drawn.

II

The worn out umbrella was held above her head as the large drops of water fell atop it. Lauren's fragile hand held the ripped fabric around her shoulders as she trod carefully to the occupations board.

It had been three days since the emerald-eyed brunette had given away the old floral shop and she had not eaten for two. The girl had kept quiet and hasn't talked to anyone, not even to any clerks or people who she had been acquainted with for a while now.

Lauren was usually a quiet person when it came to small social gatherings that were hosted once a week on a Saturday. Small children and families would usually also attend and once in a while, a boy would somehow attempt to make conversation with the beautiful brunette. Although her sexual preference was to go unknown, Lauren was able to tell the males, that tried to have romantic or sexual tendencies toward her, that she was either not interested in them or was already seeing someone. The event usually lasted from the fifth hour of the afternoon until a half hour before the twelfth hour of the night which gave the green-eyed girl just enough time to return to her cramped apartment for the night.

Her feet toddled the wet pavement of the city she had been living in for quite a while, and looked up at the occupations board when a small notice had caught her attention. The brunette's eyes had scanned the slightly smudged ink quickly, extracting important information from the damp page before reading the commercial in detail.

'Wanted: Female aged 17 - 20.

Placement will offer free accommodation as well as working contract.

Placement available from October 2nd 2090.

For further enquires please send a letter to 89 Holeman Ave.

~ Sinuhe and Alejandro Cabello'

Lauren's eyebrows furrowed, the name 'Alejandro Cabello' rang a bell in the brunette's mind. Alas, she did not let it faze her. He eyes scanned the page once more and her mind wondered, she questioned as to why the notice had not been taken down; she wasn't sure if anyone had taken the job and forgotten to take the notice down or if the placement was still available over two months after being advertised.

The brunette's cold, nimble hands made haste and tore the page from the cork board, her feet moving her quickly in the direction of the cluster of apartments in the east part of the city before the girl could even think about her actions.

Her decision was made, she was going to get this job. No matter what it took.

Lauren was an ambitious girl. Although not very sociable or talkative, she had her way with words when she used them. The emerald-eyed girl didn't have many friends, which allowed her to complete tasks and finish her work much quicker than any other individual in the city. Her hard-working mind wasn't often recognised or credited but Lauren didn't mind, a lot of things went unnoticed in the part of the city where the girl lived. Yet if they were, the individual had better pray to the supernatural being in the heavens that they had been recognised for something good.

The tall girl had finally reached her small apartment and the skies had cleared, her trembling hands fighting with the stiff lock on the oak door before it pushed open. A gasp escaped Lauren's parted lips as she almost fell onto the cold wooden floor due to the door opening unexpectedly.

After a couple seconds, her heartbeat had slowed down after her near-accident experience and finally got back on track to what her mind was ordering her to do without thinking about it. Lauren hurried and sat at her worn wooden desk on her worn wooden chair as she unscrewed the plastic top off of her glass ink jar and opened her old notebook, ripping out a significantly less crinkled page from the middle. Her agile hands quickly picked up the feather quill sitting at the corner atop the wooden desk before dipping the nib of the pen into the pot of black liquid, careful not to knock the glass over.

Her hands quickly moved across the page as she made neat, small marks on the page, dipping into the black ink every few moments. She found her hand running through her hair frequently, a nervous habit as well as a sign of concentration as she searched her mind for the right words to express on the page. The brunette groaned in frustration as a sentence escaped her mind, her head falling into her hands as she set the ink and feather to the side. The letter was not even half done when a loud bell rang around the city, signalling the tenth hour of the night and warning the civilians that if they were to speak following the bell, they would be prosecuted.

Lauren licked her chapped lips and her emerald eyes were hidden from the world by her eyelids, her long eyelashes resting on her cheeks as she rested. Her mind was full and she needed to relax somehow, yet she didn't have the capability to do so. Her eyelids snapped open and the exhaustion in her eyes was evident but she needed to finish writing this letter. She had to.

So she worked, closing her eyes every half hour for a couple minutes before opening them again. As her exhaustion grew, so did her frustration. The night was young but consisted of many mistakes on the pages she wrote on, tears of anger and upset here and there. But it was done.

In the early hours of the morning, Lauren had finished. Several mistakes, several emotions and several pages later; she was done. The letter had been placed inside a small yellow-toned envelope and folded into itself so that it did not open in the process of delivery. It was done.

The brown-haired girl smiled with pride and stood, her legs giving way slightly as she stumbled. Wednesday had arrived and it was the sixth hour of the morning. Still in her night clothes and with her feet bare, the girl made her way into the centre of the city. The chill of the morning made her huddle closer to the thin fabric covering her body, in need of warmth.

Surely, she would get ill with some sort of sickness but it was worth it for the opportunity that was raised to Lauren's disposal. Eventually, she reached the very centre of town where one, lone, red postbox sat. The skies were heavy with grey clouds and it was evident to the beautiful brunette that the city would soon be covered in a thick blanket of snow.

Although Lauren despised the white flakes that would fall from the sky, she found it simply enchanting when she saw the city transform into a beautiful land where the children would play with their father in the snow whilst the mother would watch from a distance, savouring the memory in her mind. The air would fill with laughter and joy as the atmosphere changed, the guards and officers loosening the reigns on the uptight society that the government had created.

The brunette's eyes were red and dry with fatigue as she approached the cold metal box, her hand gently wrapping around the almost-freezing, silver, metal bar. It took a lot of strength but she managed it, pulling down the bar to expose the small hatch where the letter belonged. She smiled once more and threw it gently into the hatch, releasing the bar quietly so that the letter would soon be delivered to 'Mister Alejandro Cabello'.

She opened the hatch once more, making sure that the letter had not been trapped in the small hatch. And it wasn't. Lauren could just about make out the silhouette of the small letter in the bottom of the postbox. The green-eyed girl felt a sense of pride growing inside her as her cold arms wrapped around her torso and her almost-freezing feet took her back toward the direction of the east part of the enticing city of Civita di Bagnoreggio.

And it was done.