I don't own Frozen. Stolen Ice and its characters belong to Aesla. This fanfic takes place after the events of chapter 51 and was written before future chapters were published.
Somewhere after 9 pm, Anna left the general store with two bags of "groceries". She'd chosen her apartment based on the convenience of the variety of "supplies" the general store sold. She visited frequently enough that the cashiers knew her and more importantly, knew not to question her choice of purchases.
"Hey, Fox, you forgot your change!" The cashier called out, looking at the scattered bills Anna had tossed on the counter.
"Keep it." A mumbled as the door swung shut behind her. She walked with bad posture, shoulders bent forward, carrying the bags like she was dragging them. Her hair was flat and unbraided, combed into a shrinking violet shield that covered half her face so she didn't have to look at people. She wore glasses, not that she needed them, but just to add to the disguise, place another barrier between herself and the world. An equally useless hearing aid was stuffed into her ear, hampering her hearing but giving her an excuse not to have to talk to people.
She crossed the street without looking and didn't react when the sound of screeching and honking blared against her dampened ear, only muttering an apology and a few stilted words about being deaf when the driver got out of the car, placating them enough that they let her walk away.
Her apartment was just a short trip through a dank alleyway occasionally home to a few homeless, troubled teens and listless youths. They'd cleared out after she made an example out of one of them.
A white kid hardly younger than herself had approached her, knife drawn. She'd set her bags down before he grabbed her arm and shoved her against the alley wall, pressing the blade into her throat. A grabbed his wrist and slammed her knee into his privates before twisting that wrist and stomping as hard as she could against the boy's foot. He'd cried out and fallen to the ground on one knee, dropping the knife. He took a swing at her. She'd taken her tazer out already and ducked the blow, given him a jab in the side for good measure to the sound of buzzing electricity, leaving the boy curled up on the ground, sobbing.
She didn't bother picking her scattered bags back up, choosing to order a pizza instead of going back to the store. She asked for her usual while she rubbed the small cut on her throat. Yes, extra bell peppers, please.
Her apartment door had six locks on it, four of them only on the inside for extra protection when she was actually there. Dropping her bags on her kitchen counter she unplugged the hearing aid, and grabbed at the glasses, discarding them on a dresser as she tucked her hair behind an ear. Home in the Hole again.
Eggs, milk, a six pack of hard cider, a bottle of cough syrup - dextromorphan only, please, a box of cereal, a small bottle of unmarked pills, bread. Aspirin for the morning, laughably.
She grabbed a bottle of cider and cracked it open, sipping from it as she headed for the bathroom. Her medicine cabinet looked like a war zone, pills scattered everywhere, but she plucked a few out. She stared at them for a moment, trying to account for how many she had already had that day. Tossing back her head and popping the pills, she washed it down with the cider.
Almost immediately her stomach lurched and revolted against the overkill, and she choked, then retched into the toilet, falling to her knees until her body had heaved as much of it as it could out of her system. She reached blindly for the bottle of pink sitting on top of the bathroom sink just for these situations, peeled open the cap and drank. She sat on the bathroom floor until the taste was rotting in her mouth, and swigged the cider round her mouth, swallowing.
Anna pulled herself up and stared at herself in the mirror, taking note of the bags under her eyes, the dull look in her eyes.
Despair. Despair is more of a hole than an emotion. It's a filter placed over perception, an unspeakable weight that tugs on every thought, feeling, action. Despair is closer to acceptance than depression. It's when you stop fighting but you keep moving, dragging your burdens behind. Despair is crossing the street without looking both ways in the evening. Despair is never going to sleep, only ever passing out. It's knowingly destroying your body for short-term control, short-term pleasure, short-term gain. Despair is a place you are, not a thing you feel.
Stumbling out of the bathroom, Anna ignored the sick feeling in her stomach. There was nothing she could do about it. No, nothing. She craned her head up to look at the open vent over her head, waiting for a few moments. No, nothing.
Sliding her cider atop her computer desk, Anna pulled up one of the books from the stack next to the chair and curled up in it, taking solace in the glow of three computer screens. Not many at all compared to hers, but it was a testament at least to the multi-tasking prowess she was developing.
Coding. Programming. Backdoors. These were her nights, studying manuals, reading books, practicing. She'd learned quickly but plateaued fast. She could mess around with traffic lights now. She knew it was child's play, though. She kept reading. The engineering aspects were the hardest for her. Binary codes and newtons.
She didn't even understand the language but she'd forced herself to learn how to speak a few phrases in 'Binary.' It was like speaking Morse code, only a thousand times worse. She'd written a program that translated her sentences to binary gibberish and repeated them until her throat hurt and her ears no longer could make out the difference between zero and one. Someday she'd be able to say hello.
It was all she had.
When the cold faded from her veins, the pain in her stomach began to return, and the cider bottles were all empty, she forced herself to look at the time. Sunrise in a few hours.
Her body screamed at her not to, but she forced herself through a series of exercises. They were pale imitations of what she'd seen her doing. Cardio, hand weights, stretching exercises. She'd never catch up.
She'd never catch her. She would try. She would not succeed.
Anna slumped, exhausted and sweaty, onto the mattress in the corner, a mess of covers and pillows softening the blow. She stared at the corner of the room where the vent was. That was the reason she'd chosen this room. That vent. Wide enough for a person. She didn't expect anyone to be coming through it. She'd placed a chair underneath it anyways.
Her body sick with medicines and her head pounding, she popped a sleeping pill and stared at the ceiling.
Despair is when you're waiting to be saved, and you've accepted that you're never going to be.