The Runaway (Original Story) [2015]

Part 1

I'm listening to my music as my mother stops driving for the children to walk across in front of us.The traffic officer says it's okay to pass so we continue to make our way to our new home. 

It was a Sunday morning and school had only just started for me, but it was just a matter of weeks before the school year ended. It was a nice day in April and the weather was warm. Spring had sprung and it was beautiful. The trees were just turning a light emerald color, some dotted with wisps of pink or yellow. Flowers of what would one day become fruit.

I notice that the pastel colors of spring start to fade once we turn down a dirt road. Everything turns the color that I hate the most. Brown. The road led to a neighborhood. Well it's not exactly big enough to be called a neighborhood. Only a few houses here and there. Weeds growing everywhere in between. There is more foliage and overgrowth than there are houses.

The houses look like they were once made of brick and stone, but have been patched up to the point that they are unrecognizable as even a house. My mother pulls up to one of the nicer houses. The walls and roof still intact, but it still looks like a fort made by local teens rather than a house. 

My mother turns off the car and we just sit in the car, looking out our windshield at what is to be our new house. What feels like hours goes by and she opens the driver's side door. I follow suit and walk around to the back of our faded cherry red pickup. I grab my guitar and bookbag. The only things I could recover from the fire.

 I was out at a concert at the time of the fire. They said that the fire started by candlelight and both my parents were sleeping. My mother was able to get out easily, but my father is a heavy sleeper and my mother couldn't wake him.

My mother was getting a few things from the cab of the truck as I walk to the front door. Carefully slinging my guitar over my back, I slightly push on it, and it opens. Great, I think. Now anyone can come in and rob us in the the middle of the night. I try the light switch by the door and nothing happens. Flicking it on and off a few times, I eventually give up. Walking around the house I walk into the kitchen and the living room. They are connected and are separated by nothing but open space for walking. 

Hearing my mother come through the door, I pull the dusty sheets off of one of the couches. Coughing, my mother enters the room with a smile. One that almost instinctively returns to a frown when she sees the state the house is in.

"Oh my. It's tight in here." She waves the dust out of the way.

 Like that's going to help. I feel like I'm suffocating in the amount of dirt and dust in here.

"Honey can you help me move these boxes into the house? Go ahead and choose your room first and then you can come out to help." I nod and walk down the small corridor.

Pushing open a door, I find a dirty bathroom and a cracked mirror. There's a floor rug that looked to be once a pretty royal blue. The next room has holes in the walls and there is light shining through the ceiling. If you wanted to even call it that. Then I choose the next room to enter, it's smaller than the bedroom, but this one has a bed in it. The ceiling is slanted slightly and looks like its about to cave in. I exit the room from the fear of it doing so ontop of me.

I almost chose the room with the holes in the walls and ceiling until I see one more door. Out of curiosity, I enter this one, and am surprised by what I see. This one doesn't have a bed, but there are windows and a dresser with a mirror. I step into the room, and look at myself in the mirror. My hair is curly and wavy, and my makeup makes me look lighter. I gently set my bag in the corner to claim this room as mine. I walk to the chair by the window and open it. A large amount of dust wakes in its movement. I cough again, hoping that I don't die from inhaling too much dirt. Turning around to leave the room, I look at myself in the mirror again and put my hair up. I've always hated keeping my hair down.