Chapter Text
CHAPTER 1
To be frank.. I hate my life.
And it hates me back… And honestly so does everyone else in this sad little excuse for a world..
So is this where it ends?.. Is this the point of my self destruction..
You're so naïve..
Why did you go out of your way to help..? To help a complete stranger no less..
What- did you see yourself in them?
What a joke you are.
Blood trickles down the nape of your head as you struggle with the fine line of consciousness, a very fine line that just happened to snap.
Darkness enveloped you, the nausea you felt previously just intensified by like ten fold..
Great huh..
The swathing of your awareness continues, though it wasn't fast. It drags. Slow. Agonizing.
The concrete beneath you feels like sandpaper against your skin. As if that wasn’t enough, your body curls around the very real, very miserable slight certainty that you’re about to throw up.
What a pleasant sensation.
Why did they think it was you? Why is this happening.. WHY is THIS HAPPENING!?
IT WASN'T YOU.. though they seem to think otherwise.. I thought it was innocent until proven guilty???
Which to be perfectly clear, you are.
The memory of knocking yourself out cold, feels distant now. Icy And to your joy when you wake you there's a gun in your hand… and a shirt that indeed wasn't yours or there before, someone else’s blood was soaking through it.
As the moment the shock wears off—
You are being bashed into the ground along with the cold metal bites into your wrists, cuffs snapping shut around your hands that have already stained red.
But honestly.. The police are biased here..
You lay face first in the cement reminiscing, still half-conscious. thinking about how these very kind officers definitely didn’t force your face into the curb earlier, and in fact they definitely aren't the reason the crown of your heading is bleeding.
Or the fact that you tried to help this poor girl from getting shot up..
What a nice neighbourhood, right?
No—it’s just the hood.
And this is what you get for being poor.
Not like you had much of a choice anyway. Jobless. A minor. Too weak from getting beaten down, again and again.
You're stuffed into the police car and taken away…
You arrive in your new cell room and future home!
The damp cell was—well—obviously cold. The orange-and-white rags they’d given you hung stiff against your skin. You’re pretty sure they’d been worn before; the countless washed-out bloodstains made that clear enough. You scan the empty cell with quiet disgust.
Was that diarrhoea in the sink? You step closer before realizing you don’t need to. The smell reaches you first. ahh yes fresh diarrhoea… fresh……….
I'm going to assume that means to have an inmate then? Great.
You flop down onto the nearest bed. The mattress doesn’t sink—not even a little. It might as well be concrete wrapped in fabric. Still… you hate that a part of you thinks this is better.
Better than your old cell.
Better than home.
Back there, the walls had once been white—before damp plush lining and mold swallowed them whole. What remained was a sickening mix of deep red and brown. You remember lying on that awful mattress, abandoned on the floor with no frame, with just a single sheet..
A fitted sheet at that, the edges used to wrap around your feet giving you subpar heat.
Old withered teal curtains lined your barred window, though they were only lace.
The floor you often stared at for hours on end was a worn deep blue carpet, lining ripped away long forgotten.
When you were hungry, you bit your fingers to distract yourself.
And if you were lucky, your father would leave leftovers beside your frail, bloodied body—after he was done with you.
You learned to stay quiet.
To observe.
To disappear inside yourself.
Those beatings made you cautious. They taught you how to measure danger, how to avoid risks, and how to survive.
So why did you take one that day?
Why did you help that woman crossing the street?
Why did your already-fragile body give out—why did you have to trip, to fall, at the worst possible moment?
Why are you in jail instead of that murder.
