Chapter Text
my world of wind
far and only for one
where time is on the run.
(The Thrill of Loneliness - Hana Stretton)
I don’t mind being on my own, I’ve gotten used to it by now, the quiet, the calm, being ignored most of the time. The only downside is that nobody even notices I’m there.
With a soft click the door unlocks and slides open, the smell of stale cigarettes and cheap air freshener (a weak attempt at a coverup) already polluting my senses.
Mum’s said she’d quit smoking before we moved to the US, but she clearly didn’t, and she clearly thinks I’m stupid because her el cheapo febreeze knockoff just makes the smell more obvious; in what world would our crappy 2 bedroom apartment in the shitty side of Queens -some kid at school called it The Hole? not sure what that’s about- smell like ‘pearls’ and fresh linen.
She’s not home, and she probably won’t be for a while, she’s had to pick up extra shifts because the rent is super high. Honestly I don’t think she likes it here, after my older brother died she packed the two of us up and shipped us halfway across the world to the United States. I think it was to avoid the memories, but they still seem to haunt her.
She’s not often home, and when she is she’s a shell of her old self; but still just as angry.
I step inside the apartment and shut the door, locking it again because I don’t trust the people down the hall, and because the door doesn’t stay shut if it’s not locked.
The only good thing I’ve found about American schools is that they don’t have uniforms, and the school I go to is really low-end so they don’t really give a shit about dress codes. Most people just wear pyjamas.
I leave my bag on the floor under a stool in the kitchen and get myself a glass of water, Mum’s written a note for me and left it on the counter.
out of milk, can you go get some? Cheers, Mum. xx
I’ll do that in a bit, I’m just going to shower and change first, maybe doomscroll for a bit, and then I’ll go out.
After drinking my water I go into the bathroom, strip, get the water running, and wait for it to heat up. It takes ages for the water to get warm in this shithole, and the water pressure feels like a sneeze. I actually hate it here so much.
Mum made me move, I had to leave my friends, my life, my culture and everything I ever knew just because she had some sort of midlife crisis-psychosis. If I knew my Dad I’d probably have begged to stay with him, but alas, I’m your standard bogan fatherless girl, just in a different country.
I step under the lukewarm drizzle of the shower, and try to imagine what my life would be like if I hadn’t moved. Probably a lot happier.
I don’t have any friends. The kids at school don’t know I exist, and all my friends from home live in a completely different time-zone, and have probably already forgotten I exist, because the US is like thirteen hours behind Australian time or some bullshit like that, so I have zero communication with them.
I don’t have any friends here. I had to change schools twice within my six months of being in the US. ‘Behavioural Issues.’
I’m not a bad kid. It’s not like I act out or anything. I hardly even speak in class, apparently that’s the problem. Now I’m going to this Midtown High school, It was the only one that would take me in the middle of the term, and I’m pretty sure the kids in my classes don’t even know I exist.
It’s not like I get bad grades or anything, I get pretty standard
I turn the hot water off and step out of the shower, wrapping myself in a towel and going to my room, where I change into a baggy pair of ripped jeans and a worn out grey Radiohead tour shirt and a white long sleeve underneath, it’s Autumn, or ‘fall’ here, and it gets really cold.
I grab my headphones and my bag, wallet and keys before heading out of the apartment and down the stairs.
It’s really cold, I wasn’t expecting it to get this cold this quickly, it’s only around 5:30PM, but I guess it is like mid-autumn, I just need to get used to the temperatures here.
Walking through the city alone is fine, there’s not many people in this area, but it’s not dark yet, so I don’t feel unsafe or anything.
It’s like a 20 minute walk to the nearest grocers, and I’m still a bit scared to take the subway, so I’ll just thug it out on foot.
I don’t think I have any homework, so I have a bunch of free time this arvo-evening, so I’m not too fussed about having to get milk.
As I’m walking a really flash looking Porsche 918 drives past me, and I literally stop in my tracks just to admire it. I’ve always been a bit of a car-head, Mum says that’s my dad’s genes, from what I’m told he was/is a mechanic, and he’s always been interested in cars. I’m not sure how I feel about being so similar to a guy I’ve never met. Mum says I have his black hair and his dimples, but I have her brown eyes and freckles. I don’t mind how I look. I don’t really like my freckles, my teeth are crooked and my hair is this weird mix of wavy and curly and I never really know how to style it, so I just straighten most of the time.
When I make it to the grocers it’s already shut, a polite, cursive closed sign taunting me for being slow and stupid. If I hadn’t spent so long in the shower I wouldn’t have been late. fuck. Mum’s gonna be so mad. “Frankie, I told you to get the milk, I work all day, and I come home and I ask only one thing of you! Are you that stupid? Is it that hard to go to the shop and buy milk? God, you’re just like your dad!”
It’s starting to get a bit darker now, street lamps are slowly turning on, but I still need to get the milk, so I pull out my phone and search for the nearest open shop; the closest one is a 30 minute walk and shuts in five. Gosh. I’m so stupid.
I slip my phone back into my pocket and let out a shaky sigh, my hands balling into and out of fists, trying to take deep breaths. It can’t be that bad. How mad can she get? Probably really mad. My eyes are watering and my throat feels stiff, here I am, crying in front of a closed grocery store, looking like an idiot.
Deep breaths. Most petrol stations sell milk, it’s just more expensive- that’s fine, I’ll be fine.
I pull out my phone a second time and look up the closest convenience store. I’ll just take the subway.
I’m not the most experienced subway-rider, but I used to take trains and busses all the time back home, so it can’t really be that different.
I wipe my eyes and nose and straighten myself back up. I don’t know the city that well, but I can spot an entrance to the subway easily; I mean c’mon, a hole in the ground with stairs leading down it, how hard is that to spot?
I only have to walk for about two kilometres until I find an entrance, It’s a bit off of the main streets but I’m sure that doesn’t mean anything. By now it’s dark but that doesn’t really matter because it’s relatively lit. I head down the gunky tiled stairs and find myself in a dingy, greenish brown hallway. The brown brick walls are lined with cobwebs and graffiti, it doesn’t seem like this is a very often used entrance, but I’m sure it’ll lead me to a train at some point.
I walk down a hallway that seems to go on for ages, twisting and turning, slightly greenish yellow lighting and the sickly smell of mildew protruding my senses as my shoes peel off tile sticky floor.
I’m starting to think this might not be the subway, just a maintenance tunnel or something when I finally reach an opening.
It’s wide, spacious, definitely no longer in use. It’s trashed, graffitied, run down and it smells like absolute shit. It’s almost completely dark, save for a few emergency exit lights and the spread of light painting the dirty ground seeping in from the gap under a maintenance door.
If it’s an abandoned subway why is the light on?
It’s probably just nothing but I’m way too nosy to leave it, so I move closer to check it out.
As I approach the door I can hear the sound of a radio, sounds mostly normal, like a news channel or something boring, but it’s too muffled for me to make out what it’s saying. I lean against the door with my ear pressed to it, trying to get a good listen, but it swings open and I fall over, and onto the wet tiles.
As I’m stumbling around, trying to pick myself up off the ground I see a bunch of rusted, foul smelling cages and sterile blue rubber shoes.
The radio turns off and leaves the room in silence as I manage to turn and face the wearer of the shoes, a tall, pale, slender man who looks like he hasn’t seen the sun in a decade, his skin seems like it’s plastic-y stretched too far over his bones which jut out all pointy, which just makes him look even scarier.
“You can’t be here.” He says in a strange, deep, accented voice, is it French? Russian? “How did you get in here?” Russian I think.
I’m just processing that he’s talking to me, and that I’m sitting in a puddle of shimmery hot pink liquid that makes my hands feel tingly, surrounded by rusted cages with patches of the same thing.
I try to stand up but my feet slip in the liquid and it gets all over my clothes.
The man looks angry and terrified at the same time, his big grey eyes bulging out of his cling-wrapped head.
Something screeches from outside the room, a shrill, high-pitched sound that makes me wince, the man doesn’t even react.
“Speak child.” He says again. “How did you get here?”
“I just- I was trying to find a train, I heard the radio and I got curious.” I say, still struggling and sliding around in the pink puddle.
“What is this place?”
“Nothing to you.” The man says, a mix of judgement and condescension in his tone.
After another spout of struggle I manage to pick myself up, wiping the gooey pink liquid off of my hands onto my jeans.
“What is this stuff?”
“Not your business.”
He’s helpful, isn’t he?
Now that I’m upright I can get a proper look at my surroundings. The room is much bigger than I thought, the rusted cages are just making up a sort of partition wall, and behind it are rows and rows of shelves, stacked with the same sort of cage, lit by bar lights on the ceiling that give it a murky yellow haze.
Behind the weird guy is a murky metal table, like the kind you see in a morgue in a horror movie. I’m really starting to think I shouldn’t be here.
With cautious steps I make my way to the door, and the man just scoffs, shaking his head as I walk out and shut it behind me.
I’m not sure what I’m planning and I’m not sure what’s going on, but I am sure that I should probably get out of here.
I find the entrance I came in through, and run down the old graffitied hallway, my lungs sting and my legs burn, and my vision is fuzzy.
I keep going because I want to get out of this weird ass place as quick as possible, and wash my hands because I have no clue what that pink stuff was- is, and I don’t want to know.
My heart starts pounding and I get that weird, shaky/dizzy feeling like I’m going to throw up, my vision is fuzzy and my hands are sticky and sweaty and I have no clue why. It’s hard to breathe, my lungs feel heavy, and so do my arms and legs, everything feels staticky and it’s hard to pick my feet off of the ground.
My vision is tunneling in and it’s hard to keep my eyes open. I finally reach the stairs when I lose my balance, and I can’t move any further. A shiver runs through me just before my legs give way and I black out.