(A/N: Irewrote this chapter. Same idea, just written differently. Don't know if this makes it better, but this was what was originally written before I went on vacation. Her ya go!)

"Am I loud and clear, or am I breaking up/ Am I still your charm, or am I just bad luck/ Are we getting closer, or are we just getting more lost/ I'll show you mine, if you show me yours first/ Let's compare scars, I'll tell you who's is worse/ Let's unwrite these pages and replace them with our own words/ We live on front porches and swing life away/ We get by just fine here on minimum wage/ If love is a labour I'll slave 'till the end/ I won't cross these streets until you hold my hand/ Been here so long, think that it's time to move/ The winter's so cold, summer's over too soon/ Let's pack our bags and settle down where palm trees grow/ I've got some friends, some that I hardly know/ But we've had some times, I wouldn't trade for the world/ We chased these days down with talks of the places that we will go"
-'Swing Life Away', Rise Against

Stepping into her house was like stepping back to a memory long forgotten. The smells were all the same, but it was so much quieter inside, making her feel almost out of place. She had only come for one reason, she had to remind herself. Wearing the same clothes for nearly a week, though she couldn't have cared less about her appearance, was going to give her a very unattractive aroma. She had to grab her clothes, and get out as quick as possible. Every moment spent in there reminded her too much of what she had lost, and she wanted as little of that as possible.

Her bedroom was down the hall, second door to the right. That was her destination, so she turned to it, not wanting to linger in the kitchen for any longer. The floor boards creaked under her feet, and her footsteps echoed so loudly throughout the hall. It was so lonely in there now without the sounds of her mother's voice, her dad's computer games resounding from his office, and her sister's singing...

Tears formed in her eyes, but she shunned them and expelled them from herself. She had enough time to cry. It was time to get over it and move on like everyone else was. Even the grandparents were moving on -partially because half of them are nearing alzheimer's, her mind retorted- but she simply couldn't mope anymore. It made her useless and a bigger burden to Willy Wonka. She found the door to her room and opened it.
----

A door swung open and inside the small room was a bed with a slightly old and worn quilt on it (possibly made by her mother), a poster of Jimi Hendrix on one of the walls, a scrap book on the floor, laying open with photos he couldn't quite see, and book shelves with books stacked on them none too neatly. The room was much smaller than the room she was in now, but the more he thought, the more Willy Wonka began to wonder, was she going to come back?

He saw her hands reach out and open the drawer to her dresser. She cleared it out of its contents, repeating this with the next drawer. Then she went to the closet and retrieved a denim shoulder bag and stuffed her things into it, including a few books from the shelves. As she was bent over to do this, her eyes strayed over to the mirror on her vanity, and she turned her head to look at herself. Her hair was very messy from not being tended to, and her face was very dirty. The foggyness of her eyes made him realize with a jump that they had never been looked at. "Oh dear," he muttered, and hoped it wasn't too late for something to be done about them.
----

Glancing down at her pack, Mandy knew she'd barely be able to get by with the clothes she had, and didn't even have a sweatshirt for when it would get colder. Not that it would matter, the factory was strangely warm all the time. But it would be good to have one just in case...

Her head turned to Megan's room. Taking one of her sweatshirts seemed so wrong, like she was stealing from her. Yes, she was... dead, she had admitted to herself with a sharp bite to the lip that drew blood. There was nothing for it, she knew. One day she would probably not be in the factory and it'd be just bad of her not to have something warm to be prepared with.

Taking in a deep, uncomfortable, breath, she proceeded to the door and opened it. It was dark in there, and she flicked on the lights, looking around unsure before stepping in. This felt so weird to her, like she had just stepped into foriegn territory. Part of her expected Megan to come barging in to shout, "Get out of my room!" and letting herself think that helped it not feel so sad and gloomy. There was a grey sweatshirt laying conveniently on her bed, and Mandy snatched it up, wanting nothing more than to get out of there quickly. But as she went to set it in her pack an uneasy feeling crept over her. She felt like she really was being watched, and turned her head to look around.
----

"What's she doing?" muttered Wonka to himself. Mandy had not moved for nearly five minutes, and he began to wonder if she had fallen asleep standing up. It wasn't till she shifted slightly that he threw this suspicion out the window and into on coming traffic where it leapt around to avoid cars like Frogger. He could hear noises coming and suddenly felt as nervous as she must've been. Someone was in that house too, and it could have been anyone. Unconciously he clenched his hands together and watched fearfully.

From the window behind her, he saw something run past, and Mandy jerked her head in that dirrection, running to the window to look outside of it. Soon there came the sounds of voices, talking eagerly amongst themselves. A small group of teenagers had all gathered around the house, raiding the the garden of any food it had, all of them looking like they were half starved. Even though stealing was one crime he had learned to loathe over the years, he could not help but feel pity for them. They must've all, like Mandy, lost their families in the fires and were now doing whatever they had to to survive. Mandy must've felt the same because she moved away from the window where they wouldn't see her, and didn't stop them.
----

It was getting dark out by the time the raiders were gone, and Mandy had gone around the house, gathering everything she needed. One last item she had taken while walking out the door were her mother's sharp sewing needles and a small bottle of black ink. Walking down the dark streets was miserable, and as she looked around, she realized she didn't need her imagination to make any of this more interesting or intense. People were hurt, dead, dying. Families had been left to scratch through the ashes, trying to start over again or pick up from where they left off. Even though, there was pain in everyone's eyes, in some of them there were signs of hope as if their spirits weren't crushed at all by this. She couldn't understand how people could get so strong like that on the inside, and wished she could be like them, able and willing to keep on going.

"From the ashes a fire shall be woken," she sang softly to herself, thinking of her favorite books. "A light from the shadows shall spring. Renewed will be blade that was broken. The crownless again shall be king..."

"And what does that mean?" asked an unfriendly voice. Mandy turned her head and looked down on the ground. Sitting there, wearing torn clothes and looking sick was a girl she knew from school. "That you actually think there's hope left in this hell hole?" she spat. "Look around you! Do you see any hope? People are dead! Families are destroyed, and some of us have nowhere to go but hell."

"Lana," said Mandy softly. "What happened to you?"

"My house burned to the ground, that's what. Everyone inside died except for me! My baby brother died in my arms!" Tears rolled down Lana's burnt and dirty face. "I saw the smoke and ran into the house. By then the fire had gone in every part of the house except my brother's room. I climbed in through the window to save him, and he still died. He suffocated from the smoke."

"I'm so sorry!" cried Mandy, kneeling down in front of her broken friend.

"There's nothing left for anyone here," wept Lana in hatred. "This entire town it going to die, and there won't be any 'hope' or 'new beginning'. It's over!" Mandy couldn't find the words to say because if she tried to reassure her she'd be a hippocrate. A lot of her still felt the same was Lana did, but admitting that to Lana wouldn't help things either.

"Where are you living now?" she asked at lenght, tears in her own eyes.

"I slept in a dumpster last night. I don't got any place to go."

"My house is unlocked. Use it. Sleep wherever you want, eat whatever you can find in there."

"I don't want your pity," said Lana darkly.

"I'm not giving you any. The place isn't being used anyway. My family died too."

"Including Megan?" she asked. Mandy bit her lip and nodded bitterly.

"The house is available to you if you want it alright?" she said, and left with that, not wanting to talk about her sister. It still was too soon, too fresh and raw. Maybe one day she'd be able to talk about her without feeling this way, but right now she couldn't.
----

The minute she stepped into the factory she knew something was wrong. Everything was a lot more quiet than usual, even the oompa-loompas seemed less cheerful. Willy Wonka was nowhere in sight, and she began to worry. Quietly, she went to her room and put her pack in there, deciding to worry about putting the clothes away later.

"Mr. Wonka?" she called softly, looking around. There came no answer, and she began to regret not taking the time earlier to learn her way around the factory. She went to the door to the purple room and knocked on it. Still nothing, and she didn't want to open the door for fear of making him angry. Not knowing what else to do, she wandered around, hoping to find him since bumping into him had seemed very easy lately.

The halls were long and confusing, changing colors so rapidly it gave her headaches. After a minute of walking around, she spotted an oompa-loompa, and knew that he must surely know where Wonka was.

"Hey!" she called, running up to it. "Sorry to bother you... Where's Mr. Wonka?"

"He went to the hospital," answered the oompa. "The boy's dying." Mandy's jaw dropped and she turned around, running back down the hall. As she ran back to her room, the hallway suddenly looked very foggy, and she had to stop, squinting wildly to adjust her vision. Ever since the day of the fire, her vision had been cloudy, but it was like it suddenly took another downward stroke in those few seconds.
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