Chapter 1
I stared at the clock. It was the last class of the day and everyone was on the edge of their seats. Who wouldn't be on the day before the last day of high school-- well, besides myself? I didn't care much about the end of the school day. In fact, if I'd had a choice, I'dve stayed at the school. The educational building was much better for me than my house. I at least had friends at school. At home, Mom was almost always gone, and I was never allowed to have my friends over. Not that I'd want to allow any of my friends to meet the Devil herself, but I couldn't even go anywhere but the house after school.
I cringed as the bell rang. Everyone jumped out of their seats and ran to the door. As usual, I was the last one left in the classroom. Yet another thing I was more than used to. I picked up my notebook and stuffed it in my backpack. I sighed as I slung my bag over my shoulder. I was halfway out the door when I decided that I wanted to stay for a little longer. My decision made, I came back into the room and approached Mrs. Burton's desk.
I took my time before I spoke. I had to make sure she was in a good mood before I asked her the question on my lips. She hadn't spoken all period, but I could read her face like an open book—with pictures. She seemed happy enough.
I cleared my throat, lifting Mrs. Burton's gaze from her book to my face.
"Yes, Rosalie?" she asked, her expression thoughtful.
"Ms. Burton, is there anything I can help you with?" I asked.
The trigonometry teacher smiled at me. "I've just printed out the report cards. Will you fetch them for me?"
I nodded. I'd helped her last semester with the same thing. I liked helping Mrs. Burton. She was always willing to prolong my happiness for ten minutes. I held back the urge to bow as I was given the keys to the copying room. I left the classroom, taking as much time as I could, meandering through the hall. I swung the keys this way and that, satisfied by the noise I was making.
When I reached the copying room, I unlocked the door and walked through it with confidence. I strode toward the printer where the report cards had started sliding onto the tray. I waited for them to finish, but there was a knock on the door before they were done.
I opened the door, expecting to see a teacher asking why I was still there, but I saw my two best friends: Trisha Burningham and Carol McLellen. I hugged them both and led them to the back of the room where the report cards were just finishing up.
"We thought you'd be here," Trisha said. "You usually help your fourth period teacher, and Mrs. Burton almost always sends you here."
Carol sent me a warm smile. "We thought we'd come say hello before we left."
"Thanks, guys. I really appreciate it," I said, picking up the papers and walking back out into the hallway with my friends close behind. That's what they were like. They were always beside me when they had the chance to be. If they had the time, they would even walk me to my house, but today wasn't one of those days. Carol had piano practice and Trisha had to go to work at the public library.
They walked with me most of the way to Mrs. Burton's classroom, but we soon had to say our goodbyes where Middle and B hall met. From there we hugged and walked away from each other-- me toward the classroom and them out of the school-- but we yelled across the school to one another until one of us passed out of earshot.
I set the papers on Mrs. Burton's desk, gave her the keys to the copying room, and started my walk to my house. It's a pretty long walk and a very boring one when not accompanied by my two best friends. As always, I felt dread as I spotted my one-floor house. Some of the people reading this may have noticed that I haven't said the word "home" once when talking about the place where I live. That's because the place I am forced to live is not where my heart is. Anyway, moving on.
I unlocked the old beaten white door and stepped inside. The door groaned as I closed it behind me and made my way to my bedroom. On my bed was a list of the chores I had to do before Mom got back from work. I was surprised I could still use the bathroom when my chores weren't done. I could only be grateful that Mom didn't get home until late at night. The chore list consisted of cleaning every room in the house that she trashed, doing the laundry, doing the dishes, mowing the lawn, weeding the garden, and other odd jobs around the house. As usual, I did these chores without question.
While I took the garbage can to the edge of the sidewalk, I thought about my motivation for living with Mom for eighteen years of life that could have been spent doing something besides being her maid. I couldn't think of anything. I remembered the hours I spent in my room, wishing I had been old enough to leave my mother in the dust…wishing that Dad was still alive. If he hadn't died when I was five years old, maybe Mom wouldn't have treated me like dirt.
When Dad had been around, our family was happy. He was a video game designer, but he mostly helped translate things into English. We could afford things with the salary he had, and there was always money to spare. But without warning, his body just shut down. And after he died, Mom started to hate me. After recalling all this, I rubbed my eyes and wandered back inside.
My chores took most of the rest of my day. I wished there were some possible way for me to get all of them done before Mom got home, but I knew that was as impossible as Dad coming back from the dead. I sighed (I did a lot of sighing, then) when I heard Mom's car pull into the driveway.
"Rosalie! I'm going to need you to wash my car for me." Mom entered through the garage door, threw her things onto the counter top, and walked around with her dirty shoes on the linoleum that I had just mopped. I held back my rage and started the dishwasher.
Mom left the room to take a shower. She wouldn't be back for a few hours.
I took a pan from a cupboard and boiled water in it for my dinner. I was in the mood for ramen, so that's what I chose to have. Even after I had finished eating the very last noodle, the shower was still going. I sighed again and decided to wash the car then instead of later. I grabbed a plastic bucket, filled it with soap and water, and grabbed a blue sponge from under the sink on my way out into the garage.
The car was worse than usual. It looked like Mom had driven through a river of mud, and I couldn't figure out how she could see through the windshield, which of course was caked with dry clay. I approached the mud monster, wielding my soaked sponge. I avoided the brown water that splashed all around my feet as I scrubbed the car. I couldn't even tell it was a Volvo anymore.
It took me over an hour to clean that automobile, with regular trips to the kitchen for fresh water. Disgusting!
I trudged into the kitchen and washed my hands under hot water. It felt so good. I looked at the clock as I turned off the water. One AM. I couldn't handle much more of this torture. Mom came from the bathroom just as I put the bucket and sponge away.
"Why aren't you working?" Mom's hair was still wet.
"I just finished--"
"Don't talk back to me, girl!" Here came one of her lectures. "I work every day from morning to night just to come home and see the messes you haven't cleaned up." She pointed at the floor where her muddy footprints still resided, acting as if it were my fault that she walked on a wet floor with dirty shoes. "Why haven't you cleaned that up yet? You're a slacker, that's why. If you had a job, my life wouldn't be so hard. You don't even care about the strains I take just to bring home food for you to eat in the five minutes it's been in the cupboard. Do you think I do all this for fun?"
What? Make my life a living Hell? It sure seems like it, I thought. My hands were in fists to keep them from shaking. My temper had been lost hours before her lecture, and it was all I could do to hold in the boiling anger inside of me. If I yelled back at her, she would take away the one happiness I had in that house. I had given up almost everything else to that witch, but I wasn't willing to give her my Playstation 2.
As Mom rambled, I remembered how I had received the only electronic device I had ever owned. After Dad had left us, Mom had started to beat me until I was black and blue. No one seemed to notice my scars and bruises; even the teachers were oblivious to my pain. Well, all except for one. At parent teacher conferences with that certain teacher, the injuries were mentioned, and it wasn't by the parent. It seemed that I'd had my back turned every time the teacher, Miss Fritzwater, looked at my scrapes. Mom had told her I'd fallen out of a tree. I had opened my mouth to tell my teacher the truth, but Mom gave me a look behind Miss Fritzwater's back that said "If you tell her the truth, you won't live to see another day."
For years, she gave me that look. She took me to the store with her once, and I saw a PS2. I told Mom that she wouldn't get any more trouble from me if she got me that game system. I was amazed when she took what I wanted to the cashier without a word. After that, I didn't dare ask her for more. I started saving up my money for Dirge of Cerberus, another game I wanted. Little by little, the bruises started getting fewer. Eventually, they stopped all together. That had only been a few months before her most recent lecture.
Although there wasn't any beating, I couldn't do anything to stop the yelling. After about twenty minutes of verbal assault, Mom went in a huff to her bedroom. I wasn't even shaken by her countless threats and didn't even blink when she slammed her door, rattling the windows.
As I always did after a lecture, I sat on my couch, picked up a controller, and turned on the Playstation at my feet. Turning down the volume so that it couldn't be heard from the next room, I started playing Final Fantasy VII, a game I had received unexpectedly after Dad died. One of his coworkers found the game on his desk after the incident and decided that I should have it. Dad would have wanted it that way. Even though it had been a gift from my dad, I didn't have the heart to play it. It would remind me of him too much. Soon after that, though, I realized that he would have wanted me to remember him; to use his gift instead of hide it away, so I started a game.
I had just reached the part where Cloud had to dress up like a woman to save Tifa, not too far into the first disc. As the night dragged on, I fought with any monster that came my way, used items when needed, and, before five AM, I had reached the City of the Ancients. I had to do some side stories that weren't very interesting before I could go into the city and save Aeris, but I found out that you don't save her. Instead, Sephiroth dropped down from the ceiling, his massamune sinking into Aeris' back as he reached the ground.
"What?" I whispered, finding myself on my feet and inches away from the screen. "How could he? I needed her. What a pansy." My voice was sharp as I struggled not to scream.
I returned to my seat on the couch, grinding my teeth together and muttering threats under my breath to the poorly animated villain. I closed my eyes and folded my arms as I fumed. This game was dumb. Why on Earth—
I opened my eyes. Something didn't sound right with the game. When my gaze rested on the tv, I knew that something didn't look right, either. Both the music and the video were skipping. What great timing. Now, I'd have to reset the game and start from where I last saved, which was a long time before the point of the game I was at.
There was no chance of me getting to that same point before sunrise, but I wanted to try again anyway. I half expected things to turn out differently, I guess.
I reached out to press the 'reset' button. As my finger met plastic, the PS2 shocked me.
"Ow!" And then I felt woozy. What was happening?
I heard distant thunder, and everything went black.
