Chaos

I wake up twice in the night shaking, thinking the tall man from the forest has broken in my room to kill me. The second time I don't go back to sleep and just sit on the bed finishing my drawing. I look at it once again after I'm done to see what I missed when I realize that I forgot to add a cross to the British one's hand. Just as I finish up my door flies open again and I shut my pad quickly and look up, "Hey mom have you ever heard of knocking?"
She stands in the doorway with her hands on her hips, "Don't talk to me like that. And since you're up could you help your brother finish his assignment on the computer?"
I groan and roll off the bed shoving my feet into some uncomfortable flip flops, grab the internet cords from her hands, saunter out the door and yell from the other room, "He's not even awake yet!"
She replies, "I'll wake him up but can you start on his assignment because it's due today?!!!"
I roll my eyes so much I swear they're going to get stuck in the back of my head and yell, "Hell no! I'm not doing his work for him! I'll help him but he better get up!" I shuffle into the computer room and connect the cords while she yells back,
"Then just do the dishes while I get him up but get the computer ready!"
I shake my head, "No! I'll get the computer ready but I'm not doing any chores until after school! Just because I'm online doesn't mean that I don't need a full day of school!"
She doesn't reply, so I sit down and pull my phone off the charger to reply to any messages I have, which is none except for a guy named Liam that I met at a school get together. In the beginning of the year, middle of the year, and end my online school has a picnic or other type of outing to get the kids to know each other, which of course does not help if you only see the kids three times a year. Anyway, I met Liam at the first meeting when my brother was still in the online school and we went to this indoor trampoline place. He was there to give a talk to all the new students because he had graduated a couple years before and was getting paid to show up because he was now in college nearby on a basketball scholarship. He tried to get to know a couple of the seniors and I was one of them and we ended up talking for a while and he exchanged numbers with me and the rest of the group we were with. Since then, he texted me a couple times and when I finally replied we had a great conversation about how he liked the school and how I like it so I decided to keep in touch. Every couple weeks we talk about what's going on with each other and our goals, and it's really helped me get through some hard times knowing there's someone I can talk to. At first I was worried that he was just talking to me because he wanted to date or something because he's cute but really not my type, but he never flirted or tried anything so I told myself to stop getting such a big head and just be friends with him. Yesterday he replied with a long paragraph,
Liam: Yeah, I was going to go out with my friends today, but I'm still really sick and getting more and more behind in my HW. It's freaking terrible and I hate it and I'm just curled up on the couch watching TV and I banned my Cheryl from getting anywhere near me so I'm just a lonely couch potato lol I hope you're week is going much better than mine.
(Cheryl is his girlfriend)
Me: Aw I'm sorry, I hope you feel better! I'm just dealing with my family issues and things and I'm behind on HW too so it's okay haha btw I'm pretty much always a lonely couch potato
My mom walks in the room with my brother, finally, and I put my phone down and start helping him with his homework. Afterwards she takes him to school and when she gets back she agrees to let me have my day of schoolwork that *shhhh* I'm probably going to spend watching movies and eating instead.
I march her to the bathroom where she trims my hair until its even, cries over how short it is, and informs me that she decided she's going to spend the day at her friend's house . I jump in the shower as soon as she's gone and wash my hair until most of the dye is faded away. I slowly get out of the shower and rub my hair until the rest of the dye is on my towel instead of my hair while I stumble into my cold room to grab clothes. Once I'm dressed I lay on my bed with my wet hair braided, as much as I can with so little, and stare at the uneven, cottage cheese ceiling, studying it. All of the sudden a face appears in the front of my mind, seemingly made of the little bumps on the ceiling. I see the face of the boy that was screaming, all bloodied and distraught.
I shake my head to dislodge the image and immediately stand up and rush to the computer to look up the murders in the area. I find that they were all found with a single bullet hole in the center of their foreheads. The man with the raspy voice flashes through my mind and I remember that he was pointing the gun at the center of the boy's forehead. I look around behind me at the sheer white curtains covering the wide sliding windows in the front of the house and wait for a shadow of the man with the gun to appear behind the curtain, but he never shows. There's no question in my mind that the man with the cross tattoo is responsible for all those murders, and that makes me ten times more scared than before, especially with the fact that I stabbed him. Although, I kind of wonder what happened after he made it back to his "gang" with his arm bleeding, I'm still processing the fact that I actually stabbed him, my little old knife actually went into his arm and saved me.... I can't believe..
My mind keeps nagging that its strange that he's religious considering he's a murderer, but I guess there are all kinds of people in the world. I feel so lost with no one to tell and there's nothing I can do about it but hide. Frustrated I decide to write it all down and angrily flip open my journal before spending the rest of the day desperately trying to distract myself with mindless TV shows.
When my mother comes come home I'm sprawled across the couch with my laptop on a chair and she looks at me like I'm a failure in life. My brother runs by her to get on the other computer before he's told to do his homework. She asks, "Elqenna what are your plans for next year? You're only getting older and you can't just sit at home forever."
I slowly bring my eyes up to meet hers, the past couple days flashing through my mind, "Why do you always ask about the future? Why don't you ask what I want to do right now? Who knows, maybe I'll be dead this time next year."
She gives me that disappointed look again and replies, "Don't say that!"and walks away to go make dinner, most likely having already forgotten our entire exchange.

I know this is really short and nothing really happens, but I needed a filler. Please vote and leave feedback! Thanks for reading <3

Notes