For the moment I have no Beta-Reader, so if you spot any errors please do tell me in a review and I'll sort it asap. Why are there no active Beta's who had written for Skins themselves?
The petite red-head was sat on the faded blue couch-bed in the small living-room-cum-bedroom of the studio flat and surveyed the mess around her. She'd woken up this morning and struggled to find clean underwear, nevermind clean clothes. And when she'd squeezed herself into the tiny kitchenette to make herself some tea there had been no tea bags, no milk, only empty bottles and cans and over-flowing ash trays. It was like she'd been asleep and oblivious to all around her for the past few weeks, letting the filth grow and multiply in the tiny flat. As she drank hot water from a barely-clean mug that she had found at the back of a cupboard, Emily decided that something had to be done.
Emily slowly emptied the pungent sink, removing mouldy plates and mugs and glasses and cutlery one-by-one, retching and gagging at the stench. She unclogged the sink with her hand, emptying the slimy muck into a plastic carrier-bag that she had hung on the handle of a cupboard door. She ran the hot tap and rinsed the sink, waiting for the water to turn her hand red and for steam to start rising before putting in the plug and squeezing in the cheap washing up liquid. She leaned over and opened the small window to try and get the smell of rotting food and cheap washing up liquid out of the cramped space, and then she started. By the time she placed the last clean fork on to the drying rack her feet, back and arms were aching, her eyes were sore, and her hands were red and itchy.
"Fuck it." She spoke loud into the empty room, more to the mess than herself, and picked her way back into the main room, back over to the faded blue sofa-bed, where she threw herself down and sighed. She picked up empty bottles of cider and threw them across the room towards the kitchen, watching them pile up slowly. Then her hand found the cold glass of a nearly empty vodka bottle. Emily went back to the kitchen, ploughing through the green and blue plastic bottles in the doorway, and grabbed a freshly cleaned glass.
Back on the blue sofa, she upended the vodka bottle, half filling the glass between her knees. She needed a drink to help her get through the mess all around her. The glass still held between her jean covered knees she rooted around on the floor and found a bottle of irn-bru. It was mostly flat and warm, but it'd do as a mixer. She sat for a while in the silence of the small flat, sipping the strong drink slowly. As she felt the buzz of alcohol start to flow through her veins she stood up and placed the glass on the coffee table. She started filling an empty carrier bag with empty plastic bottles before making the first of many trips down to the bins, deciding to do her bit for the world and recycle. After the seventh trip her bin was full.
"Ah well..." She emptied the bag into her neighbour's bin. "It's collection day tomorrow anyway."
Very short, I know. But this is just a taster, just me trying something out. What do you think?