The harsh February weather clung to the small girl’s skin as she hopped into the back of the car with some difficulty.
It was time for the pair to move into their new abode, being unable to pay the rent of their previous, bigger, house now that one of the main breadwinners had disappeared from their family.
Sitting next to her, the black figure stared towards Chloe, never taking its eyes off the small girl.
Noticing it’s gaze, Chloe looked towards the figure, finding some form of comfort in the figure who hadn’t change like her mother had, despite its unnatural appearance.
Everything the black shape had said was true. Plus, her recent dreams hadn’t been that bad, usually consisting of climbing up that tower and freefalling down towards the ground.
She’d somewhat grown accustomed to the freefall.
It was a pleasant feeling; being one with the wind and rain as one falls to their death.
The four-seater slowed down as it entered the parking lot of a rundown block of apartments. The cars that were stored here were different from their car.
Rusty, broken down vehicles littered the parking lot, most of them not even parked correctly within the faint, dried out white parking bay lines.
The apartment block was comprised up of five main buildings, each nine stories high with 13 rooms on each level, making up a total of 585 apartments available to be rented. The buildings were arranged in a U shape with two buildings on the left and right and one building in the top middle, the parking lot located in the centre of the buildings.
On the sides of most of the apartment blocks were brightly coloured graffiti, hastily put together-tags, swear words and murals splayed across the weathered concrete.
One such mural caught Chloe’s attention. It displayed a darkly enshrouded horned figure free falling from the bright skies above into a fiery hell.
“A si…nner, fa…l…len fr…om und…ese…rved g…race.” The figure who sat to her left cackled as it stared out of the window with intrigue.
Chloe’s eyes focused on a small figure that was currently tagging the graffiti she had been looking at, the red aspirator covering their mouth, a loose black outfit covering their whole body.
Noticing the car approaching, the slim figure glanced over to her car, panicking after seeing Chloe’s gaze.
Scrambling to finish up the tag, the black figure snatched up their supplies and scuttled away.
The middle-aged woman had rented an apartment in Building 2, floor 5, room 6, located towards the northwest of the compound. The only thing distinguishing their apartment from the others was the graffiti that had just been finished up moments ago adorning the back wall of the apartment.
A short alarm sounded as a car door was opened, followed closely by the sound of another car door opening.
Stepping out of the four-seater, Chloe looked at her surroundings. The building in front of her was very tall, wide and a worn grey colour. Not much decorated the front of the building apart from posters on the ground level and a few lockers of which mail would be deposited in.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“Let’s go.” spoke the woman, an expression full of scorn plastered across her countenance as she walked towards the second main building of the complex. The young girl nodded in response before hastily following the taller of the two.
Chloe soon found out how tough it was to match the pace of the older woman for her legs were too short and thus was very much out of breath by the time she arrived before the door of her apartment.
The older woman gave Chloe a harsh side eye for making her wait before fumbling around in her handbag, pausing after locating a pair of keys which she slotted in the locked door before twisting to open it.
The door stiffly creaked open, revealing a small apartment consisting of a living room merged with a kitchen, two bedrooms and a bathroom located directly opposite the entrance at the end of the corridor which connected the lounge and bedrooms.
Worn crème coloured wallpaper had been splayed all over the walls, peeling at the sides, giving the small girl a queasy feeling within her stomach. Walking into her room, she placed a singular black rose upon the bed stand.
It had adorned her funeral attire, the small girl growing to like the small little thing over the few hours that she had worn it.
Compared to her old room, this one was half the size and only had five pieces of furniture within the room.
A single bed which could store things under the mattress, a small bed stand, a wardrobe and a wooden table fitted with a small chair.
There was barely any space between her bed and the oversized wardrobe, a small window positioned opposite the door enabling a quaint view of the city.
Sitting on the bumpy mattress, she looked down towards her arms, smaller than they once had been.
The small girl had been eating much less than she used to, simply because the older woman had stopped cooking for her, apart from dinner.
However, even then, the older woman would sometimes “forget” to cook two portions, leaving the smaller child hungry.
Entering the bathroom, the orange haired girl pushed a stool under her legs and stared at her unkempt countenance.
Her facial bones hung to the skin of her face, dark bags below her eyes evidence that she was not getting enough sleep.
Orange orbs stared at one and another before flicking over to the dark shadow behind her.
There it stood, as usual. Flickering in and out of existence, sometimes appearing in different areas of the room as if it had teleported.
For the past week, the dark shadow had been relatively calm, not making many shallow remarks and just observing the orange haired girl’s actions, as if it were slyly planning something, waiting for its time to strike.
Exiting the bathroom, she found herself standing before the older orange haired woman.
Sharp eyes slashed into the small girl as Chloe shrivelled under her gaze.
“If only you hadn’t existed. Trash.” The older woman spat, kicking the girl in her stomach, sending her to the floor in a fit of disgust before she sucked her teeth and entered her room.
Waves of pain assaulted Chloe, who struggled to get up from the floor. The black figure aided her by pulling Chloe up.
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The same crimson tower, neon green rain and monolithic obsidian eyes in an endless black sky.
Whilst on top of the tower, the black figure spoke with some semblance of fluency.
“Wouldn’t yo..u like it i..f you could f…eel like thi..s i..n real lif.ee~?” it queried, sitting next to Chloe on the edge of the tower.
Orange orbs met an obsidian pair before staring down towards the city below.
“Freedom like I’m falling? I… I wish I could be useful. Not… trash… Why did I have to be born?” Chloe solemnly questioned, now looking up to the pair of eyes, back against the damp metallic roof, the cold spreading into her body.
Her eyes drooped down as a few beads of tears combined with the rain, mixing in with the crimson roof.
“Then jump~, jump!” it giggled in response, as if it’d been waiting to hear those words come from her mouth.
Chloe looked towards the city below and nodded in response.
“If I did this in real life… I wonder if it’d feel even better?” she mumbled, scratching her left arm whilst reminiscing of the ecstatic feeling, as if she had begun to suffer from some withdrawal effects of the pleasurable adrenaline.
“It wou..ld~~ Would!!” it reassured in a happy high pitched voice, making the small girl wonder how much it could warp its own voice.
Standing upright on the roof, Chloe took a few steps back from the edge before dashing straight towards it and jumping off the tower.
The adrenaline coursing through her veins, the feeling of the cold water hitting her body as she plummeted to the ground, the whistling wind hastily passing by her.
“Ah…..”
“This is the best.”