Beyond the Screams ✔

Chapter One

Something I had learned over the years was that in reality, nothing stayed the same. Everything that I thought would happen in my life twisted into nothing more than a faraway daydream. Everything my mother and father had planned for me fell away as well, but if anything good had come out of anything, it was that my parents would no longer be able to control my future.

I was 21 now. My heels clicked against the wet, damp brick of London's pathways. I ignored the cries for money and food that were coming from the people on the street, something I experienced every time I walked through here. Ever since the war had ended, England was drab and lifeless. Not straight away of course. But slowly our economy had begun to fail and my family had gotten poorer and poorer, to the point where we had permanently been living in the slums. I actually believed that my family would make it out fairly unscathed, that was until they said my father had to go to war. It was only a few months after father had left in 1918 when mother received a scrappy, yellow envelope marked from one of the Commanding Officers, I was four at the time while Alice was only a few months old. I had never been allowed to read it.

I was out of the slums now, entering what if referred to as the 'richer' part of London, which in reality, was quite small. The large sun was setting in the cloudy, grey sky, casting the brick buildings around me in an eery glow. Though I had been doing it for years, I always hated walking home. My mother was trapped in the war times, still holding on to the memory of my fleeting father. I wasn't qualified and my sister was too young, so I was forced to walk from my work to home each day, unless, of course, I finished early enough to catch a bus or train.

Finally, the outline of my house appeared in my vision. I picked up the speed, Wanting to get out of here as soon as humanly possible. I reached the porch steps and ran up them, taking off my heels and leaving them there before opening the door. I was immediately hit with the smell of dinner but was disappointed to see that my younger sister Alice chopping up vegetables and throwing them into the pot on the stove. 

She looked up at me, "How was work, Rosemary?"

I shrugged, "Same as always. Klaus talked to me about perhaps doing a duet on a song he's been writing a couple of days ago. I was actually going to talk to him about it today but he wasn't in, but nothing interesting today."

A small smile crept onto her face, "Well I think you should take it, after all, Klaus is one of the bigger names, I'm sure your career would skyrocket," She said excitedly.

I didn't answer but rather leaned against the bench and started pulling out the pins from my striking, red hair. I cringed when I didn't feel the soft curls hit my shoulder but instead tickled the bottom of my ears. When I had first started my career by agent told me that having short hair was all the rage now, before proceeding to cut off the entirety of my hair. She also said that having red hair was oh so fashionable and asked for what dye I used. 

"You know," Alice began, stirring whatever contents were in the pot, "I think mother has been getting better! She came out for the entirety of this morning and helped me with my homework. She even talked to me about you,"

This caught my attention, "What did she say?"

"She started talking about how much you looked like her, but it sort of morphed into how much money you've been making lately," She frowns, "It's still progress though,"

I nodded glumly, "Yeah I suppose." It was true, my mother and I were almost identical. From our height right down to the red curls of our hair, the only difference was that she did look significantly older and still had long hair.

Alice. She was only eighteen, straight red hair that reached her shoulders and dark brown eyes, which where polar opposites to my piercing blue ones. Alice was prim and perfect, and was the perfect idea of a lady. She was wearing a plain dress, decorated with a plain floral pattern and a white apron. Thankfully we were able to send her to school, of course being a Sunday, she wasn't there today.