Sapphire Blue [The Grim Reaper Chronicles, #1] (Editing)

Chapter Three

Washington DC. Present day.

Peering down at the symmetrical mopping paraphernalia right before her waterlogged feet, and the mop stick in her hands, Samantha let out a dwarfish grunt. A grunt that could have been purveyed out loud if she had her way. The floor was as moist as her face was. She hadn't even realized she was sobbing. What was life again? Disgusting.

If she had power, no one would experience the trial she was undergoing.

The trial everyone was undergoing, literally.

But she had none-not even a miniature fleck to speak up for her self and the others. The feeble others. Since that very moment she turned thirteen in the enclosure, life had taken a drastic turn of events. Not for only her, but for the rest of the striving teenagers. From scrubbing the floors every afternoon, ingesting the tiniest bit of food-nothing like the nutritious meals other teenagers outside of the walls enjoyed, down to dry cleaning the clothes they necessarily didn't have to give a first glance. They were made to work while the ones with upper hand revelled. Now she was eighteen, and the picture didn't appear like it was going to be less blurry anytime soon.

Clowns. Superiors. They sure sounded alike.

The first mistake ever was having the one-of-a-kind knotted predestination, She thought, releasing a peevish short-lived spell of anger. It wasn't her fault that everything had turned out bad for her, or the people around her. It was fate, as people would call it. Just the way her housemates, or roommates had fallen into the same category as her, they were as drained as she was.

Emotionally. Physically. Mentally. Financially drained.

Coalesced, and escorted by the series of damage their background stories had levied on their frail hearts, they ought to be carefully taken care of. Fine, majority of them were majors, and they got allowances, but it was way too meager. Until they were twenty one, they couldn't get their own smaller apartments and jobs to sustain themselves. This news had been dished out to them many years ago on an official assembly, synchronously escorted by a handful of hardcopies pinned on the billboard, to remind them of this piece of information Incase anyone of them failed to recall. This place wasn't even a school, but they had a billboard anyway. No teenager left the place until that specified age, which was sickening. And the organization made it seem like their rule was adapted in every other places. Weren't they supposed to leave at eighteen? Why their protocols cropped up so strictly, no one knew, but it made no sense to them.

On the contrast of this plain-featured conversance, the younger ones who stayed at the second orphanage home had everything they wanted. Once she visited the place on an errand, she had envied them, shooking her head several times at the goodness they had cradling in their embrace. One of the workers had thought she had stiff neck and was trying to get rid of it by doing that. Her neck had been perfectly fine, she had only been lost in thoughts. Although they were just kids having the best of their moments-getting picky with meals, lazing around doing nothing all day long, and attending better schools, but the teenagers deserved some love, too.

Teenagers were no different from babies. They needed attention as much as those kids do.

And maybe some Netflix subscriptions would help, too.

Thank God they had mobile phones, else, there was no source of entertainment for them.

She wiped her face and the beads of perspiration that were gathering on her forehead with the back of her hand and moved on sluggishly with her work. She had been working all day and hadn't eaten anything, not even a slice of brown bread and the peanut butter she hated most. Her fever could kick back in if this continued for few more days. She wanted to curse so loudly under her breath that the whole occupants of the building would hear it, but she prompted herself to actualize it inwardly. She was already worn out, uttering words with annoyance would only make her more stressed than ever.