Moonchild

CHAPTER NINE

'Damnit!'

A sound that sounded like my ringtone woke me up from a strange, yet familiar, nightmare that I started paying no attention to, anymore. If I was younger I would wake up terrified, and I would suffer the whole day that might have followed. Now that I was nineteen years old I basically breathed in a couple of times, and that would be enough.

I began to start my routine of breathing, but came to a halt. I double-checked the time, because I always thought that I overslept, but the tiredness of my body and mind made me believe that I overslept. I gasped when I saw that it was ten past nine in the morning. I was officially late for my first day of work.

There was no time for me for a shower, or to grab something to eat. As I rushed to dress up and locate my apron, I realised that there was no time for me to have a coffee or a cigarette either.

'Dammit!' I roared again.

And that's when I was shocked to find that there was someone talking whenever I cussed.

I looked around me, but I was alone in my bedroom. Not in my nana's house. I moved out. After that heavenly day at Zapalo Bay last year, I realised that I needed to move on with my life. And finding a place where I would be on my own was a start.

Unfortunately, I had not the money that I needed to rent my own place, and I had no job. After some search and questions that I asked at every place I saw a STAFF WANTED post on, I found a small kiosk that offered some money to someone who would stay at the night shifts. It was a silly job, but it was a start.

Things were slightly bad, a month ago. I had an argument with a customer, who assumed I gave the wrong change back, and my boss yelled at me. I was never wrong with mathematics, not even in counting the change I had to give back to customers fast. I felt offended. So I pushed the customer on the floor and through his receipt on his face. My boss fired me the very second after that. And I found out later that the customer was my boss' dad.

I ended up one whole year there, and I managed to save a good amount of money, thankfully, to cover my first and last month's rent, and deposit, and after a very strategic talk by Mr. Peter, who I still go see for a coffee and cigarette, I knew to wait one year before to rent an apartment. In his words: 'It would be better to have the money saved up and use them when needed, than rent and pay, and have the stress over your shoulders if you can't pay rent.'

Mr. Peter was like a mentor for me, and a friend, who would talk to me as if I was his son or grandson. I was so lucky to have him in my life, even though some times my mind traveled back to that terrible day at The Dark Place.

The voice sounded urgent, but distant, so I kneeled down slightly, and walked slowly in my room, and finally I found my mobile phone on my bed, under my pillow, and it was still on a line, apparently, and the other side of the line held someone shouting in their microphone of their receiver.

I was completely dressed when I picked it up.

'... and if you don't come here in one minute, alíti, you...'

Air was pulled behind me when I zapped away from my flat, towards my work place.

'...don't bother coming here, you hear me?

'Hey, Mr. Mark,' I said, as calmly as I could when someone cussed at me, 'I was lost in these streets. It's my first time here in this area.' I crookedly smiled.

'How did you...' he looked around me, shocked, looking for something that might explain what happened, 'I thought you...'

'You thought I was sleeping?' Here I let go a sharp sound of laughter. 'Why do people say that to me all the time?'