Annie's Story

Chapter 1: Unanswered Questions

Quiver City was lit up by the luminous light of the full moon which had been much awaited by the citizens all year, on the peaceful night of 10th of September 2022. The famous Harvest moon. You might be wondering why it's called 'Harvest moon'.
Well, as it's name suggests, it is the full bright moon that appears when autumn is just right around the corner, our ancestors whom unlike us had no electricity used to yearn for this night for it allowed them to farm late into the night with the light that was not any less bright than the electricity we use today. The stars complemented the moon's radiance, each of them individually adding their bit of glow to the already glowing surroundings of Salvation Town. Silence filled the streets of this small town, Silence that felt all too loud- the deafening kind that makes you question whether on not you are alive. This was quite unusual for the town, as it had been known for its outlandish nightlife and strange noises in the middle of the night caused by its drunkards and thugs who lived only to cause nothing but mayhem. This night was different though, not even the hoot of a sleepless owl would disturb the slumber of the residents of the town. It was as if all creatures had planned this night to be one of the most harmonious nights known to mankind. There was not a cat wandering around aimlessly, nor a dog barking at god knows what, nor were there birds chirping cheerfully as they did all other nights- no! there wasn't even a single slug lazily sliding on the cool pavements of Demarkus St. The wind blew with such serenity carrying a sweet fragrance with it from the perfume store next to the Salvation Town Mall which was the biggest site for social events in the town, consisting of multiple departments such as: clothing centers, restaurants, video game stores and a public library which was frequented by multitudes of students each day. The scent had reached for miles and miles more beyond the playground on the other side of Demarkus St. where children often played on the metallic slides and rusty swings. The smell was a mixure of peaches, lavender and a tint of vanilla, to add to that was the smell of fresh air breezing through the streets whilst welcoming the rain that had been lingering in the atmosphere for some time adding to the pleasant aroma that roamed the town. The humongous trees that were planted nearby the primary school located adjacent to Hotel Demarkus stood still as always, however their branches jumped up and down gracefully while their leaves danced to the melodic music that is the wind. Swaying from one side to the other, the leaves started to let down tiny drops of fresh cool water which after a little while turned into a heavy rain that quenched the thirst of the surrounding plants (which hadn't seen this kind of nurture for quite some time). As the drops of delight fell onto the surfaces of the town such as the roofs and ground, it created the most soothing of sounds *drip* *drip* and a few thousand more drips. Occasionally, one or two leaves would announce their departure, however the remaining leaves would continue to sway in their gracefully uniform ways whilst bidding their fallen friend farewell. It was a safe night- safe and secure, all citizens of salvation town laid in their beds, under their covers with not a care in the world while they deeply drowsed off. All citizens but one............


*Pant* *pant* *pant* "Damnit! where are you when i fucking need you!??" yelled Annie with no consideration of the time, she sat in the darkness of the basement which had also happened to be her room. A filthy room, one that you'd think is used for storing old belongings rather than the bedroom of a young adult girl. The room's only source of light was a window located on the bottom left side of the wall where there hanged the framed picture of a woman, right next to the bicycles that leaned aganst the broad gray turned walls. The bright light reflected by the moon was not able to enter her room so she resorted to impatiently patting her mattress which laid on the cold, concrete ground amongst the busy bugs whilst getting more anxious by the second.
*tap* *tap* *tap* "I knew i should've just put it on the counter!" she screeched as though she didn't have an inner voice, *tap* *tap* *tap* and with the final *tap* : "FOUND IT!" She held the syringe high in the air like something from a children's film. The syringe in question is one that Annie had stolen the other day from the man that lived across the street, on a pitstachio narrow bench in the park near the chicken and chips shop which was where most kids liked to hang out after school as they munched on their spicy wings. He was a drug addict that had problems with all sorts of deadly substances: Cocaine, Heroin, Methamphetamine just to name a few; however Annie couldn't care less. She wasn't someone that was overly enthusiastic with self-care neither did she care about her progressively depleting health. The tip of the syringe's needle was stained with a strange brown-ish colour and the needle had become quite dull over time from all the unprofessional failed injection attempts by the homeless man and all the homeless men before him, which made it much more difficult to use. Now that she had found the infamous syringe she started searching in surroundings for something to tie her arm with (albeit she was but skin and bones so in reality a strong grip would be more than enough to send her veins flying), unwilling to put herself through all the tiresome trouble she had just done; she pulled out a knife that laid under her pillow, and ripped open the t-shirt (that initially belonged to her adoptive brother Marcus) starting from the chest region she let her blade swiftly make its way down until the slit had reached her navel. She started to tear apart the black colored cotton t-shirt piece by piece and shred by shred until she was left with the last string of cloth. She surrounded the cloth on her white and bony arm (which was bruised from all the failed needle insertions) she started tying the cloth until her already pale skin had turned bleached.
Unable to withstand the pressure, her malnutritioned arm threw out a purple blue-ish vein obediently awaiting to be injected by the untrustworthy needle. "Ahhh!" she said as the evil needle pierced into vulnerable vein, the initial insert sent a quick spike of pain down her spine, that was however soon enough replaced by the surging sensations of euphoria as she felt the poison flow through her veins amidts her blood. The hairs on her body stood tall as her brain released addicting amounts of dopamine. With her pupils now near-invisible, it was as though blood had been poured into her puffy yet slender eyes. The pounding of her chest had become near-absent, except for the occasionally faint *lub*........................... and *dub*. An unnatural smile formed from one corner of her crusty mouth to the other racing through her face so much so that her facial muscles couldn't catch up as Annie grew overwhelmed with the unbearable amounts of pleasure. A kind of pleasure that her demons had convinced her is only attainable through the usage of this drug -this drug which is heroin.


Annie lost control of her fragile body, her legs had become noodles, and her head weighed 50kg. She collapsed onto her small mattress with weight of 30 men, weight that could never be hers. She started rolling around like a child which had just feasted on pure sugar, except she had feasted on poison- heart racing, mind-deluding poison. "HAHAHAAAHA!!" The uncanny smile which had been slashed into her face was soon enough replaced by laughter; not a normal one though. The kind of laughter that frightens the ears of those unfortunate enough to hear it. She could make all the noise in the world for all she cared, no-one would hear her as long as she stayed in this cave-like basement. However, the ridiculous laughter had changed once more, this time into a grievious cry. Tears had made a home in Annie's slender eyes, tears that had been produced by such painful memories of occurences she tried so hard for so long to erase from her little mind. Yet not even her deadly trip away could manage to make her forget her traumatic past. Streaming their way down, her acidic tears burned every trace of skin they came in contact with. hoping to get her mind to stop replaying these unholy images, she threw her meatless bones onto the walls until her knuckles bled. With holes now in the walls, and skinless knuckles on both her hands, she pulled her body backwards as a child pulls back a spring, with all her force, arched her back, and released her heavy head into the flimsey wall. *SLAM!* *SLAM!* *SLAM!* *SLAM!* And with every slam her poor skull screamed out in desperation. However with heroin contaminating her mind and her being furious to the bone, Annie couldn't stop herself from lunging foward again *SLAM!* *SLAM!* *SLAM!* and once more *SLAM!*

Her mind was far from clear, it was clouded as the sky on a rainy day, for only an hour had passed since the time she had taken the lethal dosage, however Annie could fly amongst the birds and float with the wind much like a piece of paper (which comes as no surprise considering the amount of blood she had lost) and it was at this time she came to the realisation that this way of life was far from ideal. She had to change something. They say: 'find the root problem and then the solution will come' which is exactly what Annie did. Her root problem was obvious, more obvious than the toxin-filled veins in her transparent arms, what was left now? The solution....

She extended her searching fingers without a guiding light, as she tapped away in the darkness: *pat* *pat* *pat* *pat* *pat* *pat* *pat* *pat* and sunddenly the receptors in her palm had detected a new material: metal.
It was her Glock-19. She recieved it as a gift from her adoptive brother and bestfriend Marcus the day before when she had informed him of her plan. She picked it up from the old ping-pong table that sat in the middle of the basement and put it in her waistband. Annie stood bare-chested in the center of the room, and although the temperature of the basement itself was not horrendous, she had planned to travel in the rain. She threw on the coat that laid on the unwanted bicycles and a few seconds later the upper part of her nose started to tingle uncontrollably, "Aaaa"..."aaaaa"...."AAAACHOO!" The dust-filled coat however was a much better alternative for Annie than 12 sets of frozen ribs and an immune system infected with pathogens. Now with everything in order, she had one more thing to do:
she started heading over to the framed picture of the woman with her knees now getting weaker. Albeit she couldn't see her delicate face, she still kissed her hand and stroked it in the most loving fashion, "I- I'm s-sorry for everything mummy..". drying the tears that escaped the glands of her eyes, she then grabbed herself a bicycle, thrusted open the window and carefully crept out of it. Her small figure supported her very well, for she was able to fit into small places without any trouble. Her bare feet laid flat on the moist, dark green-ish grass and the dirt in the backyard filled themselves in between her toes, she icked at the feeling of wet dirt so tickling her feet, however this moment wasn't the time to complain about it. She double-checked if she had enough ammunition with her now that she was out in the bright light, hopped on her bike, and paddled away.

Her peaceful surroundings contrasted her incredibly conflicted mind. It was as though she was in her own little world, a frightening sad world. She paddled and paddled furiously rotating the wheels as fast her bare icy feet were able to. After the 30 minute travel, Annie had finally reached her desired destination. The Demarkus hotel was the only hotel in Salvation Town, it was a 16 story hotel with luxurious and comfortable furniture. One downside to this hotel however was that, because it didn't have much funding to make everything as perfect as required, its windows were made of annealed glass (which really isn't the best kind of glass). Nevertheless it was a site of great attraction to the extravagant that would not dare touch their sides on a normal bed in a normal hotel. The hotel was located near the Demarkus Primary School which was where all the kids in the neighbourhood from ages 6-11 years attended. Annie dumped her bicycle next to one of the trees that were planted near the school, and started making her way to the hotel. She knew this place inside out, she probably had even more knowledge of the place than the staff themselves. She knew everything from the history of the hotel to its ventilation system. She would frequently ditch school just to study all the different entrances and emergency exists and security this hotel had. She had even memorized the whole layout of the place!
She didn't care too much about being discreet with her plans as she started making her way down the alley way which was between the school and the hotel after flipping out a security camera, she then clutched on to a hand-size site between two bricks which she had known would be there the week before when she came to inspect the hotel. Although she was naturally a feeble and weak girl (not to mention how drowsy the drug must be making her feel) Annie carried and threw herself up, slowly climbing the side wall of the hotel all of her attention on carefully grabbing those sites, as she counted under her breath "one"......"two"......"three"......"four"......"five"......"six"......"seven"......"eight" she paused for a moment, now being half way up on a 16 story building. Her heart nearly leapt out of her chest as her eyes got blurrier by the altitude she had reached. However she shook her head and kept moving, she surely couldn't quit now! "nine".......andddd "TEN!" she lunged forward now facing the front of the wall, she crawled to first window, holding on to its frames with her heart stuck in her throat. As she got to the end of the 1st window's frames, she jumped to the 2nd hoping she would miraculously grab on its frames like the former; and miraculously enough she did! This was it. This was where he lived. 10th story, 2nd window to the left. She remembered how he stared at her from this exact window everyday after she came back from school, the picture of his face rose the previously calmed fury and not a second later her foot launched forward kicking the glass open and shattering it to pieces. Annie invited herself into the room and pointed her gun at the silhouette standing infront of her. A quivering voice trembled "Hello?? Who's the-" *BANG!* *BANG!* Two consecutive shots flew out of her pistol leaving a dense smoke in the room. The echoes of the pair of shots lasted for 5 whole seconds before Salvation Town returned to dead silence once more. Annie proceeded to squat down beside the deceased body and began running her fingers across the dark red floor trying to find see if she had acccomplished her lifelong goal. The room was as dark as the moonless night which was quite ironic considering the very much lively presence of the moon this night. "Ahh.... i love you dad" she said in an emotionless tone. A sigh of relief escaped her lips as she drew her now bloody fingers closer to her face and swept them clean with her tongue, one by one.

She jumped up from her squatted position with the widest grin on her face, walked towards the window, but turned around once more. She came back to the location where she had been squatted a few seconds ago, searched for the corpse of her late father and pulled her leg all the way into the air only to release it into his face. His bloody bullet-ridden face. Not once. Not twice. But twenty four times, with each stomp carrying more force and resentment than the one before.

Now- now that she had FINALLY gotten this off of her chest she felt light as ever, this night simply could not get better. She dived out of the window, head first and grabbed on to the sites where she'd normally grabbed on to. After her descendence Annie skipped across the street with her coat coloured red (which to her was worth more than gold) this was the bounty she seeked for all these years.
In the most nonchalant manner a murderer could ever have, Annie entered the phonebooth and dialed the digits: 9-1-1.

"911, what's your emergency?" a raspy voice coughed out from the phone.
Her teeth reflected the moon's glitter as she responded "I" *pause* "killed" *pause* "him".