Zoey rounded the corner of the staircase. Her dad was sitting on the couch, perusing Netflix, and eating a piece of pizza. “Hey, Zoey! What do you think of this one?” The cover was some guy holding two guns posing in front of some explosions.
“Looks good, Dad.” Zoey smiled as she grabbed a piece of pizza. She sat down and leaned up against him. It had been a while since they’d had the chance to make fun of an awful action movie together.
Two hours of explosions later, the credits began to roll. She looked up at her dad for a second. He looked away quickly, but Zoey couldn’t help but notice the remnants of the worried frown that he hadn’t had a chance to wipe from his face. She sighed. She couldn’t bother him with any of this. He had so much to worry about as is. It’s not like she was worth being worried about anyway. She looked up at her dad; “That was really fun, thank you!” A wobbly smile was all she could produce to follow this up.
Her dad rose from his seat “Alright, I’ve gotta go to work now. I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon?”
“Sure thing, dad.” She hugged him, and he kissed her forehead. For a moment, she felt belonging. As he went out the door, that moment passed.
Once he had left Zoey went upstairs to finish a bit of homework before crashing. She found that she felt better if she was just either busy or sleeping. Once she had finished her homework, she got ready for bed. After she got in bed, she realized that her strategy has failed her, as she wasn’t tired.
She thought about everything that happened today. She wished and wished for something to change. She didn’t know if she could take another day. She pressed her face into her pillow, and a few tears soaked into it before she nodded off. Eventually, she managed to fall asleep.
Zoey woke up, rubbed the crust out of her eyes, and got out of bed. She scratched her arm, but it felt crusty. She rubbed the rest of her arm, and it felt much the same. Now that she noticed it, most of her body felt like that.
She turned on the lights, and looked down at her arms. Zoey had been expecting some kind of rash, but her arms were covered in some kind of crystal. She ran over to the mirror, and found the rest of her body was coated in the crystal.
Zoey tried to pick some of it off, but it took some skin off with it. After a moment, the wound began to burn. Looking at her skin, she began to panic. What if she couldn’t get it off before school? Did she need to go to a doctor? It’s not like her family could even afford a doctor.
Zoey ran over to the sink, and began to try to wash it off. At first, it didn’t seem to be working, but once the hot water kicked in, the crystals started to melt away. Her wound stung, but anything was worth it to get rid of whatever this was. She got in the shower, and after a few minutes, the crystals were gone.
Once she was clean, her panic subsided, but she still felt uneasy not knowing. She tried to look it up on her phone while she got ready. All she could find was salt crystals forming from sweat after running. In the end, she decided to hope she wouldn’t die and ignore the issue. It’s not like she had the time to be worrying about it anyways. She was already almost late for another day in hell as is.
Zoey got her stuff together, and ran out to meet the bus just as it pulled up. As usual, nobody talked to her, and she didn’t talk to anybody. She did, however, manage to get a little bit of homework done. Unfortunately, the bus did eventually arrive at school, so she had to get off with everyone else.
She tried her best to just stay with the crowd, so hopefully she wouldn’t get singled out. After a few minutes, she felt something wrap around her foot, and she crashed to the ground.
She looked up and saw Jessica standing over her. “Hey, we didn’t get to finish our fun yesterday. So-” In a blur, Jessica raised her foot, and Zoey raised her hand out of reflex. Something flew out of her hand and into Jessica’s face, and she began to scream. “Ow! My eyes!”
Zoey wasn’t quite sure what had happened, but she didn’t intend to stick around and ask questions. She looked around to see if anyone had noticed, and of course everyone had. They seemed to be gravitating towards Jessica though, but for some reason Mr. Henderson was staring at Zoey. She had a feeling that her day was about to get worse.
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Well, sorry for the delay, it was inevitable for me to mess up the scheduling at some point. Hope you enjoy
CJAWorks 