Disclaimer: Check first Chapter. Man this is starting to aggravate me.

Chapter 6: Bad News

I wake up feeling great and spiritually rejuvenated just to get knocked back down into depression. At three O'clock in the afternoon, right before I go to work I here a knock on the door.

"Knock, knock, knock!"

It sounded urgent so I answered it right away.

"Hello, Karen Shiner I presume."

"You presume correctly. May I ask you your name and why you are here?"

"I am from child services. I have some very bad news for you dear. You might want to sit down."

"Miss uhm—"

"Sommer."

"—Yes, Miss Sommer, I really don't know who you are and I doubt that this could really have anything to do with me since I am not from around here."

"Well I'm not from around here either. I have come here from Florida. Please sit. Thank you. Your mother, she was very ill. She had a tumor. She passed away yesterday. I got…"

Dead? This must be a joke. My mother was fine when I left and surely a tumor can't kill that quickly.

"…here as soon as I could."

"I'm sorry you must be mistaken, my mother was in perfect health when I left home only two days ago."

"Dear, I am just telling you what I know. Your mother is dead. That is not all I have to tell you though, I hate to bother you even more than you already are, but your father, he was on his way to see your mom and as he was rushing an eighteen-wheeler slammed into the drivers side of his car. He was killed instantly. I am so sorry to have to tell you this. I'm sorry I couldn't have come here yesterday, but the service was today and I also came here to bring you their ashes. Your mother said she wanted to be cremated and your father was to disfigured, so he was cremated too. Your mother and father left you all of their worldly possessions. Under one circumstance though."

"What is that?"

"That you finish your high school and college years here at Lanyard. We will not be making you live in a special home or anything because you are almost eighteen and this is pretty much a home anyways."

"Thank you. Is that all?"

"Yes, I am so sorry for your losses and wish you the best of luck."

She left without another word. I waited and waited. Time and time again I waited for the answer that now I knew would never come. I quickly dialed the animal center and told Sharon that I wouldn't be able to come into work today. She didn't ask me why and I really didn't want to tell her. For two days I lay in my room not moving, not sleeping, not eating, and not leaving just staring. Staring into oblivion, staring at a pit of nothing, and as I stared I started to forget. I forgot about the world around me completely, until the day I heard a knock on the door.

"Knock, Knock, Knock! Karen are you all right! I have been trying to call you! Knock, Knock, Knock! Karen are you there?"

I quickly get into some cloth and unlock the door, but I keep the chain on.

"Please just go away."

"Karen what is wrong?"

"Nothing."

I close the door on him and he continues to pound on the door until some girls start yelling at him to be quite. I stay like this waiting and waiting for someone, something to take me away. I start to find out ways that I can relieve the pain I feel inside me. I go onto the computer and get me some prescriptions and have them delivered to me. That was the only time I opened the door. Was for the medicine, which after awhile began to have no effect so I would have to get me an even stronger prescription. Alex came by a few times and would knock and bang, but I never opened the door and then he would leave once the girls started yelling at him again. I stayed like this for a whole week. No food, nothing in my stomach except those wonderful pills. I would take them dry, no water and no liquid of any kind. I found out that when you drink to swallow the pill, it dilutes it and makes it weaker. Finally I feel asleep after a week of nothing. I woke up to find Alex looking at me from the doorway; he had picked the lock I found out. I looked at him. He looked so regal as he stormed through the doorway.

I know another short one, but I thought that this one packed a big punch and would do good to be a little shorter than usual. Please review.