Where The Sad Teens Go

CHAPTER ONE

The night is a vexed wolf. Thunder quivers in low warning growls, sharp pounding of sound crackling vigorously, making the metal of the small trailers, that are littering the large clearing, rattle loudly. The wind harshly howls- louder, and pine trees are hushing as they brush against each other like a group of children after being scolded and told to be silent. Rain begins to finally break through the bruise of a sky, smacking down like paroxystic stomps on the rusted roofs, plinking off the one window which a blurred, pale, fog frosted shadow of a slender silhouette- a girl- sitting stiffly behind it, watching but not really watching, dazed.

I wonder what it's like to be happy, she wonders in her fleeting thoughts.

The girl sighs, flushed ivory arms crossing over her aching chest and turning her gaze down at her long legs that hang down from her chair.

Everyday just seems like the same day to her. I always feel so minuscule and frozen in a moment, suspended in this perpetual hell.

Lélia seizes her laptop, a chunky, slightly compact thing, tarnished metal skin slick with her little sisters cheerful stickers. It leaves a subtle imprint on her bed. It's underside is hot on her thighs. It shows slight resistance as she cracks it open, a small wheezing screech. She has to blink wide to break away from the haze of thoughts, murky and opaque. The corners of her mouth feel heavy. It takes effort to keep her expression neutral. She has to put effort into the simplest of things. She's just so tired. She's so tired of it all.

After a couple of minutes, it shines slowly to life. Lélia clicks onto Facebook, logins in and looks through her messages with resignation in her gaze. There's always a few. Always.

A few are from Purr, her best and only friend, asking if she wants to see a movie tomorrow. Horror of course. Her narrow nose scrunches slightly, brows dipping down and lips pursing.

My life is already scary enough.

Then...the other messages Lélia hasn't opened since the incident seems to have multiplied, infested like a disease and...she wants to know what they say. She needs to feel something. Anything. Other than the feel of herself wasting away.

"Lélia, it's time for dinner" her mother states crisply through my door, her overpowering scent of rubbing alcohol and roses leaking through as well.

Lélia sighs tiredly, tugging up her heavy blanket over her thighs with one hand and running the other through her short as fur curls.

"Yeah" she answers, her voice, as always, soft and sad, clicking out of Facebook "yeah, I'll get ready."

Lélia gingerly rose to her feet but then a tear falls free, rolling down the apple of her left cheek and she just can't. Stumbling back into her bed, her skinny jeans clinging to her like a second skin, tired gaze submerged with tears, thin lips trembling and her chest feels as if it's an inferno- pent up heat and claustrophobically small.

I can't.

I won't.

I never ever will.

You need to get up, you need to get dressed, be normal, or in the very least act the damn part she subconsciously advises herself, it's what you need to do. It's what everyone needs you to do. So just fucking do it. Do it or die.

No.

Lélia takes off her fairly large hoodie and looks at her arms, covered with scars and crusted thin scabs, then sighs and adjusts her tattered turquoise tank top that has ridden up her flat stomach. She was flat everywhere due to the fact she rarely ate and was naturally scrawny, a torturous combination in her opinion.

It was also one of the many imperfections that her dear mother 'wouldn't condone.

"Eat something, god dammit" she'd blatantly stated, showing her pearly whites like an animal in hunger, "you're going to hell. Why would you want to go sooner?"

"Put on some fucking lipstick maybe then your lips wouldn't look the size of a child's."

"What are you" she'd sneer, smoking her already smoked down to a nub cigarette, "a vampire?"

The clock ticks and the wind hushes even louder, rattling the tin roof so shrill in sound she doesn't notice the window sliding open, creaking slightly and a dark shadow stepping in, water dripping from it's heavy black boots that are slick with mud. They create a small puddle before it is swallowed by the thick, lush carpeting. A small "thump" escapes, making the intruder freeze.

Lélia's murky grey eyes, swollen with tears, are suddenly too heavy and so she closes her them.

He smiles.