at almost five in the morning, Erin made only a brief and necessary stop at the restroom, before lumbering on to her room and crashing almost fully clothed upon the bed.
The last two evenings had been nearly mirror images of each other, and she had been left with a sharp feeling of restless dissatisfaction at the conclusion of the night.
Erin was quickly tiring of the increasingly tedious setting of Uli’s apartment, where she, Lynn, Razor, Uli, and some others had wasted away so many hours. The end to the nights arrived only when the natural, irresistible fatigue of the human body finally caught up with them.
On such nights, they rarely saw anything other than Uli’s cramped living room, and Erin was sorely tired of that.
The rising tedium had served as a great motivation to Erin to speak her mind towards the end of the evening. Evidently, the boredom had been present in more than one of the others, as they had readily agreed that the group needed a change in scenery.
She did not make any move to set her alarm clock as her body settled into the mattress. Erin already knew that she would be calling in sick to her workplace, and not because she expected to be ill. She knew that she would be feeling healthy enough once she had gotten a few hours of sleep.
Once it was apparent that everyone needed a hiatus from the little apartment, a full consensus had then been reached for the following evening, one that Lynn, Razor, and Erin had readily agreed to. For once, Uli had shown some initiative in suggesting that they undergo a journey down to the great national forest, located just an hour away from their hometown.
Once there, they could hike towards an outcropping of rock that formed a natural bridge, and choose an optimal campsite in the vicinity for a night of relaxation and merriment. As it tended to be a popular camping area, Erin hoped that they would have some luck and that it would be devoid of very many others that evening.
A more cynical side of Erin mused that it would not be all that different from the past few nights, with the exception of a change of scenery. Virtually the only real difference would be that instead of carpets, walls, and sofas, they would have the bare earth, trees, and rocks as their surroundings for the same activities. Of course, to her greater view, there was little else to do, and it was as good of a plan as any other. At the very least, even if the company and general activity were the same, the ventilation would be much better. section ii