Out of Desperation (My Friendly Neighborhood and Child!Reader)

Chapter One

I'm keeping "heh heh..." up. 62+ reads would be right out the window lmao.

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I can hear their voices now.

Poor (Y/N).

Poor, poor (Y/N).

I manage to slip out of the window, the backpack straps feeling like they're going to cut my arms off. I just keep going. Farther and farther. Until I can't see the house anymore.

Lonely (Y/N).

So, so lonely.

I can't remember where Dad lives now. He never told anyone. But he's got to still be in town! He wouldn't leave me here with Ms. Annie!

He said I'd be with him when we left.

Sad (Y/N).

Sad, sad (Y/N).

Can it stop?

Please?

I walk down another street. I can't read any of the names. Ms. Annie didn't have time to teach me, nor did she even try. She said it was something about "unschooling". I learn when I want to learn.

But she never listened to me.

How could I have learned anything?

I still had books. Yes, ones for five year olds mixed with some for ten-year-olds, but they're still books nonetheless. I learned a lot of words from them and a dictionary. I know almost the whole dictionary now.

I just can't wrap my head around math.

I know what it is. And it bothers me. If I know what math is, shouldn't it be easier to learn it?

Adding and subtracting? Multiplying and dividing? Why can't I figure it out?

After about an hour of walking, I find a tall building. It's not just one building, but about-one, two, three-four of them together. A fence surrounds the buildings, as if a monster would get out if the fence wasn't big enough to keep it in.

I get closer. The fence is thin enough so nothing can get in or out without climbing over it. The monster shouldn't be tall enough to step over it, but maybe it can't climb.

I keep my grip on the fence and carefully climb over it. I make sure to not get hurt by the spikes on the top, which was probably another measure to make sure the monster never leaves. Questions start taking over my thoughts.

Does the monster want friends?

How tall is the monster?

Is there a monster?

Is it scary?

I take a few steps into the parking lot. It's stunning, actually. The lights aren't on, but I can still see the buildings. There's an aviary, but it's locked, the playground is closed, and the building in the middle is the only one with the lights on. I enter the lit-up building.

There are many things my mom and dad never told me about, but they have both told me so much about an old studio that's all locked down then and now. The lights turn on in the middle of the night in any of the buildings, something stalks through the playground, and that I should never go there when I decide to sneak out. The name of the studio?

My Friendly Neighborhood.

And then Mom died from yellow fever and Dad became an alcoholic drug addict. Then I had to move in with Ms. Annie, my grandmother, who doesn't teach me a thing. I've always had to count on kids shows and books.