i.
Whistle blows. Shoes squeaking on cold, graffiti pavement. Heavy breaths and sharp eyes.
"Check."
A soft whisper. Gentle, clear sound mingled in messy noise - different from what had previously been in the air. It is silent. It is peaceful. It is clean. And she is glad.
But she also wonders why everyone is so quiet when they used to be so noisy. Clouded, red eyes flash in the light. Ah, and she sees.
The ball bounces, and its time in the air freezes. Everything just stops.
Shocked, defeated, despairing eyes look back into her own.
She doesn't know why they look so much like hers.
ii.
It repeats, over and over and over again - until she finally gets sick of the disgusting feeling in her mouth. (She tries, and tries and tries and tries to wash it out.) It used to be like a drug. Something to push all her anger, her pain, her sadness, her tears into - something she could rely on to hold her up whenever she needed the boost; when her banister was teetering dangerously off the cliff. (And when she felt, scarily, too numb to do anything else.)
It's not, anymore. Now, it's only a place where she destroys other people's worlds. (Just like what her parents did to hers.)
Now, it is a chore. She hates it.
But for the sake of sentimentality. She still plays.
iii.
They continue to scream. And throw things. And the house shakes with the ferocity of her mother's anger. They speak of affairs and business and pain and loneliness - and they have completely forgotten she is there.
They don't know she is listening. They don't know her heart aches.
She is invisible to the world.
But the world isn't invisible to her.
iv.
She is shipped to a country on the other side of the world.
She shouldn't have been too surprised.
author's notes:
writing this to get rid of my writer's block :)