Trigger Warnings: Child Abuse (light), Suicidal Thoughts/ Intense Depression,

It was just an ordinary day for me. Waking up with other people around, to see no one who loves me. Yeah, I know I sound depressed but I'm not. I'm fine with the way my life is right now, despite living on the streets in god knows where. Just kidding, I know exactly where I am. I live on the streets alone.

See when I was younger, around the age of nine my parents and I got into a car accident on the way home from the theater. This drunk guy had been driving and had crossed into our lane, and my father swerved and hit the guardrail. The guardrail had broke and we went into the ditch and hit a tree. The drunk guy had kept driving, not even bothering to stop. I can't blame him much, he wasn't in his right state of mind to realize what he had done.

We had been sitting in the car for hours before someone managed to see us and stop to help us. My father had died on impact because he hadn't been wearing his seatbelt and hit his head on the dashboard. My mother had been sitting next to me, shielding me from anything as soon as we got into the ditch. It had been a really cold night since it was winter, and she gave me her warmth and she died from hypothermia because of that. I almost died that night too, I had a bruised rib and a sprained wrist. Both injuries healed and I turned out fine. It's been six years since that night that I lost both of my parents and my life that I had.

My parents were both single children, and both sides of my grandparents had passed away. So I had no one to take care of me after that night, so I was taken into Children Protective Services. I stayed with them until I turned ten when a couple decided to try to adopt me. They did eventually adopt me, but it wasn't the kind of life I had with my real parents. This couple were not human, I mean they were but they weren't the nicest of people. I only lived with them for six months, before I decided to run away.

They were quite abusive. Five out of those six months I had stayed were perhaps the most terrible days I had lived, despite me living on the streets nowadays. Those five months were terrible. My 'new' mother abused me verbally and vocally, every single day. My 'father' abused me physically every day as well. They were a team. He would hit me in spots where it wouldn't be seen when I went to school, I had to sit out from gym every day because everywhere hurt deeply. She would call me worthless, and say that my parents abandoned me for good reason. I knew that that was false, because I knew that it wasn't my fault they had died. It was the drunk driver's fault, but it wasn't helpful that I heard that every day for days on end. Soon I began to think that it was actually my fault after all, and I got into a deep depressive mood. Any time my parents were brought up tears quickly sprung upon my face, and instead my head I cursed myself repeatedly.

Not long after I became depressed, I would starting hurting myself so I could actually feel something that wasn't grief or despair. I knew deep down that I shouldn't be doing this, but I still did regardless of my inner voice telling me otherwise. I still got my daily beatings from my 'father', and vocally abused from my 'mother', then after that when I got to retire to my room I would cut myself. Not too deep though, I knew if I ever cut myself deeply I would kill myself. I did want death to be quite honest. My life wasn't where I wanted it to be, and I had no one.

I had a few friends before my parents died, and when the accident happened they left. So I was literally all alone in the world and no one cared one bit. Until one day I had a new teacher at school who had noticed something was off with me. Normally everyone in my class would just ignore me like they do, that day I was being bullied by someone who had been my friend for a long time. They had touched a spot on my side when my 'father' had repeatedly hurt me, and a scream erupted from my lips as pain filled my thoughts. The new teacher hurried to my side and took me to the nurse's office on the first floor. There I was sat down, and the nurse had lifted up my shirt and let out a startled gasp of surprise. I had instantly closed my eyes in fright. By then I was scared of anyone finding out what was happening to me, because I wasn't sure what was going to happen to me. I didn't want to end up in another place like I was currently in at that time. I had opened my eyes to see what the nurse and my teacher had been doing. The nurse was over by where the phone was and she was talking to someone about what she had seen. I had turned towards my teacher to see that she had tears in her eyes. I had been confused as to why she was crying, I found out later it was because she couldn't believe what was happening to me and was pitying me.

Granted now I know that's not what those tears were. She was saddened to see what she had seen. I know now. I had tons of bruises all over my torso and chest area, many of them were still black and blue because they never got to fully heal since I got abused on a daily basis. The teacher had came up to me to which I had cringed away, because you know all I've ever gotten was abuse so I wasn't ready to be hugged but she gave me a big bear hug. I had watched as the nurse got off the phone and pulled out a small polarized camera. She had waved the teacher over, and they talked in very hushed tones for a few minutes. Then they both walked over, and my teacher held my shirt up for the nurse and she took pictures of the bruises. When they had finished the nurse had told me that I could lay down for the rest of the day and to not worry about class at all, my teacher had told me the exact same thing.

Then they both left the nurse's office, and left me by myself. I knew that Child Protective Services was going to be involved in this, whether or not I wanted them to be or not. Back then I didn't want to go back into the system, and even now years later I still don't want to go back into that thing. Who knows where I'd end up. Or if I'd even get a family anyway. After all I'm almost an adult by now, no family would want a child who was almost an adult.

So anyway after the nurse was done taking the pictures of my bruises, she and my teacher back then decided to leave me alone after putting me down so I could get some peaceful sleep. Back then I knew that I wasn't going to get any peaceful sleep, because I knew that I had to leave my school. I had to leave, because like I've said time and time again I didn't want to go back to my 'parents' or another family ever again.

I had gotten up from the bed and walked to the door that leads into the hallway, I opened it quietly and peeked out. I honestly didn't want to be caught by an adult from school so I had to be very careful when leaving. I sneaked through the door and shut it silently. Pressing my back up against the wall, I slowly moved my way through the hallway and reached one of the exits to leave the school. Double checking to make sure no one was around, I slipped through the doors and ran as fast as I could. I wasn't entirely sure if anyone happened to see me running away from the building but I couldn't help that. I just wanted to leave. I didn't have much back at that house I lived for a whole six months but I had a few things I wanted to take with me because they were precious to me.

I knew both of those adults wouldn't be home until like five, because well they had jobs they liked and making money they spent on random things than trying to take care of me. I had found out that they keep a spare key underneath a rock near the front door in case they ever lost their keys I just let myself in when I got there. I locked the door behind me just in case one of them decided to come home early and I wanted to make sure I could hear them enter in case they did.

Whenever I went to school I never took my backpack with me, because I wanted to leave it at this disgusting house I lived in just in case I needed to run away and I had time to come back and get my things. The backpack was average, with dark shading with equally dark green and blue shades but had many pockets. In a way, it was a hiker's type of backpack.

The only precious items I had with me were an album of multiple pictures of my parents and me, a few series of desired books that I never wanted to throw away, and a small stuffed dragon named Sebby that my mother made me when I was just a child. The couple books that I never threw away were Gamer Girl, the complete series of the Five Kingdoms, the complete series of Skeleton Creek, and the Fablehaven complete series along with the second season of books. They weren't huge books, so I managed to always keep them inside one of the pockets of the backpack.

After I packed away my few precious things inside the backpack, I scanned around the room for anything else I wanted to pack away with me. There wasn't much else in the room where I slept and did homework. Other than those books, an album, and my stuffed dragon, I didn't really have anything else I called my own. Those 'parents' never bought anything for me at all. I had no other books, stuffed animals, or toys. It's no wonder I got depressed so easily back then. Add in the fact that I had no friends and no one to talk to about my problems either. Who would want to listen to some orphan depressed kid anyway? No one, that's who.

I lifted the backpack up and put it onto my back. That was a breeze. I walked out of the room that I took solace in, at least somewhat solace in these past six months. Entering the kitchen I grabbed onto the one random cookie jar that sat undisturbed for four months and opened it, dumping the contents onto the counter. The contents were not a certain kind of cookie that had been baked, the contents were cold hard cash. I counted out the cash quickly, glancing around to make sure that no one had entered the house yet. The total that the cash came out to a thousand dollars even. I was going to take that cash for myself. My birth parents had told me repeatedly to not steal because it's not right, but I also think that in this situation that they would've been proud of me for doing it. After what these people have done to me. After all they never bought or gave me anything. I barely ate whenever I was here, but luckily that the school I went to gave out free breakfasts and lunches everyday so I never really had a problem. Plus they were going to use this money to go on a vacation, and leave me to my lonesome here without parental watch. I'm sure they're not supposed to do that when I was that young, to leave me for an extended amount of time by myself. No matter anymore after this.

I slid the backpack off of my back and placed it onto the ground beside me. I zipped open a small pocket on the side, and quickly stashed the money in it. Then I zipped it closed and quickly put the pack back onto my back, then I grabbed the lid for the jar and put that back on. Sliding the jar back into place I had no worries that they'd figure out that I took it. After all, they never knew that I noticed way back when that they started putting money into that jar one day. What idiots.

I moved swiftly to the front door and looked back at the space that had been my 'home' for the past six months. I was glad that I wasn't going to be here any longer, but I knew that today forward I may not have any shelter since I'd be living on the street. I said a quick prayer of thanks and walked out of the door, tossing the key inside before I slammed the door shut behind me.

I left the neighborhood behind me. Looking back in my mind to that day, I should have realized quicker that they wouldn't have been nice people. The neighborhood they had lived in wasn't such a nice place. I had seen it many times of people drinking out on the street and looked high as heck. Some looked like nice people, and some who didn't look so nice at all.

I wandered around town for a couple hours before I was pointed towards a shelter for those who have nowhere to go. Back before my parents died I never knew there was a place in town for homeless people to go to, and now I do because I myself am homeless now.

I had walked in through that day, trying to make myself invisible because I didn't want to be caught and sent back into those people's care. Luckily it looked like nobody cared enough to even notice me. Most of the people in the shelter were definitely older than me, but I did notice that there were a few people around my age or younger that stayed as well. I was able to stay in the shelter for a couple years there as it being a safe haven.

Around the time I turned fourteen I had overheard some information of an old barn not far out from town that some homeless were using instead of the shelter. See the shelter had time limits set for how long a person could stay and that was usually 6 months to a year, so the fact that I had been able to stay there for over two years was something. Quite a few would leave once they got back up on their feet with jobs, but there were still many who were older and couldn't get jobs because of a disability or something along the lines of that. Then there were the few kids who were around my age or younger that were able to find some nice families that adopted them. I was happy for them and despite knowing that I'd love to have people who cared about me, I knew that I couldn't go back into the system. I refused to.

That's how three years later that I still live on the street by myself, feeding and fending for myself. I had moved out of the shelter and went and found the barn that they were talking about, and that is where I live now. It's not that bad to be honest with you. I get to live near to the forest and be more involved with nature. I can also find myself food much better out here than I was able to in town. Granted most of that food is mostly berries and herbs that I'm able to find. Through the winter I don't eat much or at all, since it's so cold out to find stuff to eat. Not very often during those winter months I do wander into town to get food with the money I took, and since it's not that very often that I do do that I still have plenty of money from all those years ago.

It may not be a happy family life that I have, but it's one that I don't regret for one second.