HOPES AND NIGHTMARES: An ongezellig fanfiction

Chapter 1: Day In And Day Out

Maya sat slouched against her desk, her eyes sunken, barely being able to stay even half open. She looked around sleepily as her sleep deprived brain came to the conclusion that she was currently in her history class. She always dreaded going in, but then again, she dreaded going to school. Or anywhere remotely resembling the outside world. Maybe if she went back to sleep, Ms. Veras voice would not sound as grating as it usually did, and she would leave her alone for once...

"Maya! Keep your head up! We're not here to sleep!" Vera's sharp tone of voice Made maya shoot up from her slouching like a bullet. Unfortunately, this exposed her rather freakishly pale face and bloodshot eyes to the rest of the class. Laughter emanated from places around the room as everyone got a good look at her face. "What are you laughing about? Pay attention!" Vera's scolding made short work of the giggling. It didn't make the sting of the laughter any better for maya, however. "Kids these days..." She grumbled as she continued to tap away at her computer.

Maya felt as though her whole tiny world was staring daggers into her, judging her every movement for some new flaw to laugh at. It made her skin itch with all of the shame that came with simply living her life within this place. She froze with anxiety, scared to look around in case someone would see her face again. She didn't want to move, say, or do anything, lest she give everyone more ammunition to laugh at her. The only thing she really could do was think. Why don't you do anything? Why don't you say something? Why are you so ugly, maya? Why do you look so weird, maya? Why does everyone hate you, maya? Why don't you just dissappea-

DRINGGGGG!!!! "Alright! Lessons over! Get out! I expect homework on Friday! No exceptions!" Once again, maya shot up as the sound of the bell peirced her ears, signalling the end of the day. Homework? Usually, Vera sets homework within the week and expected you to turn it in on Friday. But setting it on friday was unheard of. She pondered why this was the case as her, Coco and mymy pedalled down the road on their bikes, their conversation being nothing but background noise as maya slipped deeper into thought. So deep into thought, in fact, that she didn't seem to notice how she veered off the road and into the forest. She seemed to be okay, for the most part. Up until She was about to hit a tree. Nobody noticed mayas impromptu detour for a while, up until She overtook her sisters despite not even pedalling.

"Maya! Look out!" "Wha- AHHH!" Coco yelling snapped maya out of her daydreaming, but not fast enough to avoid a tree. She slammed into it at almost full speed, vaulting her off her bike and down on the muddy forest floor.

Unfortunately, Maya and her bike were thrown into a sloped part of the forest. Maya had rolled down the slope, somehow managing not to hit anything, before finally landing with a forcible thud that shook her whole body. Her bike was much worse off, however. The metal scraped against the floor with an awful screech, bashing off of almost every tree on the slope, which made the bell ring violently before it was entirely ripped off of the bike, flying off into another direction. It landed not too far from where maya had fallen, thankfully missing her. She lay there, stunned in shock of the sudden jolt she had gotten from being thrown off her bike. She felt so stupid. Of course, this had to happen. Only she could be so stupid not to look where she was going and crash so spectacularly.

The self pity was cut short when she felt a sudden stinging pain in her legs. She looked down to find the culprit, which was a small slash that had torn open her apart of her leggings on her knee and exposed a short, jagged cut. "Oh..ow...Ah!..ow.." She cringed in pain for a short while clasping her hands over the cut in some desperate attempt to make it disappear, which only made it feel worse. Suddenly, she heard leaves rustle and the ground shake with frantic thuds. "Maya! Are you there?! Where are you?!" It was Coco. Hearing the panick in her voice frightened maya. She had never seen nor heard coco so much as look even a slight bit sad. But her being worried? That was a side of Coco she had never seen. But then she realised why she was like this: because of her.

This realisation seeped into her and made her feel worthless: like trash. Apart of her didn't want to say anything, for coco to not find her, and leave her here wallowing in her own sadness next to the twisted pile of metal that was once her bike. But, of course, Coco found her, clasping her knee in pain. "Oh my goodness! Maya, are you alright?" "N-no...ah!"Is it your leg? Show me what happened." Maya slowly moved her hands off of her knee. Admittedly, it didn't look as bad as it felt. The shock from the fall probably made it a thousand times worse. She wanted to cry with shame as Coco inspected the cut. "Can you stand?"I don't...ah! I don't know!" Despite her sister being right next to her, maya started to panick. She didn't want to make coco feel any worse, and judging by how her day had gone, she thought it was better off if she left everyone alone for a while. With Coco's assistance, she managed to get herself walking somewhat upright and started to move towards the road again. It did take a while however, what with walking up a steep slope with a busted leg being not the greatest idea in the world (coco had gently persuaded maya not to do so several times as they walked through the forest). They eventually made it up to an opening that wasn't sloped and made it out of the forest.

Mymys smug face greeted them as they made their way to Coco's bike. "Took you long enough. Did sleepy maya have a nap down there or something?"No. Maya just hurt her leg, so I'm getting her on my bike for a bit. "Maybe you should look where you're going next time, maya!" Mymy loved to tease maya all the time if she did something wrong. Sometimes, she was worse than her classmates with how she pestered her. Coco always told her to ignore it, but it didn't help that mymy always found the perfect way to push her buttons. She could usually tolerate it, if only for a while. But now, it was particularly annoying to deal with because of the pain from the cut, which made maya shift around in her seat constantly. Having to hear mymys ridiculous speeches about how she would run an empire and use maya as an example of "betraying your country" made her blood boil. After what seemed like an agonising amount of time, they finally made it back to the schoppenboer household.

And even then, mymy was STILL teasing maya. "I can't believe you left your bike down there in the forest! You're gonna have to take the bus now! Hahaha!" With how beaten up the bike was, it would've been impossible to take maya and the bike back with her, so coco (obviously) chose maya over a pile of twisted metal.

"Mayas gonna have to sit with koos on the bus! Haha! Maya and koos sitting in a tree..." By this point, the look on mayas face looked more like a rabid animal than her usual timid self. She was about to explode with anger at mymy, when Coco decided to step in to hopefully avoid an argument the size of an atomic bomb. "Maya, why don't you go upstairs and..uhm..play computer games? "Maybe she'll walk! Maya, walking all alone to school!" "Mymy, that's enough!" Maya reached a boiling point. She had had Enough. "At least my parents didn't abandon me."

Maya knew that would hurt her. Alot. And hurt it did. Mymy screeched in a foreign tongue as she launched herself at maya, somehow even knocking down Coco for a short while. Maya raced up the stairs with mymy in hot pursuit. She managed to grab mayas hand just as she was about to lock her door. She yelled at maya, screaming all sorts of obscenities and insults. At this point, maya had regretted even stepping foot into her house. Coco stomped up the stairs, presumably angry at both of them. With Coco and mymy both about to reach her, She pushed both her hands into mymys chest and shoved her off of her hand before slamming her door shut. Mymy landed on the floor, the shove knocking out of her blind japanese rage. Coco grabbed mymy by the ear and took her into her room, and also slammed the door shut, this time more dramatically.

Maya felt guilty. She felt guilt course though every fibre of her being. She couldn't reason her way out of doing something like that. It felt necessary to do it in the moment, but was it really worth doing that? She was her sister. Sisters don't hurt each other like that. She tried to get her mind off of it by playing some games, but even then, the guilt still bled through her happiness. Nothing could change what she did. She couldn't turn back time to undo it, and she couldn't reason with someone like mymy. She felt sick. Eventually, it got to the point where not even the computer could help fix it. So, she turned it off and sat by her bed for a moment before covering herself up with her blanket and Hugging her blobfish plush as tight as she could. She wondered what everyone would think of her, now that she had done that and wondered if she could fix things. She wondered what the blobfish would think of what she did. And then she sobbed. She wept into the plush and kept saying as she wept, "I'm sorry." She knew it wouldn't fix what she did. It didn't matter. She still wept all the same and eventually drifted off into sleep.