Floating in the Abyss ✔️

Chapter 1

I walked along the bare footpath in silence. Usually, I would try and calm and prepare myself for the night with music. Classical always seemed to relax me, only my phone was smashed last night. It was bound to happen sometime. It wasn't even any good, only an old iPhone 3 that I found in a hard rubbish when I was walking home one day. But I should have been more careful with it. I should always be more careful.

I checked around me to ensure nobody I knew was nearby before turning into the street where I lived. There were boarded-up windows and smashed glass adorning the porch, the step had long collapsed and the unhinged gate on the fence had been tossed onto the unkept lawn, more an area of littered dirt. Home was where you felt safe. A place to keep you warm and where you felt most at peace. This wasn't home, merely where there was a roof over my head.

As I approached, I was thankful to see no cars parked in the worn-out gravel driveway and none parked on the road in front of the house either. That meant the house was empty, so I was safe for a short while. There was only one car parked in the entire street, and it was a black van with dark tinted windows. I instantly noticed how out of place it looked. It was clean and new, not something any resident who lived in this street could afford. I had never seen it before.

I shoved the front door open, wincing when it came into contact with my shoulder. I didn't realise how bad it was. I didn't need to carry keys with me, not that I had a set anyway, but the house was never locked. The door always jammed trying to open or close anyway. I didn't reside in the safe, well-known side of town but instead I lived in the lower areas. The poorer areas. There were druggies here, much alike them, as well as many robberies, and a high crime rate. I never worried about that. There was nothing to steal from me. I only had a now-broken iPhone 3 and a backpack with a water bottle and one notebook. Any clothes I wore at school, which I wore over the only t-shirt and pair of jeans I owned, I kept hidden at the back of the shelf in the lost property room. All my clothes came from there in the first place anyway.

I hurried downstairs to the cold basement where a small baby mattress and a tattered blanket sat in the corner, on the floor. There were boxes stacked high along two walls, some labelled photos, others with labels too faded for me to make out. I had never dared to touch a single box there, despite my desire to discover their contents. I double checked that I had locked the door behind me, not needing or wanting a repeat of last night's events. I always pretended that that door was my best friend. The number of times it had saved me from drunk actions and yelling; I had never been thankful for anything more than that.

I pulled out my pen and Spirax notebook. I didn't have either of those things when I first started at my high school, but thankfully my guidance counsellor quickly sorted that out for me. I didn't trust her. I probably never would. I didn't talk to her about anything. She didn't know anything about me. She observed that I always wore long pants and tops, and that I didn't have any friends and that I was never happy or smiling, but she didn't know anything about me. I had enrolled myself for the school, using one of the public library computers. I had chosen to skip the address and all other personal information about my 'family', and since it was just a local public school, they didn't really have a choice other than to accept me with the information they had. It was law. They tried to get more out of me, but I simply wouldn't budge. I didn't need help. I was a teenage girl who could deal with herself.

I tried to focus on the maths homework, which took me a while, but I finally managed to finish it. It was harder since I didn't have a calculator or textbook to check anything either. I then moved on to some English homework, trying to ignore my growling stomach. English was my best class. I read a lot and always had books borrowed out from the library. My grades were generally good across the board. Not incredible, not award worthy, but I wasn't failing. It was hard to keep a good record when I missed so many classes and had no one to fill me in or bring me the homework. If I was honest, they probably don't even know I go to school. They're not home enough in the day to notice. They don't care.

After all my homework was done, I remembered the pain I had felt in my shoulder earlier, so I reached under the mattress and felt around for the small mirror I kept there. It had a corner missing and was cracked diagonally through the middle, but it did the job.

I pulled off my top so that I could get a better look. I didn't need a bra, nor did I own one, but it didn't stop me from instantly putting my arm over my chest to cover up. I craned my neck to try and see what damage had been done to my shoulder, using the mirror to aid me. The swelling and rainbow of green, yellow, purple and black, was enough to tell me that this was bad. It hurt to touch, the bruising was bad, and movement hurt. I just hoped it would heal with time and that I didn't need to do something more to fix it. Not that I would anyway.

I lay down and began to read my latest borrow from the library. I had found out a few years ago that a library membership was free and didn't need consent or signature from anyone other than the person using the card, which was me. I had made a friend out of the old librarian there. We always talk and she gives me a biscuit each time I visit.

I read for what felt like about an hour. Since my phone broke, I didn't have anything to tell the time by, so I only realised it must be getting late when I heard loud yelling and laughing enter the house.

"Ashlyn!" She slurred, in her witch-like, drunk tone. I remained silent. I wasn't up for a fight tonight and I was too weak with my shoulder anyway. "Ash-a-lynnnn. I know you're here." She screeched, stretching out my name. Tonight she must have only been drinking, as whenever the drugs got to her, she always called me Anna. Stupid woman couldn't even remember my name.

I crawled underneath the blanket and pressed my back against the wall, listening as her footsteps got closer, and then retreat. He must be here too, since I could hear the deep rumble of his voice replying to whatever her screechy one was saying. They didn't have anyone else with them tonight. I had noticed that that tended to happen on a Monday.