Moon Song

Chapter 2 - Jasmine

Jasmine did not want to move.

For the last three years of her life, she'd been living in a boarding hostel at her high school and she didn't want to leave. It wasn't that she loved living at the hostel, but more the fact that she didn't want to live at home with her parents. Not that there was anything wrong with her parents, it was just that she'd been so independent for so long and she didn't need them telling her how to live her life every other second. Plus, she had friends at the hostel that she relied on to keep her company. She knew that living at home would make her very lonely, especially being an only child.

So when her parents broke their promise of not moving until she was out of school, she was quite reasonably upset. Jasmine had broken down as her mum told her that they had seen a house online while dyeing her hair in the bathtub of their old home. Her mum was evil to drop such a bomb while she was literally trapped in the bath with nowhere to go, and no room to breathe.

The event was actually responsible for the scab behind her ear, which Jasmine had subconsciously scratched into her head mid panic attack later that night. Even now, 5 months later the scab had never had time to heal.

Anyway, Jasmine's parents picked her up from the hostel for the last time ever, and it was the hardest thing she had ever done. She shut the car door with tears in her eyes, which she hid from her mum.

Not a word was said the entire 20 minute drive, by either Jasmine or either of her parents. She just stared hard out the window, willing no more tears to come, and failing.

When they finally arrived at the house after what felt like hours of driving behind the metal box of a moving truck, Jasmine stayed sitting in the car, trying to contain herself and her sadness until she was at least alone in her new room.

With a deep breath she slowly opened the door and stepped out of the car. After grabbing her bags from the car boot, she reluctantly made her way up the drive to the front door.

Before going inside she took a look around her.

The property was situated on a grassy hill, with most of the surrounding houses being part of farms. In fact there was only one other house that she could see from where she was, and it backed onto a small grassy area at the top of the hill.

Anyway, her property was also attached to a cattery, where people would leave their cats to stay while they went away. So the house came with a full business. The was the one part Jasmine was happy about. The cats.

The house itself had two stories, with Jasmine's room being on the top floor. One thing she noticed was that the roof of the first story sloped down to the ground, right outside the small grassy lawn. And this roof began right outside the window to the room across from the one the that would become hers.

After taking one more deep breath, Jasmine turned the door handle of the glass front door, and stepped into what she was now supposed to call home.

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The next night, Jasmine spent her second night attempting to get some sleep on the mattress on her floor. This time she had a plan. She got off her mattress and quietly pulled on her dark hoodie and exited her room. She tiptoed across the hallway and into the room opposite her own.

Her mum had promised this room could become Jasmine's own music room. A guitar case and a cardboard box labelled 'keyboard' lay in the corner.

Jasmine made her way over to the window of the left wall of the room, and silently unlatched it. To her surprised in opened all the way, and left a large enough gap for her to squeeze out of. She landed gently on the roof on the other side, before sliding down to the dewy grass below.

Once she was safety on the ground, she made her way toward the cat enclosures. She smiled with excitement as she reached for the door handle.

However that was wiped straight off her face once she realised it wouldn't open. Of course it was locked, who wouldn't lock a cattery at night?

'Fuck!' she whispered yelled. She was so annoyed that she just starting crying. The familiar feelings of the tears on her cheeks took over. Her breathing quickened as she started stumbling back to the roof. Slowly, her vision started to blur, and her face felt funny from breathing so hard.

Jasmine decided she didn't wanna go back inside just yet, and made her way up to the lawn on the tippy top of the hill. She sat down without caring that the grass was wet, and let herself breakdown.

'Why the fuck are you like this?' She whispered to herself. 'They're just fucking cats!'

Jasmine continued to sit on the wet grass until her breathing finally slowed a little. She looked up into the sky and numbly watched the full moon above her head.

Suddenly, there was a loud noise behind her.