Her Samsara

Chapter One

Tye looked at Tonya as she shook her head.

"Do us a favour will you, Ton? Go back and get us some wings? Here y'ar, take this," he said, smirking, pushing a fiver into her palm as if he were doing her a favour.

"It's orite, darlin'", he continued, looking proudly at Tonya, pumping his chest out. "Don't you worry, I've got your mum from here."

Tonya could almost taste his beery ash breath. She hated how his condescending tone suggested that he was taking care of them, like he was somehow the hero in this situation. He managed to twist things, to paint the story as if she was the one who went out tonight with her mum and got her really drunk, and Tye was just some innocent guy coming to everyone's rescue. It made Tonya's blood boil.

Her mum wasn't like this. They didn't need men to come and rescue them. They were doing fine before he came along. In fact, she'd never even really seen her mum drunk before this prick turned up. She wanted to tell him to fuck off and get his own wings, but she didn't.

She took the money – making sure not to say thank you – and headed back to the chicken shop, making the journey for the second time that night.

As Tonya walked away, she could feel Tyler's eyes on her. She glanced back and he stared at her, holding her gaze before turning to help her mum up the steps. Tonya's rib cage tightened in her chest and her palms began to sweat. She felt so uneasy when he was around. She couldn't put her finger on it but something in her gut made her feel unsafe around him.

The smells of the evening suddenly became heightened and sickly, and her empty stomach churned, flipping angrily inside her. More than anything she wanted for her mum to split up with Tye. Tonya couldn't understand why her mum was letting this happen, what could she possibly see in this creep?

As Tonya reached the chicken shop her hands were shaking and she felt lightheaded, so she sat down on the pavement outside to take a minute to get herself together.

She focused on a dog that had been tied to a lamppost. He was waiting for his owner to order his food inside, sniffing the pavement and making little impatient whining sounds, pulling against his tied-up lead.

To calm herself down she absent-mindedly peeled bits of sore flaky skin off around her nails, a bad habit she'd had since childhood.

The sky was darker now, and no one was about on the street. Suddenly the rain picked up again. She fastened her hood tighter around her face, securing the little popper so she was cocooned inside as the rain began to pelt down around her.

Just as she was about to stand up, a spark of light in the sky caught her eye. She blinked up into the rain, trying to work out what it was. She gripped the curb and the cool rough edge of the pavement dug into her palms.

She couldn't work out what she was seeing. Whatever it was, it kept disappearing in and out of her vision. Although it was hard to make out, what looked like tiny electrical waves of light formed in the sky. Swirling pigments, like tiny pieces of thread, came together in little bolts of wavy light.

She sat frozen on the pavement as the electrical sparks flashed in and out of her view. Then the charged light seemed to plummet through the sky. The sparks skidded with the rain and slammed against the wet pavement, vanishing into a pool of muddy water collecting in a sink hole by the road.

She told herself her eyes were playing tricks on her, but she still felt compelled to get up and go over to where the sparks of light had fallen.

Tonya leaned over the pavement where the water was collecting in pools against the curb. She searched the water for the wavy particles of light, but they had disappeared into the pool of water.