Break and Slip (A Pokémon Fanfic)

Chapter 1 - Slip

In the living room, the thick and long curtains are untied and draped to the floor. Nonetheless, this house interior became more chilly as the fireplace consumed the remaining firewood. A little nine year-old red-haired girl ambles the interior of the house as if she was to record the details of the floor plan, a habit she does while she is alone. Today is just one of the many days of staying alone there, too.

The last of the charred fireplace shards glows bright as her lustrous yet cunning eyes reflect the gentle rays of ember. Atop the fireplace lay a picture of two Team Rocket grunts, a portrait of herself, and calligraphy of her name, "Mars".

"I wonder when my parents will come back today," she told herself and the Glameow that kept her company purred and outstretched its arms after a nap on its bean bed.

There was no reply. Mars pressed some buttons on the remote control, and then the TV hummed faint zzzs in which the antenna cable connection was likely loosened by the bitter gusts earlier, through a window left opened somehow. The "No signal" message kept going back in and out of the screen that prompted Mars to fix the cable herself. It did not take her long to fix the connection, and what flashed on screen was some news; she prop herself on the sofa and then stared on the screen—

"Team Rocket to be disbanded this late fall-"

Huh? A seemingly matured inquiry pops on her thoughts. She remembers her parents—a couple of loyal Team Rocket grunts dressed in those gray uniforms concealed in thick trench coats whenever they went to work—they, she knew, were doing things she could not tell if it was good or evil. But anyway, they were working for her. After all, they had no other choice but to support her; a well-defined and etched responsibility for them ever since.

The fireplace is now but a heap of gray-white ash, and before the ash would create a huge mess, Mars quickly cleaned up the fireplace but opted not to replace the coal, as she is quite afraid of the fire she would produce with matches.

The interior of the house became colder, although it is still fairly warmer compared outside. When the Glameow crawled near the curtains, it began to run, and one of its claws left a tear on the cloth. The hole on the curtain gave Mars a glimpse of what was happening outside-something she rarely could do as she was a sunlight outcast for some reason, especially during the winter break.

Snowflakes rained from the skies, and as every speck hit sunlight, the falling snow looked like glitters flooding the lawn. The trees were not green like the usual ones taught with standard textbooks used by her homeschool teacher. Instead, those were but huge woody stems with dry branches sticking out and rime (although she didn't know it was called) covering the whole thing.

Awed by what she saw, Mars quickly opened the door. Graupel fell on her face as quickly as she was able to completely open the door. Outdoors sparkled with semi-damp snow, and she shut the door as the cold bit onto her fingers and extremities. She wiped the damp, slushy snow from her face and t-shirt, and gradually the warmth of the indoors somehow melted the chills. Instinctively, Mars ran upstairs and into her bedroom, where she opened her wardrobe and luckily there was a brown, turtle-neck sweater along with a pink, knee-length skirt and white, woolly OTK socks. And before leaving, she saw a mint-colored scarf and then tied it loosely around her neck. A pair of riding boots which her small feet easily slipped into finished her winter outfit, and thus she ran outside, feeling the cool, bitter afternoon waft with the house keys slipped into the skirt's pocket, clanking as she trotted the ankle-deep snow.

At first, she was hesitant to walk further away. After all, she never went out all by herself, and now she is disobeying her parents' rules, and thought, anyway my parents aren't here. Even further away from home, Mars saw clear, sleet-coated roads and a few workers chipping off the slippery ice layers and she followed some of the roads without any idea where she would go-