Cold.
Icy cold water splashed against her body.
“Wakey wakey! Rinsey, rinsey!” Ms. Wardsworth's overly sweet voice sounded from behind the bathroom door.
“Wuh?” Cassie, slowly came upright, pushing against the white tiles of the shower, grabbed at the shower control, twisting it to reduce the icy water to a warmer temperature.
The strange dream in which she talked to herself on an alien beach filled with glowing jellyfish was already vanishing from her head.
“You’ve had a leetle accident yesterday. Fell off your skateboard, you did. Best be more careful next time, aye? Do finish up your shower and come make breakfast.”
Cassie sniffed, watching the blood from her hair circle down the drain.
She didn’t own a skateboard.
“Your clothes are on the sink. I’ve told you before, but you never listen. You should consider buying less random clothes. I’ll never understand your ‘cool’ fashions,” the voice of her mother resonated from behind the door.
Cassie, having washed, emerged from the shower shivering. She donned the provided clothes that were far too small and also too large for her, consisting of a seemingly, utterly random selection of assorted items. She wasn’t allowed to buy clothes. She found a raggedy tag in the pants pocket “Goodlywill - secondhand items by the pound”.
She let out a small cough. Her chest ached from the damp conditions of the basement. She stared at the mirror for a moment at the girl looking back at her. Her white hair was stained red from her own blood, watered down from the shower. Pale silver eyes, bloodshot from hours of bad sleep looked back at her.
She cracked her neck and began to clean herself up. There was no way her hair was ever going to look amazing, but she could at least make it look acceptable.
Outside of the bathroom, a dull, beige hallway greeted her, featuring many frames with pictures of the Wardsworth family, a noticeable lack of Cassie in them. There were no clocks or calendars along the wall, since Mr. Wardsworth was a hard believer of digital superiority, wearing his calculator watch everywhere and announcing civic holidays, events, or birthdays whenever they had come up during mornings.
There was a broken skateboard in the corridor. She squinted at it.
“A shame you broke it and bumped your head. Guess you won’t be able to skate for a while now,” a comment resonated from the kitchen.
Cassie had never skated in her entire life.
“I don’t own a skateboard,” she gritted her teeth, feeling like picking up the broken skateboard and breaking it some more over the heads of her tormentors.
Ambling into the kitchen, Cassie found Mr. and Mrs. Wardsworth waiting at the table. Without looking up, Mr. Wardsworth snapped, “Get cooking, girl. You know what they say, a goodly breakfast is foundational to building character!”
With a sigh that never made it past her lips, Cassie meandered over to the fridge and opened it, taking a look at the assortment of food contained within. A carton of eggs, a half-full gallon of milk, a shaker of parmesan cheese, some grape jelly. Nothing she couldn’t make a decent breakfast with, not that she’d be the one to eat it.
Taking the eggs and the milk out of the fridge, she pulled a bowl from a nearby cabinet and mixed the aforementioned ingredients into an albeit thin batch. Placing a pan on the stovetop, she flicked the heater up to halfway and dumped the concoction in. Sprinkling a bit of salt and pepper in, she prodded and blended the eggs in the pan, a delicious smell wafting through the air. Using a plastic spatula to finish up, she retrieved two plates and put generous portions of the scrambled eggs on each one, leaving a small amount just in case-
“Hey, give that to Ember. She needs it for school.”
Cassie winced. Nope, it didn’t look like she was going to be eating this time either. Her stomach grumbled as she scooped the remainder of the eggs onto another plate, doomed to go cold. She could go ask Ember to come down… but then she’d be yelled at for distracting the third most important person in the house. Alternatively, she could simply let the eggs cool and then get yelled at later for ruining Ember’s breakfast. A long time ago, her and Ember had been best friends and supportive sisters and even went camping together, but then something had changed and their relationship started to fall apart until she called Ember a monster and ended up in the room in the basement.
Cassie put her head in her hands, half-hiding behind the marble-topped counter. What I wouldn’t give for them all to just… spontaneously combust.
It was an amusing mental image, if nothing else, and she would have laughed if she’d gotten the opportunity. The kitchen was full of dangerous things, accidents could happen. Her mind suddenly presented her a thousand scenarios on how to kill them, how to turn cleaning chemicals in the drawers into death, how to...
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Cassie shook her head.
No. Be normal. Don’t act out.
She considered the sharp knife collection of her mother. The black handle of the largest knife on the rack called to her, and she couldn’t deny herself the pleasure of reaching for it. While the attention of the Wardsworths was to their breakfast, she grabbed one of the knives, holding it close to her chest, thinking about the things she could do with a knife...
“Ember! My dear! You’ll be late for school!” Mrs. Wardsworth suddenly called out, making Cassie twitch, the sharp knife cutting into her hand.
She winced, turning further away, trying to hide behind the counter, her fingers automatically drawing bloody marks onto the surface of the knife, her mind spinning with angry, knife-related thoughts that tilted and careened out of her control.
Lazy footsteps resounded on the stairwell, and Cassie subtly shoved the knife into her shirt. She really, really didn’t want to deal with her sister right now.
She rushed out of the kitchen, without so much as being acknowledged by the Wardsworths, her hand still bleeding profusely. She grabbed her school bag off a plastic hook in the front entrance, spun the front door handle open and emerged outside, snapping the door shut behind her. Blue sky with a few clouds greeted her.
The neighbours that were out on a morning walk and getting their mail were staring at her, judging her erratic motions.
She leaned against the dark, cold, wooden surface of the door, her fingers rapidly scratching numbers into the wood, dripping blood.
I’m not scared. I’m strong. I’m strong.
Cassie tried to still her sudden panic attack. It wasn’t working. The houses of suburbia, the sky, the trees, the neighbours they all seemed small to her, the perspective of her vision twisted into a fisheye, stretched out as panic clawed at her chest. The neighboring houses looked like they stood far too close together, as if they were completely lacking driveways or streets leading to them.
She slid down onto the concrete steps, her fingers scratching numbers into the steps. She was losing control of herself, losing coherence as reality seemed fake, hollow.
She looked at the sign [8 Primrose Drive] on the mailbox and the letters began to vibrate in her eyes. She realized that she was crying.
“I can do this,” she whispered, unable to hold back the tears, unable to stop her hands from writing with her blood onto the concrete step.
How long would it take for Ember to eat breakfast? How long would it take for her to come out here? The school bus is coming. She heard footsteps behind the door. Cassie shoved the panic attack down and disconnected herself from the steps.
She boarded the bus as soon as it stopped in front of the driveway, tripping on the metal steps as her visual perspective of things vibrated in and out.
Turning behind her, she saw that the front door opened up, and an orange-haired, golden eyed eighteen year old stepped out. As if on cue, the world became slightly brighter, likely a cloud passing overhead, heading away from Primrose Drive. She tried to move, but found herself too dizzy.
“Aww… did you cut your little hand?” Ember observed, quickly catching up.
Cassie glared.
“Is your ticky-tick acting up again?” Ember pointed out Cassie’s rapid finger motions.
The driver gave her a look of disapproval as Cassie left a bloody hand print on the step. She clambered onto the schoolbus, heading to the back, hoping to disappear there, hoping to be unnoticed. Eyes of the other kids tracked her progress, heads turning, nasty remarks already sounding here and there. Someone had extended a foot into her path. Unable to stop her momentum, she face-planted into the rubber floor mat.
Her right hand proceeded to write numbers into the floor of the bus on its own accord. She gripped her disobedient hand with her left one, trying to stop the tic, as Ember and her friends laughed mercilessly, pointing out Cassie's inability to do so.
She tried to progress forward. It was difficult. The other students, cheered on by popular kids, spearheaded by Ember, kept tripping, nudging, shoving or outright kicking her. Tears formed in her eyes as her hand wrote numbers into every surface that she gripped, slowly making her way back to the back of the bus.
She ignored the insults, finally sitting down at the back row, all alone.
“Good morning, mister Driver! How’s things? How’s the wife? Hey guys!” An all too cheerful voice of Ember twinkled.
An endless exchange of fake compliments followed. Cassie turned away, trying to tune out the rapid, obnoxiously loud conversation of the popular kids. She looked at the street through the grimy, back window of the bus.
There was a man there, standing in the middle of the road. A long, gray coat hung rather poorly over a tall frame. Round spectacles glinted in the sunlight beneath a wide brimmed hat, as he simply stood there, smiling widely, staring right at her.
"What’s Inspector Gadget doing out in the suburbs? Is he here to solve crimes?" Cassie commented, feeling that the biggest crime in town was being perpetrated against her.
“Or, is he more of a Judge Doom archetype?” She pursed her lips. “Is he here to buy himself an election to make more roads? Centralia already has too many roads, and not enough Toon towns. Would be nice if he demolished my school though.”
Cassie frowned. Thinking about school made her sad. She had no friends there, only enemies or people who ignored her. It was mostly Ember’s fault too. Her sister managed to somehow turn everyone against her after they stopped being friends. People always listened to Ember and never took Cassie’s side, no matter the evidence. She looked back at the detective in the coat as the bus rapidly accelerated away from the odd stranger.
The man didn’t seem like he belonged. Cassie had seen this neighborhood day in and out for what seemed like forever.
Out of place things simply didn’t occur in Centralia. Strangers didn’t show up. This was a concerning development.
As Cassie squinted at him she realized that he didn’t vibrate in her vision like the rest of the city, his figure wasn't streaked by the tears in her eyes.