kinda failed in the challenge, but i like what i created here.
The summer sun turned the sky a light pink as it sunk down into the ground. Its orange glow was fading, the day was ending. A playground stood deserted, with each swing standing still, and the slide completely empty of children. The playground was a favorite for children, with kids waiting in line to go down the slide every day, and the swings constantly moving from kids jumping on and off.
It seemed as if the park was completely deserted, but if one was willing to take a closer look, they would discover a girl was sitting quietly in the tunnel of a playground, watching the sun go down. She was about fourteen years old, with pretty brown hair, thick and straight, and down to her ribs. She never wore it up, always down, because she had no other way to wear it. She wore a pair of small blue shorts, with a thin white tank top.
She waited, quietly, for the sun to completely set. It was a routine for her by now, she knew what was expected. She had been staying on this playground for almost six weeks, as far as she could remember. As the sky got darker and darker, the girl closed her eyes to escape the worst part of the day. The period of time before the sun was completely gone, but it was dark. The period where it was dark, but not dark enough for the street lights to come on yet. The sun was still partially up, but the darkness still crept into all of the cracks while you weren’t looking. This was the part where the girl was scared the most. This was the time in which the girl really felt her situation creep into her mind and make a nest. This was the time in which the girl was afraid to be left alone, for fear that her imagination would take over her rational little mind.
So she closed her eyes, trying to block out all of the thoughts that threatened her. She knew that if she could make it through tonight, make it through this rotation of the terrifying darkness, that she would make it through another night. She would just have to wait until the lights came on. Until then, she had time to kill. Time to distract herself. What could she think about? Certainly not about her situation.
She was a seven-year-old girl, so young, and out on her own. She had left her home at about two months ago, and had been living at the playground ever since. She had left because her stepfather had been beating her. Every single night, he had been hitting her, abusing her, calling her names. And her mother just pretended not to notice. ‘He’s just kidding.’ She’d say. ‘He’s a tough love kind of guy.’ She’d say. She had tried to reason with her mother, tried to convince her of what was going on. But her mother chose to believe him instead. The man who had treated her so cruelly, who had ruined things. That in itself was enough, but it had been one specific moment that had finally pushed the girl to leave.
The moment that she saw her mother take a hit from her stepfather. He took the palm of his hand and slapped her across the face. She had looked stunned, but it was only a matter of seconds before she snapped the stunned look off of her face, and continued to clean the dishes like nothing had happened. That was the moment that the girl knew. This wasn’t the first time that her mother had been hit by her stepfather, she could tell. And she knew that no matter what she did, her mother would keep choosing her stepfather, would keep running back to him like a puppy will run unknowingly to its master, with only loyalty, and no second thoughts. This was the moment that the girl decided she had to leave. Her mother was stupid enough to believe her stepfather’s empty promises, that much was clear. But the girl was smarter. She knew that her stepfather was always going to be a cruel man, and that unless she left, he would always be her master.
So she took matters into her own hands. She packed a bag that night, kissed her mother goodnight one last time, and snuck out of the tiny rancher that had been her home. She didn’t look back while she ran away, knowing that if she did, she would have second thoughts. And she could not afford for that to happen. She needed to get out, and needed it to happen now. She had run until she felt safe, at the small playground that was so busy every day. It had a large tunnel, coverage from the weather, a large water fountain for plenty of water, and a 7-11 nearby. The girl had taken $250 from her stepfather’s wallet the night she ran away, figuring that it would keep her fed and clothed until she was able to make a permanent plan. But now she was down to her last twenty dollars, and she didn’t know what she was going to do. The money would last her two, maybe three more days. And she still had not thought of a plan.
So no, she could not think of her situation. It would just make her feel more worried, and that would force her into a panic that was difficult to get out of.
The first time the girl had had a panic attack had happened the second night she spent on the playground. She had been so exhausted on the first night that she had just drifted quickly into a dreamless sleep. She had woken up the next morning, very early, and noticed a minivan parking in the lot. It was then that she realized that she had to hide. She had to find a better, more secluded place in which she could stay until all of the kids went home for the night and she could resume living in the tunnel. She searched the playground, but found nothing. Finally, she found a place, behind a group of pine trees that was off to the side of the playground. The playground and parking lot were within sight, and so she sat and waited. She was afraid to leave the area with the trees, and so she didn’t have a drink or anything to eat at all that day.
As soon as everyone left, she went back to her place in the tunnel, and attempted to sleep. But sleeping was out of the question. She hadn’t eaten or drank all day, and her growling stomach was keeping her awake. She opened her eyes, and as soon as she did this, she knew it was a mistake. The darkness was all around her. There was no way of telling what was behind every tree, or what was hiding in every tiny spot of the playground. She started to breathe silently, and eventually started taking small quick breaths, because her pulse was racing. She could not seem to quiet it. She looked around and around and around again at every corner of the playground that she could see.
It wasn’t long until she started picturing her stepfather sitting somewhere in the darkness, just waiting to jump out and grab her. She started to shiver, even though it was an unusually warm night, and the air felt sticky around her. He wasn’t here; he couldn’t be here. He couldn’t be lurking in the darkness that was threatening to swallow her up. He couldn’t be smiling at her fear, just waiting for her eyes to close, so that he would seize the opportunity and jump out and grab her. The very thought of seeing him again, when she had left so that she could forever escape him, was enough to keep her from sleeping, or even blinking. She tried to stare at all directions at once, but soon found that it was impossible.
She finally decided to move her gaze around and around, making sure that there were no open spaces in which he could sneak up on her. As her imagination was able to get more and more of a grip on her reality, she began to become more and more afraid. She was trembling, and her eyes were wide. She wished to be back at home in her bed, finding out that the entire thing had been a dream, and that her mother had kicked her stepfather out of the house. She began to feel dizzy, and nauseous, and at one point she actually felt like throwing up. But she didn’t. She sat in the silence, waiting for her stepfather to show up. And things got more and more scary, and she panicked more and more, until finally the dawn came. She had never been happier to see the sun in her entire life. And she moved from the tunnel over to the trees, she wondered how she was going to make it through the next night.
She pushed the thoughts of her first panic attack out of her head. There had been others, but she vowed that there would not be any more if she could help it. She immediately closed her eyes tighter, shoving all mental pictures of her stepfather out of her head. Thinking of him would just make this time of the day much worse than it already was.
It hadn’t always been this way. She hadn’t always been trying to squeeze him out of her thoughts, as far away from her as possible. She used to like him. He was nice to her, and he gave her presents. She loved to listen to him talk; his voice was so deep and melodic. He used to tell her stories, about when he was a little boy. She used to think that she loved him. She used to believe that he was her actual father, that the man who had been her father was just an imposter, that her stepfather had been the one for her all along. When her mother and stepfather had gotten married, it had been one of the happiest days of her life. She had dreamed of how different, and wonderful her life was going to be.
Things were great for the first two months of the marriage. Then, they were okay. His temper flared a little, but it was controllable, and he always apologized after he yelled. Then he stopped apologizing. Then he started to yell more, and louder. He stopped telling his stories. He stopped smiling, altogether, as much as she could see. Things continued to get worse and worse, until finally, he had started to beat her. And the girl hated it, but she took it, because she dreamed of better days. She prayed every night that sometime soon, things would get better. But the moment that she discovered that her mother was too cowardly to recognize that things needed to change, the girl realized that wishing on a star, praying for someone to step up and rescue her, was never going to work. If she was to have a future, one that was tangible, in her own hands, she knew that she would have to get out.
And now, here she was. Waiting in the darkness for the street lights to turn on. She had taken things into her own hands, and where had she gotten? Living on a playground, trying with all her might not to think? How could that possibly be what she wanted? She didn’t know. She didn’t know how she was supposed to get from where she was to where she wanted to be. She didn’t even know how she had made it this long so far. She had been taking it a day at a time. She had been living as though she was waiting for something. But for what? What was she waiting for? Someone to come rescue her? That was exactly the reason she had left her home, because she knew that nobody was going to rescue her. She had to rescue herself. And here she was, supposedly rescuing herself, but really falling into the same patterns she had tried to get out of.
She suddenly realized that she was almost exactly where she had originally started. Except for the fact that her bruises were healing, not getting worse by the night, she was back into square one, and she had been completely oblivious of it the entire time.
She decided to make a pact with herself. A pact that would only be recognized by her own mind and the darkness that threatened to envelop it. She promised herself that, starting tomorrow morning, she was going to leave. She was going to find a place, a school, a home. She would take matters into her own hands. She had completely missed school for the past six weeks, but she had always been a good student. So getting into school wouldn’t really be a problem.
As her plan began to take shape, she thought of something. It made her stomach drop. Money. Where was she going to go, how was she going to get there, and once she was there, how was she supposed to stay, when she had less than thirty dollars to her name? As she continued to think about it, she couldn’t seem to find a solution. There was nothing she could think of, besides stealing, and she had never been very good at that.
She thought about how the plan would never work, and she began to cry. It started as a few tears that made their way down her face. She let them fall, and didn’t bother to wipe them off. Then they started to come faster. She started to cry harder, the more she thought about it. She began to sob, bending down to press her head to her knees. She felt pain, actual, physical pain that came from deep inside her. Her stomach hurt, she couldn’t control the tears that fell, and she sucked in large breaths. She had never felt so alone. No one was there to tell her she was okay; no one was there to sit with her as she cried for the life she had been deprived of. And there was no solution within reach. She cried for herself, she cried for her mother, and she cried because she didn’t know what was going to happen to her.
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