Prologue

The door creaked open with a loud screech as the girl stumbled inside, keys still in her hand. The studio apartment was illuminated by a few strands of tangled string lights hanging around each section or "room," and unlit candles that had been melted down long ago still surrounded each one of them.

Irena switched on the big light and slung her backpack off her shoulders, preparing for a loud thunk as it collapsed on the carpet. And for a few moments, she simply stood and took in the view of her so-called home.

There were clothes scattered all over the floor, along with random cd's, paper, books, money, and wrappers. Walking through proved to be a minor struggle, as litter often seen within parts of her city's streets collected in the corners of her own house. And around her ankle. Although Irena had nearly managed to kill her sense of smell entirely, the house reeked so strongly that some of it still managed to be processed through her nose.

"Bedroom" in Irena's house translated to a dirty mattress lying on the floor because she had never found the motivation to find a frame along with it. It sat next to a bookshelf full of CD's and drawings and music that nearly looked like it would break down due to the crushing weight of all that garbage. The knitted chestnut blanket lay there in the corner of the mattress, unused because of the sticky heatwave. Next to that was another blanket, but this time smaller. Much smaller, and pink, and worn down from nearly two decades of use. She had that blanket ever since she was a baby. And here she was, close enough to a grown adult, still holding on to that pathetic piece of cloth like she had never aged past five.

Despite all this filth and garbage, Irena had managed to add some warmth to it. She had sometimes found happiness in decorating the filth with string lights, ribbons, fake roses, wreaths, and many similar things so when she walked in, she could have some type of comfort. In reality, it was just a way of making her grave enjoyable. Instead of cleaning up the place and doing her best to get ahold of herself, it was much easier to make the existing problems pretty. 

At the moment the decorations didn't do much for Irena, but today most things did nothing for her, whether good or bad. So instead of thinking about it, she walked over to the fridge to start her usual routine for this hour. 

What will dinner be today? She wondered. Her usual three options were some type of tea, the whole fridge shoved down her throat uncontrollably, or sleep. Irena had option two a few days ago so that wouldn't be available for quite a while, but then again, it was never purposely available in the first place.

She opened the fridge and scanned across the shelves as cans of diet soda smashed against pickle jars, vodka, and energy drinks, then came face to face with the only remaining food in her fridge - two slices of cake and an apple. It was just another reminder of option two's consequences, and promptly the reason she was not going to buy any more. 

It had nothing to do with money. Irena was not lacking in funds for food, but more of the healthy behavior she ended up combating with more unhealthy behavior. 

Irena stood for a few more minutes listening to the low buzz of the fridge and practically burning her eyes into the bright blue light that emerged from it. The rain she was previously unaware of pierced into the roof of her apartment like little rock bullets, like sand scattering across her ceiling. The rest of her home was alive and awake but she couldn't tear her eyes from the fridge because she was slowly disassociating again.

In the end, she ended up shutting the door, collapsing on her bed, and deciding on the option of sleep for tonight's special. 

The house was only lit up by a few of her string lights and the silence was deafening. She lay on her bed, eyes wide open, blanket clenched in her hand. The house was still. Any noise, no matter how loud, seemed to be amplified by ten. She was aware of her chest breathing up and down, and she could feel her heart thumping underneath her blanket. Things felt surreal; dreamlike. Irena was too numb to feel lonely and hopeless but her head was aware that things were not happy. Her only friend was an ugly pink blanket she had probably s**t on once or twice when she was a baby, and she laid here in misery like a drunk old man at the end of his life despite being a twenty-something-year-old girl with a lot ahead of her. She was an infant when it came to experiencing adulthood; she had only left her parent's house a year or two ago. 

She had gone through periods of time like this before, especially through her teenage years, so this was still not rock bottom. What was rock bottom? She had periods of happiness but in the big picture, it seemed things were steadily declining.

She had no answer to that question.

Irena rolled around to face the pile of failed drawings, writings, and various sheets of music chords and notes accumulating on the floor. There was a pencil right next to them. For a moment, she sat up and gripped the pencil and a fresh sheet of paper with the intent of truly creating something. Something to possibly end this numbness, or at least express it. If numbness was even possible to express.

But the moment she put her pencil to paper a part of her brain screamed at her. Her problems couldn't be valid if she had the motivation to express them. And did she even have problems in the first place? She couldn't feel anything.

It wasn't even practical. It would be more useful to get up and really do something.

Irena then put down her pencil and closed her eyes instead. It was a happy medium. There was no impractical, useless art but there was no practical work either. There was simply nothing.

She laid in silence once again, hoping to fall into a deep slumber soon enough to end this day. She turned the lights off, covered her body in a blanket despite the uncomfortable overheating, and curled up in a fetal position, as if it would convince her body she had never left that place. She could pretend she was no longer "here". She was...absent of being.

Peace.