Bound Together

Chapter 1

We see a hand with a chalk-like powder appear onto the neck of a 14 year old girl. We see the girl try to shake this "person" off her.

The girl is holding her head over the toilet, and we see a distorted version of her face through the toilet water.

The camera goes around the left side of her and focuses on her hands being handcuffed together

Elena wakes up her head is still over the toilet, but her hands are no longer bound together.

Her heartbeat is fast and rapid. She clutches the toilet desperately, wanting to be invisible.

She tries to pull herself up and compose herself but ends up lying down with her face overlooking the coat hanger in the cubicle.

"Must be strong, Must get through this I need GCSES to get through life" Elena is trying to gain confidence to pick herself up.

"I'll be a failure, I'll let down my family. No GCSES means no future."

She looks at her hands and lets out a whimper.

"How am I not dead?" Elena mutters under her breath. She'd been getting these attacks every single day for almost a year now.

She was convinced that her mind and her body were failing her. Perhaps she was experiencing minor heart attacks?

Elena gets herself up off the floor, unlocks the door, grabs a wet paper towel, and dabs it across her face. She felt as though she was dying.

Her eyes were practically black from sleep deprivation, but Elena had decided not to use makeup to cover them up as she wanted people to know she was in pain from the system failing her.

Her stomach is practically screaming, and she's hardly able to eat at all.We hear her apologising repeatedly to herself. She is at war with herself.

Elena tries to compose herself. Her nails are all a mess from picking them so much. It's the first day of the new school year.

"Miss Robinson you're late!" exclaims a very frantic Maths teacher, Mr Chalk. Elena lets out a sigh. "What time did you go to sleep at this time?" he barks out. "Early"  "What time do you remember falling asleep around." It feels to Elena as though she is being interrogated. "21:15 pm" she lies.

"Well in that case, you should know that by going to sleep at a time like that should be wide awake by 7am and rearing to go!"
I don't know how this man has the energy to be this full of life. It's not as though he's away on a tropical island sipping away at a Hawian sunrise!

Halfway through the lesson, the worksheets are being given out, and Elena is struggling to understand the wording of the questions. She grasps her pencil tight and decides to make it look as though she is hard at work, but the reality is she feels terrified of asking for help.

The camera effects show maths questions written in a back to front order with Elena clutching her head, her pencil scraping past her ear.

Elena finally puts her hand up to ask a question, but she isn't seen. Feeling absolutely mortified that she can't answer the questions as easily as her peers, she picks up her bag and coat and leaves. Nobody has seen her flee her class.