Chapter One.

Pushing the door open is a challenge during the winter months. The house is old and falling apart, and it makes it hard to do much inside. The door has been wedged closed with the colossal snow they'd been getting, and she moves to take the cro-bar from the bush and wedge it between the door and the frame, pushing it open with a small grunt.

She picks up her bag from the porch and slings it onto her shoulder before dropping the cro-bar back in the bush. Her mum: almost dead, on the sofa, drinking; again. She walks in and slams the door shut, but nothing makes her mother move. She is gone.

"Mum?" She says and yields the beer bottle from her pale hands, seeing her laboured breath makes her sigh. "This isn't good for you." She mumbles and runs a hand through her hair as she sits down in the arm chair. She sees – slowly in effect - her mother wake up and she rubs her eyes. She doesn't advance to help her mother up. She sits back: watching her through narrow eyes.

"Katie… Katie, help me…" She whispers, but Kate makes no advance yet again. Her mother looks at her in disgrace and sits up, looking over at her. "Katie?" Her mother asks again, peacefully, though her whole face looks hung-over. Her eyes are blood-shot and stare at Kate with a guilt-ridden look. "Please don't ignore me."

Her mother begs to her for a little while, but Kate shrugs her off and looks at her, "Mum, you're a drunk. You leave me till midnight to do things I can't do! You make excuses like they're a story you're trying to persuade me to believe!" She gestures with a frustrated hand gesture, "I don't understand why you can't look after me like dad did!" She argues and her mother immediately looks up at the mention of her father.

Kate is the only child in the White family. Though her name is Katherine, she prefers to be called Kate. Mainly because when her mother is drunk, she can't pronounce Katherine. She hates her mother and wishes to be with her father. Her mother has been a drunk ever since Katherine can remember: but the problem is the fact she cannot even be a child with her mother around.

It has always been a struggle: Katherine White is the lonely girl at school. She has one friend: Kai Green. He is the only boy that trusts and accepts her company because he is in the same position. His mother died when he was seven: his father is a wreck but does not drink: he simply sits in the same chair, every day, and reads the same newspaper, watching the same old TV show with the same credits and title music. It is depressing but they both live with it because it is something they are used to.

Kai is a simple sixteen year old boy with a kind girl-friend that Katie does not get along with. Taylor says they spend too much time together even though she is the one Katie is always ditched for. Kai always talks about the mind-blowing sex they have, even though Katie is absent minded by that point, and continues in her normal thoughts.

She is fifteen: and this was the hamartia. "Katie, I'll try." She begs, sitting on the edge of her seat with her hands clasped together in her lap. She was shaky and you could see it just by the way her fingers – each one worse than the last – shaking in a flimsy manner. "Katie, please…"

Katherine's anger bursts even more each time the name Katie is used. She stands up, listening to the shaky floorboards rattle beneath her boots. The ones she pays for. "My name is Katherine, Mum! I am fifteen, I am a child. I have no idea how to run a car, or pay for fuel. You don't teach me anything and all you say to me in the morning is 'have a good day' or 'you need to make dinner, don't be home too late'. I am sick of you treating me like I should be an adult, because I'm not. And you of all people should know this."

Kate's mum sighs and looks at her, though Kate does not return the look and stares boredly out of the window, almost curious of what is on the other side of the back gate. "Don't look out there. That's Cursed Land." She explains and looks up. "I know I should be there, Kate. But it's hard because I'm still grieving. I miss your father so much. I know he is still alive and out there but the possibility of him wanting me back is zero to none."

She looks at her mother with an incredulous look and runs a hand through her hair, standing up on the floor-boards as her mother looks up. Her eyes show mercy. "Please, K-Katherine… Please…" She murmurs and holds her hands in her lap, begging for her mercy. Katherine White's mother is begging for mercy. Katherine scoffs and looks out the window to the Cursed Land again.

"Katherine!" She shouts. Katherine's eyes slowly divert back to her mother, holding her chest on the ground. "Katherine, please…" She mewls, but she doesn't move. She stands before looking at her mother with wide eyes. She makes for the stairs running to her bedroom. "GOD WILL SEND YOU TO HELL! THE DEVIL DECIEVES YOU!" She screams up the stairs before the screaming cuts and there is an eerie silence through the house.

Katherine holds her own chest as she packs a bag full of clothes that she thinks she will need. She grabs her charging mobile phone from the bedside table and looks at the messages: 1 from Kai.

Hey, Kat. Just wanted to know if you were okay, and we were still on for later? Tay's ditched me for Tom again. K. x

She sighs and drops the phone into the bag, zipping it up quickly before slinging it onto her shoulder and jogging down the stairs. She passes the living room with a small twinge of guilt plucking at her heartstrings. She carefully shuts the entrance door to the living room where her mother had experienced the heart-attack that has most likely killed her.

She picks at the zip of her bag and pulls her mobile out, dialling Kai's number before putting it up to her ear, brushing her hair back before collecting a coat and her keys: just in case she feels as if she needs to come back. Her hands are hot and sweaty, and her mind is racing with thoughts as the call tones buzz into her ear.

"Hey, Kat, what's up?" Kai's smooth voice runs through the receiver like honey. She smiles as she opens the door and shuts it behind her; the snow out on the porch begins to melt slowly beneath her feet as she walks. "Kat?" He asks after she doesn't reply. She snaps out of her slow daydream and looks up at the sky.

"Hey, Kai." She says, fumbling to put her keys back in her pocket. "I need to couch surf at yours for a few days." She says as a statement – as if there is no saying in it – and continues to walk, her feet crunching in the pure white snow beneath her heavy boots. "Would that be okay?" She asks as if she needs to check and she hears a rustling that sounds like a vibration from the other side of the phone. Taylor.

"No, unfortunately not. Sorry. You'll have to find somewhere else to couch surf." She says with a sickly sweet voice before the receiver vibrates. She takes it away from her ear to see the fact he'd hung up on her. She growls and continues to walk until she hits a pavement, she continues to walk…