Maddie

Chapter 1

!TW - Sexual assault, Rape, Anxiety!

October

Maddie's pov:
I wake up early, earlier than usual. My thoughts have been racing all night, and today it's my turn to leave the orphanage. The people who choose to adopt or foster children from different orphanages usually prefer the younger and cuter kids. Therefore, I feel a mix of fear and excitement about someone wanting to take care of me. I have lived at the orphanage for as long as I can remember. My biological parents died when I was only 5 days old. The thought of being an orphan is somewhat sad, but at the same time I don't feel like I miss them. They have never been a part of my life, and never will be. I have always had to manage everything on my own.

The sun shines through the dirty windows, revealing the dust dancing in the air. My bed creaks at the slightest movement, and the mattress is so thin it feels like sleeping on a stone floor - cold and hard. Every morning, I wake up with aches all over my body. In the bedroom all 40 beds are lined up in rows, all equally worn. We are only 40 girls living in this orphanage. The bedroom is large but dark. The walls are stained and discolored with damp and mold. The air in the room is often thick with moisture, and there's always an underlying smell of sourness and sweat. We seldom have the opportunity to shower, and we work all day long - so it's not really surprising that it smells. But amidst this chaos, there is also a strange kind of community among us children, a silent awareness that we all share the same misery. We rarely say anything to each other when we wake up, but the looks we exchange daily speak of our shared understanding - a bond built on survival and a quiet longing for something better.

I sit wearily on the edge of my bed, pulling my worn cardigan over my nightgown. My bare feet meet the cold floor, and a chill rushes through my small, thin body. Slowly, I sneak across the stone floor, fumble in the dark, and carefully open the old, creaking door to leave the bedroom.

Now I stand alone in the large, dark corridor. The tall windows along one wall let in a small glimmer of light through the dirt. The walls, which might have once been adorned with beautiful wallpaper, are now stained and worn. Broken furniture is scattered across the dusty floor of the corridor, and an old chandelier hangs from the ceiling, covered in cobwebs. From where I stand, you can also see the doors leading to the laundry room, the dining hall, and the hospital room. In the dining hall, we gather every day to eat our meals. Upon entering the room, you are immediately struck by the smell of old, rotten food lingering in the air. The silence during meals is only broken by the clattering of cutlery and the monotonous conversations between the workers. The laundry room is not a place to look forward to either. We are locked in there, usually three girls at a time, along with loudly humming machines. Their buzzing quickly becomes irritating. We often work in that room, which means we fold clothes in silence daily and sort the laundry in mechanical motions. After many years, you get used to the tasks we are forced to perform.

But room 12, also called the hospital room, is the place we all fear the most. Mr. Smith, the owner of the orphanage, often checks on us in that room "to make sure we're alright". But we all know that's just an excuse for him to exercise his power and satisfy his sick desires, on us little girls. Those "checks", which happens once every week, basically always end with us being sexually assaulted or raped. If you try to fight back or scream for help, Mr. Smith just makes it worse for you.

I take a few heavy steps to the side and look out from the row of windows. Through the dirty windows my eyes gaze upon the sad world outside, where dead trees stand like skeletons against a gray sky in the autumn weather. Today it's my turn to face the unknown, to be released into a world I don't know. My heart pounds hard in my chest as I stand here and think about what awaits me. Orphanages are often seen as a nice and helpful place, but this place is anything but that. This place is dreadful, and perhaps my new temporary home will be just as bad - no one knows, except for the future.