Everglow | Liam O'Donovan - TDG

Chapter 3 - Inferno. Part 1

They say time heals all wounds, but they never say how long it really takes.

After a couple continuous weeks of waking up screaming from terrifying nightmares, Ophelia was beginning to get immensely sick of it. Of course, her trauma was still prevalent and still affected her deeply – but she loved where she now was and how safe she felt. Despite that, she still didn't feel fully safe from the terrors that plagued her at night and she found it difficult to stop feeling like they were slipping into the daytime too.

All of this resulted in her walking around the Dumping Ground as though she was dead on her feet, dark bags prominent under her eyes and feet shuffling along the floor. Although the others liked to pretend that they neither cared nor noticed, they had. It was becoming a little worrying and her exhaustion started to make her slip into habits that she had barely lost – retreating back into herself, being as quiet as possible, flinching at any noise about a loud laugh.

Poor Liam in the room nearest to her would find her with her hands clamped over her ears or over her mouth and muffling any noises. He would sit down on her bed gently and wait until she saw him before he would gently pry her hands away from her face. Liam wouldn't leave until her breathing had returned to normal and she had slipped back under the covers.

Other times, the girls would come rushing in, Tee, Carmen and Lily, to make sure that she was okay. Often, they'd pull out the inflatable mattress and all sleep in there with her – the people being around her meant that the nightmares backed away.

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There was one night, or more like very early morning, where the nightmares didn't even get the chance to sink in properly as there was frantic knocking at the door. This knocking included both banging on the door and ringing of the doorbell. All this noise caused all of the residents of the house to be woken up.

Ophelia groaned as she pried her eyes open and she could hear a couple of the other kids already getting out of bed in order to see what the disturbance was. She pulled her dressing gown on and pushed her door open.

"Alright! I'm coming." Ophelia could hear Tracy complaining from the room up the hall, she was the care worker on the overnight shift that night and clearly was not best pleased with the commotion.

She walked down the stairs with Frank beside her and Elektra in front of her, seemed like Elektra was more inclined to punch whoever was at the door. Tracy finally reached the front door and pulled it open, Ophelia leant over the shoulder of Johnny to get a good look at what was going on.

When a boy with curly hair was pushed through the door, Ophelia flinched backwards and had to take a step back to steady herself. A few of the other residents shot her a concerned look but turned back when they saw that she was okay.

The curly haired boy was followed through the door by a tall care worker, a boy with long hair, a blonde-haired girl and a shy brown-haired girl that was hidden behind everyone else. Ophelia stepped back again at the sight of the care worker, Dennis. He had come around to her home once and met her father, he had been extremely patronising to what Ophelia was experienced and essentially gas-lighted her into believing that she didn't need any help or to go into care.

Clearly, Ophelia wasn't the only one angry about the arrival of the new care worker, as Carmen rushed forwards to firstly lunge at a boy and then shout at Dennis, "That's the boy who stole all my stuff at Burnywood! And he's the care worker who did nothing about it!" Tracy had to hold back the very fired up Carmen while the rest of them watched in awe – it was rare to see Carmen act up like that.

If the others weren't already awake, they had been woken by all the commotion, (there weren't very many of them compared to normal standards, Toby had been fostered and Sapphire had moved out, there were farewell parties for them both.) A very sleepy looking Harry walked down the stairs clutching Jeff by the neck, Ophelia gestured to Harry to stay where he was, and the boy nodded at her.