Chapter One

It started, it all started, with one stupid mistake. A rookie mistake that people warn young girls about when they move to the city. Do not, under any circumstances, ever get involved. But, she had gotten involved, and that was the beginning.

 

Melissa had been having a bad day already. Her boss yelled at her for something that hadn’t been her fault because, once again, he’d mistaken her for the other young brunette woman that worked for him. Melissa and Hannah were interchangeable in his eyes, he couldn’t be bothered to work out which one was the party girl and which one was the one that worked hard. They were the same person.

 

Then, because of course trouble likes trouble, her boyfriend of four years, Ben, decided that he wanted to see other people. She knew that he suddenly publicly wanted this because he’d already privately done it. She wasn’t even hurt by it. In fact, all she really felt was apathy. She knew that he’d been sleeping around and now it was clear that the other girl wanted more or she was pregnant or something. She didn’t much care that she’d lost him but she did find it convenient that he decided this the day before rent was due.

 

She should have remembered that problems always come in threes. Always. That’s how these things go. Why the number three, she always wondered, but she never knew. She should have been more on her guard, then, when she walked from the bus stop to her apartment, her feet and lower back aching, the sweat trickling down her spine, and longing for a nice shower before eating ice cream, when she saw the young woman. She shouldn’t have stopped. She should have been like the other people on the sidewalk walking passed her without a second glance.

 

Thinking about it later, she wasn’t sure why she had stopped. There were plenty of homeless people in St Petersburg, Florida. That was the benefit and drawback to living in a place that never froze. Out of self-preservation, she had started to put the blinders up. Humans are amazingly bad at empathy. Empathy helps when, as cavemen hundreds of thousands of years ago, we wanted to catch a mammoth, but self-preservation helps more when the mammoths are gone and all you’ve caught that day was a rabbit. So, it was then, so it is today.

 

Maybe it was because the girl was, just that, a girl. She looked younger than herself. And she wasn’t begging. She was slumped over, her dyed green hair a matted mess of what had once been curls, now dirty and faded, fell in her pale face. Her hands flung out before her in utter helplessness. Melissa walked by her, then stopped a little ways away, turned and looked again. It started to anger her that others were walking passed this girl, just as she had done, and no one helped.

 

She remembered in her psychology class the case of the woman in New York that had been raped. What was it called? When someone needs help in a large city, people assume that someone else will deal with it. After all, the feeling is, there are a lot of people around.

 

Melissa had been shocked and disgusted that people would do that while in class and yet, she was sure now, she’d gotten out of class and walked by three or four people with their hands out on the way home. She’d walked by this girl, too. Guilt and also raging indignation, that another girl like herself would have fallen and no one cared even to talk to her, made her walk back to her.

 

“Are you okay?” she asked.

 

The girl didn’t respond. No doubt she wasn’t aware that she was talking to her. Melissa knelt beside her and touched her arm. It was cool, almost cold, which was strange considering the Florida heat. It was summer and no one was cool in the summer unless they’d just come from the ice-box stores. She lived in a semi-residential neighborhood where the first buildings on the main street were businesses, but the closest ones to where they were now was a psychic and a man that painted signs. Somehow, she was certain that this woman hadn’t just been in either building.

 

“Hon, are you okay?” she asked. She looked uncertainly at the girl and finally, feeling slightly foolish, knelt in front of her. “Can you hear me?”

 

Slowly, the girl’s head came up and she looked at Melissa. Melissa was shocked for a second and then turned away, realizing that she was staring open mouthed at the girl. There was something - strange about her. She couldn’t put her finger on it but in the instant that she looked at her there had been something unsettling. Her world had tipped slightly and she knew, in that instant, that things were going to get strange.

 

“Ahhna aahkay?” the girl asked.

 

Melissa frowned and shook her head. The girl had a high, clear voice, and there was an intelligence behind it, she wasn’t just speaking babble, but she sounded like a toddler repeating sounds but not yet words.

 

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Do you need help?” Melissa asked.

 

The girl’s head tilted to the side, curious now.

 

“Aahm rroy aahdoon unnassn. Duuneehl?”

 

The girl was clearly mimicking her. Melissa didn’t know what to do. She looked around at the other people that were walking by but now it seemed as if both of them were invisible. She was at a loss. She couldn’t leave the girl now but what else was she going to do?

 

Suddenly, the girl grabbed her arm with both of her hands and started talking rapidly. She seemed to have something very important to say but it was clear that she didn’t have the words. What she did say, in a language that was more clicks and whorls, infinitely more complicated than English, was instantly recognizable as a plea, a desperate plea, for help.

 

Melissa wondered what she’d gotten herself into.

Reviews

[OT]

I really like your writing style, the descriptive sentences are familiar to me haha content wise - what a bad day!! A strong solid story, and I am pretty hooked I must say, I want to read on so a great way to open this! What a strange girl! I want to know her story, and why she is in this state of disarray!!

A few tiny grammatical things which you'll spot when reading through it, but very well written, with great use of language!! you could perhaps omit a pronoun here and there - for example - "Why the number three, she always wondered, but she never knew" would read the same without the second "she". Also the fourth paragraph reads a little confusing, which you can easily rearrange to get the point across - as it kind of jumps from a description to "when she saw her" - but no doubt this was done in the rush of inspiration.

The rest is pretty much perfect, I didn't see anything that stood out, and your descriptions are so insightful (the mammoth one in particular). A great start to the story here Kimberly!! I shall be reading on!!

[Cynthia]

wow! A Attractive starting of the story!!! You have make it really interesting, and I promise I will read the whole book! Keep on writing! Also, I think the girl is so mystery, really, what was she talking about? It makes me remember of my baby brother but the girl is more creepy!