starpower ━ [south park]

6 | age of uncertainty

8:49 am, friday, 2007
[cw: sexual situation]

Y/n stood in her bathroom, leaned over the sink below her, the water running. as she swished her toothbrush against her teeth, she stared blankly into the foggy, fingerprint smudged mirror, her mind preoccupied with thoughts concerning the week that would follow this final weekend of summer break; the start of classes & the beginning of senior year.

as she brushed her molars, her mind rang with thoughts of the upcoming school year- new school year meant new classes, new seats, new lunch tables & perhaps new faces. though she doubted it, since South Park being the small mountain town it was, hardly ever seen the arrival of new people. let alone new high school students. but, that wasn't the point.

she let out a sigh, biting down on her toothbrush.

like any other teenager, Y/n hated high school with a burning passion; she couldn't wait to finally graduate from that cesspool-like hell hole, & she often found herself thinking senior year couldn't come soon enough.
but, now that it was finally here- just a couple of days away, she found that the realization had hit her like a bus, hard & quick. Y/n awoke this particular morning feeling confounded, inconsequential & much, much older.

she had quit her job at 7/11 alongside Craig just the day prior, so perhaps not having to wake up so early for her shift was what left her feeling uneasy; the absence of routine. but, as her morning progressed, the presentiment grew to weigh down in her chest. she ate breakfast, cleaned her room, packed camping essentials & took a shower with a foggy mind, & now she was staring aimlessly into the steamed, smudged mirror; wrapped in a towel.

cold droplets of water dripped from her hair & trailed down her fresh skin, racing along her arms to her hands that clenched the sink rather tightly. her eyes bore into herself, staring deeply at the reflection in the mirror. her eyes traced the curved definition in her face, the dark circles under her eyes, the tint of her lips & the white foam at the corners or her mouth. her eyebrows furrowed, leaning so closely to the glass her breath created a faint blur against it.

she didn't recognize herself. it felt like only yesterday she was much shorter, sweeter, innocent, naive & kind- but as if just in the blink of an eye, she turned into a taller, meaner, malevolent version of herself. just last week she was ten, now how old was she? eighteen?

18. her age rang through her ears, the weight of it almost deafening. Y/n didn't realize how serious her age seemed before; perhaps it was the fact that she hadn't celebrated it in years that made it seem so trivial.

if she remembered correctly, Y/n hasn't had an actual birthday party since fourteen. or, at the very least, it was a pathetic attempt at reviving the celebration of her birthday.
ever since her mother died, Y/n's birthday lost its joyous impression & assumed a depressing, lonely ambience. but despite the forlorn atmosphere, she took it upon herself to bake a strawberry cake at home, decorate with cheap party decorations & hang up balloons she spent hours blowing up herself; all for her fourteenth. but in the end, her family didn't seem to care for the effort.