Out of time!

This chapter was written collaboratively with an AI at aidungeon.io.

But Anna did not even get a split second to react as her mother flipped on the light switch. Anna was suddenly illuminated there, fully exposed for her mother to see. Her mother's eyes went as round as saucers.

"Anna?" she gasped.

"I… I got… uh…" Anna could not form a coherent sentence.

Her mother quickly pulled off her dressing gown and wrapped it around Anna, leaving her in her short pajamas.

"What the hell's going on here?!" she bellowed. Anna's father finally detangled himself from the blanket and stood up.

"Uh, umm…,” Anna said, “Dad came in to check on me, but he fell down."

Her father laughed. "That's a heck of a way to put it, but that’s the long story short. Word to the wise: grabbing a blanket off a bed is no way to break your fall." Anna chuckled nervously.

"Oh, really? Then explain…" Anna's mother began, but stopped when she saw the hairbrush on the bed. “Oh,” she said softly.

“Anyway, no harm, no foul,” her father said obliviously. “These old bones have had their fair share of tackles back in the day. Intermural football,” he said.

“Well, then, I guess we should let our daughter get back to sleep,” her mother said. She whispered in Anna’s ear, “it’s okay, sweetie. It’s perfectly natural.”

Anna squirmed in the greatest embarrassment of her life.

“I guess so,” her father concurred.” The two of them walked out the door, leaving Anna alone again. As the two of them walked down the hallway, Anna heard her father ask, “hey, honey, don’t you have that same dressing gown?”