Where They Go

Chapter Thirty: Into The Pit

The next day was the longest Sunday of Erin's life.

She woke up exhausted. She wanted to stay in bed forever, maybe she would wake up from this nightmare soon.

Slowly, Erin stumbled into the bathroom.
After using the toilet, she washed her hands and looked at her reflection in the mirror.

Her eyes were dreary and red from crying so much.
She still wanted to cry, but she couldn't. She didn't have anymore tears left.

She then begrudgingly walked into the kitchen, she could hear her mother cooking breakfast.

In all honesty, Erin did not want to eat breakfast with her parents, but she had to eat something.

Mark was watching the morning news in the living room, sipping on a cup of black coffee.
"Morning, kiddo." He said.

She looked to Carol, who was scrabbling eggs in a pan.
Carol didn't say anything to her, she only showed her a look of frustrated disgust.

Erin went past her and poured herself a glass of milk.

Breakfast was silent, painfully silent.
Mark tried his best at making conversation, but Carol wasn't very receptive of it.
She just glared at Erin every few minutes.

After breakfast, Erin sat on the floor in her bedroom, searching for something to do on her Xbox.
Unfortunately, Zoey didn't have an Xbox, she had no way of talking to her, which was the whole point of her punishment.

Carol's logic was that if her daughter spent no time with Zoey, she would magically stop loving her.
Her logic heavily underestimated how deeply Erin loved Zoey.
There was nothing that could make her stop loving her.

Erin ended up clicking on "Minecraft".
She went to the world that her and Zoey had made together, she couldn't wait for the day they could play on it again.

Playing by herself was simply depressing.
She had no one to talk to while playing, no one to help her work on their house or farm.
She was alone in the virtual world and alone in the real world.

As the days went on, Erin felt like she was being sucked into a pit, a pit filled of sadness and despair.
She embraced it, because there was nothing else to do.

Carol was refusing to let her talk to Zoey and she refused to talk to her daughter about the whole situation.