A/N: Just testing the waters with an idea I've been playing with.
On Her Own
Five year old Erin Lindsay wondered the streets of her neighbourhood alone. It was summer and the sun was just starting to set. It had been a hot day and all she wore was a cotton dress. Any responsible parent would have expected their five year old home hours ago but her mom wasn't the responsible type. She regularly left the house at dawn and didn't return until it was getting dark. She'd spend her days wondering the streets playing with the kids from the neighbourhood. Some kids thought she was lucky that she could play out as long as she wanted that she never had to check in or go home for lunch. But truth be told she wished her mom was more like the other moms. She wished she had a mom who cared enough about her to wonder where she was or worry about her when she didn't come home. She wished she had a mom who'd care if she was home for dinner but her mom never cared about those things, usually the only food in the house was cereal and sometimes milk. When she could she ate at her friends places but sometimes their moms would tell her to go home for lunch or tell her to leave because it was dinner time.
Today was one of those days, she'd been at her friend Millie's place all morning but they left just before lunch to go to a lake. They'd taken her with them once but she got into a fight with one of the other kids there and they never asked her back. She'd watched some big kids play baseball for a while, they let her eat some of their chips from McDonalds but now even they'd gone home for dinner. She reached her house and walked inside. The house was hot and smelt like stale beer and cigarettes but she no longer noticed the odour.
"Mom," she called looking around. Her little brother was sitting in the middle of the lounge room, staring at the television with a box of cereal in front of him, normally she'd find her mom there as well passed out on the sofa but today she wasn't there. "Mom," she called walking through the house and out the back door. Outside there were signs her mom had been there, the radio was still on and there were empty beer cans and used needles sitting around but no sign of her mom. She walked back inside, the slightest bit of worry starting to brew inside of her. She began searching the house one room at a time, she found her mom in the bathroom passed out on the floor. This wasn't the first time she'd found her mom passed out.
"Mom get up," she said kicking her legs, "Mom get up." It usually only took one kick to get her up, sometimes two, but this time she didn't move, she didn't stir. "Mom," she bent down next to her face and slapped her like she'd seen her Mom's boyfriends do sometimes, "Mom wake up," she slapped her again but she still didn't stir. That's when she realised something was wrong, more wrong then the general mess her home life was. She went back to the kitchen and picked up the phone. She dialled 911 just like the lady on the TV had told her to do when something was wrong.
"My mom won't wake up," she told the woman who answered the call and with that one phone call her life became completely disarrayed.
