The Locked Door

Nobody ever came to this side of town. It scared people. The empty feeling that it gave settled deep into your bones, and would not leave until days after you went back home. Unfortunately, me, a 17 year old girl, is forced to live here. I have nowhere else to go. I lived in one of the abandoned houses that had been vacant since before I was born. I use the term live loosely. Survive is more like it. I have two pairs of shirts and one pair of pants that I have worn for the last two years, along with a pair of shoes and a stuffed bare that I bring with me everywhere. I know that it seems kind of childish, but its the only thing that leaves me connected with my lost family. When I was 15, my parents were killed along with my older brother, in a car accident that I was fortunate enough, not the be a part of. Now a normal child would have been put up for adoption or in the foster care system, but I couldn't and wouldn't do that. Nobody could replace my family. So I ran. I ran somewhere that people wouldn't go looking because the near thought of doing so terrified them. And for the last two years it has worked out for me. I get food by nicking stuff from the wealthy families who are stupid enough to leave their doors open at night, and I bathe in a lake nearby. I am surviving. The house that I am living in is very interesting, and is very inconspicuous from the outside, but once you step foot inside it becomes a whole new place. When I moved in, it was still furnished, and most of it still looked new. There was a queen sized bed in one of the rooms, and a nice living room and kitchen. Unfortunately, the water and electric have all been shut off by now, but I wasn't expecting luxury. However, one thing that interested me was this one locked door. I could never get inside, and it looked like it was hardly ever used. I tried everything to get in, including trying to kick the door down, but nothing worked. It always stayed locked. That lasted for a long time, until one day I was going through the office, and flounder a key sitting within a drawer. Huh. Thinking it wasn't going to work, I walked to the door and put the key inside. Whether it was dumb luck or fate, the key fit, and I was shell shocked. I just stood there looking at the key in the door thinking that I must have finally gone mad. Eventually I was able to pull myself out of my thoughts and got back to the problem at hand. After two years, I was finally going to be able to see what was behind the door. I slowly turn the key and hear a slight click, signaling that the door had finally been unlocked. I reached out and grabbed the dusty handle, opening the door to reveal a staircase that leads to what looks to be a basement. I slowly walk down the stairs, not wanting them to break or collapse from underneath me. Once I reach the bottom, I am welcomed with a concrete floor and a dull light coming from a skylight in one of the corners. I step further into the room and look to my left. There is a wall full of photos and newspaper articles showing what looks to be like this side of town, when it was actually thriving. I couldn't believe that this area had ever looked like this. It had children running around, families swimming in the lake that I bathe in almost every day, but there was one last picture that caught my eye. At the very bottom there were picture of my parents when they were young. They had just gotten married and they were standing next to each other in the house that I was currently living in. I was shocked. I had no clue my parents ever lived on this side of town. They never spoke about it, and I had just assumed that they had always lived in the house that I ad grown up in. Oh how wrong I was. But it made me wonder what had happened for my parents to leave this place and move to the other side of town. They looked so happy from where I stood. They were holding hands with the biggest smiles on their faces. It looks like my parents were hiding more from than I ever could have imagined. Looks like I have some digging to do.