Empty Corpse of a Hound

Chapter 1

I am not the protagonist of the story you want.
I'm weak, my hair such a cool tone of brown that it almost looks gray, my eyes like an endless void rooted deep into my empty soul. The only memories of good that I have are faint, the salty breeze of the ocean wafting through my hair, my mother laughing as she brushes through it over and over, something I was deeply comforted by when I was young.
Now I've cut most of my hair off into a choppy bob.
And my mother's hands are too frail to even run through it.
The snow soaks through my thinning pants, turning my once vibrant skin a chilling red, my hands a mass of cuts and scars from animals and scrap pieces of metal when I would sift through dumpsters all day and night, sometimes pass out to find myself surrounded by raccoons munching on the food that I was going to take back to my starving mother.
"You look so beautiful Lena" I take her fragile hands in mine, squeezing them tightly as she shivers in a blanket as frail and small as her. "Thank you ma"
She gazes at my empty basket, a small smile of understanding on her face. "It's okay, your mother is just as strong as she was in her 20s," She says with such a strong smile I may have believed her- if she didn't look as if she had just sucked on something sour.
"I do have something for you, it's your birthday after all" Ma reaches into her pocket, pulling out a dirt-covered potato. "Scored this one today when you were away- fell off a farmers' crate while he was hauling it into his truck"
"Ma you didn't-" She cuts me off with a hiss. "No need to argue" "Take it" she insists, handing me the potato. "Just... Please, Lena, try and eat it. I'm tired of seeing you so frail."
You’re frail I want to say but I know I shouldn’t. I gaze down at the dirty potato in my hand, my stomach churning with hunger. I know I shouldn't, but I can't resist the temptation. Grasping it between my thin fingers, I bite into the raw, untouched potato.
The taste is surprisingly sweet, and I find myself chewing eagerly, savoring every moment. In my weakened state, it feels like a feast, a taste of something I haven't had in far too long. I can feel my mother's eyes on me, watching as I eat the potato, her face softening as I swallow the last bite.
"Thank you, ma” I whisper, the trembling in my hands seeming to calm down for a moment. "I'll go out and try to find something for you" She gives me a wry smile, putting a hand on my shoulder. "Happy birthday kiddo, I love you"
I don't answer, giving her a small nod before heading off.
When dad left, mom- mom tried to douse her feelings away with anything she could find, completely forgetting about me most nights. Then she went and gambled whatever we had left- after dad took most of it.
I don't blame her- maybe a bit but, I didn't completely know what dad had done to her, I had been too young even to know what was happening, much less remember, especially since mom had protected me from most of it.
I prowled along the sludge, keeping to the shadows as much as I could. Here nobody is safe, there's druggies wandering around, trying to find a quick deal or young girls to prey upon.
Either that or those stuck-up rich people who turn away from people like us, as if we were going to pull something on them, act like those drug-addled people who you see on TV- I don't blame them for being cautious, but what's a frail 17-year-old girl going to do?
I wish I could walk straight up to them and tell them I was once one of them too, a pretty little girl with fire in her eyes and a will to live.
I guess I'd fallen from that status long ago.
I notice a man wobbling towards me, eyes so red and glazed over I'm sure he hadn't seen me yet so I take the moment to duck behind a bakery at the end of a strip mall, waiting until he hobbles all the way to the street.
He stops, letting out a loud chuckle as he spreads his arms wide, like a bird.
A truck.
A man.
The truck wins.
I take a sharp breath in, watching as the driver climbs out in a hurry, yelling for help as he holds the man's body.
This hadn't been the first time I'd seen snow soaked with red. I don't know If I could call that lucky or not.
I advert my gaze from the spreading red tainting the white that should have been pure.
Though I know it hadn't even been pure in the first place. 
I am that snow, once a seemingly pure organism now tainted with red, curdled, misery.
I shake my head out of the thoughts, no need to turn this experience into a poetic masterpiece as well, just like I had done to everything else- from a trip to a grocery store to the first fleck of snow soaking into my thin clothes.
I find footing on the uneasy ground before taking the moment of silence to take in my surroundings. The garbage had been propped open from not being emptied. Multiple bags filled with stale and cold donuts, pastries, and bread.
Then the sirens come, and the walls become tinted with red and blue, colors I had seen too many times before.
I pause for a moment out of shock before taking cautious steps forward, peeking inside the dumpster.
I had just hit the jackpot.
This would feed me and my mother for months- years even if we rationed it correctly. I haul a bag over my shoulder, not taking a moment to celebrate my discovery.
I take a breath until the sirens fade away before I book it towards where me and my mother had set post for the last few nights, under a measly bridge that we had to share with other inhabitants, ones that spoke or growled.
I kick snow under my cheap shoes, letting it either soak through or fly up behind me. My face was plastered with a small grin, or at least what I had thought was one, the freezing cold of winter had made my face so numb I wasn't sure what expression I made.
Eight years ago Dad had left, it took two years for Mom to get to gambling, another whole year to spend all our leftover money and possessions, and then only 4 months for the government to take away our house when they realized we wouldn't be paying anytime soon.
I was almost 13 when we became homeless, so for the past 4 years- we have been starving, freezing, and broken.
I never thought a person could break-
Then I became broken.
My legs burn but I don't stop, I can't stop, I need to get this to mom, to force her to eat it until she is so full that her stomach bulges out of her nightgown.
Mother had once said I was as gorgeous as she was when she was younger, I don't believe I could ever get close to her beauty even now.
"Ma!" I yell out, one hand clutching the bag as the other flaps open.
Like a bird.