Till Death Do Us Part

(Ch. 1) - The Move

(Rose) POV

The smell of cigarettes was potent as the car sped down the road, my father sat in the front seat smoking a red Turkish brand cigarette. Enter Sandman by Metallica played over the radio as I chewed on a slim Jim, savoring the somewhat spicy flavor as the video on my phone played. I was happy to sit in the back seat because that meant less conversations with my father Dan, he is an asshole, he stays out all day and all night either working or drinking. Then he'll proceed to find a new woman to sleep with as many nights as he can, leaving me alone nearly 24\7 but I couldn't complain, when he is around he is a brute. "Destination on the right" our navigation system said, the car came to a stop and I looked up out the window. Standing there is a tall five story, brick building, but the fifth floor windows seemed to be boarded up for some reason, as I looked down to the fourth floor window, i nearly jumped. I saw a shadow in one of the windows of someone peaking out, they had an all white face that showed no emotion, I quickly sat back in my seat, choosing to ignore it. My father turned back to look at me, "grab your shit and take it upstairs to 404, I'll be up there in a second I need to make a phone call" he kept it short and as sweet as a sour man could, so I did as I was told. It didn't take me long to get all of my things out of the car, they had already moved all of our furniture and large load of belongings two days prior, that's what I love about moving companies. I had grabbed a cart for all of my boxes and the luggage I have, which was rather convenient for me because I'm too lazy to do more than one trip. Pushing the cart through the large door I enjoyed the air conditioning compared to the heat outside, Dan was going to have a fun time unloading his stuff, but that's what he gets for moving us in the middle of a heatwave hotter than Satan's dick. There was a lady mopping the floor with headphones on, I walked up to her and she pulled the headphones off, she looked like a nice person. She had wrinkles at the corners of her mouth, most likely from smiling so much, her eyes were brown and she had brown hair that hung past her shoulders. "Hello there, you must be one of the new residents in 404, my name is Lisa, I'm the maintenance for this building, if you ever need me you can give me a call, would you like some help bringing that into the elevator?" She asked. I couldn't help the smile at the kind gesture, "yes please, I'm not too sure where I am going" she grabbed the cart and began pushing it to the elevator so I followed. "A family just moved in here not too long ago, the boy Sally is best friends with my son Larry, and the father Henry is a nice man so I'm sure if you need company they'd be happy to keep you occupied, there's not much to do here" she said. "Really?" I asked, she nod before searching her pockets, "here, I'm sure you and Sally will get along so here's a key to basement Incase you want to hangout. I took the key from her hand and strapped it to the keychain on my small backpack, the elevator dinged and we started to walk down the hall to the right and I could've sworn I saw one of the doors quickly shut. "Yeah I'll probably go down and introduce myself" I said, choosing to ignore it, we got to a door that had three gold numbers saying 404, I opened it with my key and we pushed the cart inside, it was nice to have the help as we took all of the luggage and boxes into my room. "This was always a nice apartment, the previous owner was such a sweet old lady, she collected these tiny horse figurines, but sadly one day she was murdered by another previous tenant, at least it gave Mr. Anderson a reason to up security" she said. I was shocked "someone was murdered in this apartment?" She nod,  "yeah, her name was Mrs. Sanderson, like I said she was a sweet old lady, it's a shame how she passed, a previous tenant, Charly, was the one who murdered her, he wasn't completely there, I guess you could say he went into a psychotic episode when she had bought this limited addition pony toy they both Collect". I couldn't believe what I was hearing, a nice lady was murdered in our apartment and it was over a toy by another tenant, we finished moving my stuff to my room and my father walked in. "Good you got your shit sorted, I'll be going out tonight to do some business, don't wait up and leave the door locked, no boys in my fucking house, I'm not rasing a whore" I had to stop myself from yelling at him. I knew the results of yelling at him Infront of Lisa would be hell once she had walked out our front door, so I bit my tongue and nod my head in understanding, letting him walk out without me laying into him. Lisa looked at me with a sad but knowing expression, "he won't be around much will he?" I shake my head no, "he was never one for being around, he's the reason my mom isn't alive but he blames me so he avoids me as much as he possibly can...until he can't, I'm sure you'll be called up here to fix more holes than the holes on a crocheted quilt". She placed her hand on my shoulder, "well then if you ever need to get away from him while he's here you're more than welcome to come down and hide out at my place, just hide that basement key for yourself think of it as your key to your own hidden paradise" my eyes filled with tears at the kind gesture. No one had been kind enough to help Me get away from him or offer any comfort, yet here was a stranger that hadn't even known me a full hour and she was helping me. Her phone beeped and she pulled it out, after reading her message she put her phonee back into her pocket with an exhausted sigh, "I'm sorry but I need to go fix a leaking toilet on floor three, keep what I said in mind alright, oh and that family I told you about lives next door so I'm sure if you stop by to say hello Sally might be able to show you around and introduce you to everyone". "You're fine, thank you, good luck with the toilet" I said as she walked out of my room, "thanks, I'm gonna need it!" I laughed and quickly went to unpacking my things, which thankfully didn't take long, an hour tops, going through my clothes I picked out black shorts, matching Converse, and a black corset top with lace sleeves. I left my hair down because I was too lazy to put it up or brush it so poofed out and messy is how it stayed. I grabbed my bag and sling it over my shoulder as I walked out of the apartment and closed the door, I locked it and went to turn around but I ran into someone and stepped back apologizing as I leaned down to pick up their things that fell. It was a white mask with the left eye and part of the left cheek painted a dull pink, along with a phone in a red case, I grabbed them and went to hand it to the person but saw someone with blue hair in pig tails and a black sweater facing away from me covering his face partially. You could see that there was scar tissue "Sorry...I don't want to gross you out-" I stopped him already not liking that he was insulting himself, "hey no it shouldn't matter what I would think, besides bad scars don't bothere, I'm Rose". I held out the mask and his phone waiting, he slowly turned around and lowered his hands, I can see why he thought he was gross, his entire face was scarred very bad, but It didn't bother me, it seemed to be healing up fairly well, just claw marks seemed to touch nearly every part of his face. I smiled and handed him his things, he looked puzzled as he went to put his mask back on, "what's the matter you look confused?" He nods, "I am, no one has ever been so unfazed by my face like this even my father had to get used to this before he could be like you and he still has his moments" he said. His voice was rather deep and smooth, and his eyes were a bright blue, contrasting with the darker shade of blue he had for his hair, "is your hair naturally blue or did you die it?" I asked, he chuckled, "it's natural, I got the blue hair and eyes from my father, the rest was from my mother but clearly those boyish looks are gone" he chuckled. "So you've already met Lisa, did she tell you about her son Larry?" I nod, "I was actually about to go down and introduce myself" he chuckled, "well then why don't I take you down there, I can answer any questions you've got about the building". We walked to the elevator and I put in the key to the basement, as the elevator closed a silence fell over us, it was a calm silence, we looked at each other and he chuckled before sticking his hands in his pockets and looking away, my face began to burn and I looked away, suddenly finding the buttons more interesting than anything in the world.

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Word count 1713