The Edge of Everything ¹ | THE LAST OF US |

one ; penelope

 One ;

Penelope

Penelope never knew the outside world. Penelope grew up alone. Her parents were with her for a few years but left. She was very young when they left. About five years old. And that was it. Her parents left her in their apartment in the Boston QZ.

The days went by. Days turned into weeks. Weeks turned into months of waiting for her parents to come back. And months turned into years.

It didn't take long for Penelope to lose hope for her parents to come back. Some nights, she'd wait by the front door, in the living room, staring at the apartment door. Willing it to open and her parents come through the door with happy smiles on their faces. With all kinds of goodies that Penelope came up with, and great news.

One thing her parents left her with was her medical condition. Penelope was given a nasal cannula for her lungs. The Boston QZ had terrible air, filled with smoke from the burning dead bodies. The smoke from the fires had injured Penelope's lungs as a child, leaving her with some sort of respiratory failure. Before her parents had left her, they had tried everything to cure her breathing. Since then Penelope has been using a nasal cannula with an oxygen tank 24/7.

Her parents would smuggle in all kinds of medicines for her, going to FEDRA hospitals that normal people in the QZ were not able to go into. Penelope had grown up in hospitals, connected to all kinds of wires. She doesn't remember it much.

She never knew why her parents left her. That's what stuck with Penelope. She had always hoped that there was a reason for them leaving. Not just because they were tired of her, but because they were going on some type of adventure for Penelope, their daughter. Penelope thought they loved her, as her parents would, but that hope simmered and withered down in her mind with each and every day that passed.

Penelope horrifically realized one day, when she was helping the seniors for ration cards, one of the old ladies had asked her where her parents were. Penelope didn't know how to respond. How could she? With a shrug? Or just ignore her?

Instead, she replied with; "Oh, they left. Years ago."

The old woman looked at Penelope with pity. She asked Penelope, "Have they passed?"

"No, no, they aren't dead, they just left me." Yeah, that sounds nice and blunt. Something a nice elderly lady would want to hear, right? Wrong.

She told the old lady, and she looked horrified.

"What do you mean they left, sweetie?" She asked the child in front of her, the same child that had been caring for her for the past few months.

"They left, that's it." Penelope said simply with a shrug.

Her only memories of them were her mother and father leaving their small one-bedroom apartment in the Boston QZ. Leaving her.

She was alone, with no one to care for her, and no way for Penelope to provide for herself.

From that day forward, Penelope has stayed holed up in the apartment ever since. Only leaving to get her rations and ration cards. She worked here and there, mostly helping out with the seniors in the Boston QZ. Like the old woman that asked her where her parents were. Not the best memory of hers...

Penelope would rarely leave the house, only to help out with the seniors to be given ration cards, then to purchase rations for herself. Then heading home, for another three weeks of solitude.

It's not that Penelope didn't want to be around people, she just found staying home and studying on the scraps of paper she found to be more interesting than sticking her nose in FEDRA business–or even the so-called 'Fireflies'.