Into the unknown

Chapter 1.

Pushing the warm and safe duvet away from my body, I twisted myself, allowing my bare feet to come into contact with the fluffy carpet that covered my bedroom floor. With my hands resting on the side of the bed, on either side of my body, I took in a deep breath, the chaotic sounds of shouting and clanging swirling around me, causing a throbbing sensation to pulsate in my temples. The mere four and a half hours of restless sleep I had managed to get last night had not settled in. My body felt like I had not slept in days. My muscles ached and my mind was exhausted. I longed for some peace, even if it was just for a mere two minutes.

The green-yellow illuminated lights on the digital clock, that was perched on my bedside table, told me that it was eight forty-two in the morning. I scrunched up my face at the realised of just how little sleep I had managed to get. When I got home this morning, it was around four o'clock, the birds had begun chirping and the sun was beginning to make its daily appearance over the horizon. A beautiful sight that I would happily give up a few minutes of sleep to watch, which was something, considering sleep was something I was very little of.

I worked at Valencio nightclub as a bartender, not the most glamorous or safest of jobs, but the pay was pretty decent, a lot better than what other jobs were offering, and I needed all the money I could get my hands on. At twenty-two years of ago I was still living a sheltered and excluded life with my mother and step-father. My nightly shifts at Valencio were the rare occasions that I managed to venture further than the front door.

Since I was eighteen and had been offered the job at Valencio, my life had been the same constant routine, day-in, day-out. I would wake up, or the noise caused by my mother and step-father would wake me up, at around seven or eight, maybe nine if I was lucky (I was rarely ever lucky), I would have to clean the whole house from top to bottom, and sometimes I would have to cook them dinner, before getting ready for work which started at eight o'clock in the evening. At work I would spend most of my time behind the bar, serving drinks all night, before spending the last hour cleaning up all the drunken mess. My shift would end between three and three-thirty, depending on the state of the club. The walk home was around half an hour, depending on how fast my legs could carry me. I could very easily order a taxi, to save myself from exhaustion and gain an extra bit of sleep, but home wasn't somewhere I particularly wanted to be. Hence, the journey home prolonged my return to prison.

When I got home at four-ish, I would take a quick shower, have a nibble on whatever was around in the kitchen before taking myself to bed. I would get in a couple hours of sleep before having to repeat my draining routine all over again. It was a hard and tiresome life, but some good had to come from it. When the time came for me to be able to move out, it would all have been worth it.

As much as I had always welcomed a steady routine throughout my entire life, I was now at the point where I craved something more, something different, something wild and spontaneous. I needed some kind of excitement in my life that showed me that life was worth living. I needed a spark, some kind of light at the end of the tunnel, that would show me all that all of the struggle and pain I had been through was all for something, it was leading to something.

Before you ask, I am not suicidal. I would be the first to admit that I have thought about it before, though. I have thought about getting out of the cycle and ending my life. But, I was a coward and couldn't go through with it. Having these thoughts also made me angry at myself, knowing that there were people and children out there who had lives worse than mine, yet here I was complaining and wallowing in self-pity. That could not be me. I could not be the girl who suffered for nothing and got nothing from life. My eyes were set on becoming an artists whose art could bring joy to others, that was the goal, that was what all the suffering was for.