It became routine, leaning on her balcony in her pastel-pink nightgown, gazing at the beauty of nighttime. Her shimmering grey eyes reflect the starry heavens, a thoughtful expression on her youthful features illuminated by the whimsical glow of starlight. Her sandy-blonde waves cascade down her back, resembling a waterfall of liquid gold.

The balcony is her escape, where she retreats from her parent's fighting and her elder brother's cigarette smoke. Perhaps once upon a time could she save them all from themselves, but that was when she had the power to do so. She lost that power moons ago, on the eve of her somethingth birthday. Her voice had turned brittle, and it shattered into minuscule specks, unusable to anyone.

It felt like years ago when that dreadful realization came to her, that she could no longer giggle or sing. She had cried for days, yet not even a wheeze could be heard coming from her cherry lips. She had become an observer from that day on, an observer of her own life.

Her eyes dart to the alleyway below, where she sees another child, this time a boy a little younger than herself disappear into an eerie, black vehicle. His cries are silent too. If it was up to her, she would say something, scream to her parents even, yet she couldn't, and he couldn't. The poor guy would just end up another news story leaving the adults wondering "What is happening to this world?".

Though not every bit of the stormy-eyed girl's reality was that bad. She had an ally, a buddy, a bestie, a friend. The girl didn't know her name, though, so she called her friend Penelope, after her favorite stuffed, purple elephant. If she truly thought about it, Penelope was indeed an elephant, afraid of mice and taller than their teacher.

Penelope was the main reason why she enjoyed going to school so much. They would exchange playful glances when the teacher's zipper was down, as well as challenge each other to a mean game of Chinese checkers at recess.

Taking a deep breath, she slowly opens the door to be greeted with the foul smell of rotting chicken meat and the even fouler sight of her parents charging each other with various kitchen utensils. Sighing, she breezily slides past their violent antics and past her eighteen year old brother's room where another pleasant aroma seeped through the crack under his door. A scent the small blonde would prefer not to think about.

Whereas the balcony is her sanctuary, her bedroom is her prison. Trapped by blank, bland walls with a blank, bland bed, and a blank bland desk. The whole room screamed gloom. If it was up to the girl, she would have a bold, different color on every wall. An electric aqua on the one above her bed, a hot pink on the closet's side, a lemon yellow next to her desk, and a lime green on the window wall. She would add Christmas lights to add more sparkle, and there was nothing that she wanted more than a real beanbag chair. But alas, in this world, you only get what you want if you ask for it, and that thought alone was enough to bring her mood even lower than it already was. Begrudgingly, she wiggles under the sheets of her meticulously made bed, her now dull, grey eyes staring at the blank ceiling above her. How she wished she had those sticky glow-in-the-dark stars above her bed to arrange in interesting patterns. She drifts to sleep thinking of constellations.

The next morning she wakes up to the sound of a distant scream, the sound of yet another crime she couldn't report. Her grey eyes meet the grey ceiling, morning teardrops involuntarily gathering in them. She wipes the crusty tears away with minimal effort, and she is greeted once again with that same blank ceiling. Sitting up, she gives a silent yawn before hopping on the grubby carpet of her bedroom.

A Monday. A day she would be expected to go to school and listen to adults try to teach them information about the world, but she can't help but wonder how could people so ignorant and violent even try to be informative. At least Penelope will be there, though. She glances at the old, nubby plush on her desk before finally closing her splintery door.

The sounds of snoring and the staticky local news on the television can be heard from the living room, her father sleeping on the couch once again. She knows to be quiet when he's sleeping, as he's a very grumpy riser, and won't hesitate to throw an empty pizza box in her direction.

She swiftly prepares a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to shove in a paper lunch-bag while listening to the choppy audio of a news anchor discussing wars and local shootings and kidnappings, as well as showing a series of disturbingly real images of various refugees and victims of violence. She felt her heart drop when she saw the picture of the young boy from last night as well, knowing that she could've saved him, if she had the power to.

Racing back to her room, she throws on a frumpy, puke-green sweater with a ratty old, black skirt, while tying her long blonde locks into a simple ponytail. Tied to a piece of red string, she grabs the brassy apartment key before running out the door to the dreary outside world.

The walk to the school wasn't too far away, but there are always oddballs and creeps lurking in shadowed alleyways, buying drugs or doing something illegal. Sometimes, she would have the occasional run in with someone who was desperate for money, however those were easy for her to wiggle out of.

Despite it all, the crisp morning air was refreshing, and the breeze was cool. She enjoyed observing the intricate pattern of dewdrops on windows of parked cars, and the pure, quiet solitude in which autumn mornings bring. Perpetually on mute can be both a blessing and a curse. Loudmouthed grown-ups never really take the time to enjoy the frost on street lamps, the pair of orange converse hanging from telephone poles, or even the scrappy alley cat with a missing eye digging through a trash heap.

For just one moment, everything seemed alright for the grey-eyed child, until those same stormy eyes narrow at the sight of two figures in the near distance with a suspicious amount of gasoline containers. Their flesh appeared a pale green, that of sickly people, and their teeth seemed to be slowly rotting away. One of them gestured to the distant elementary school like the grim reaper, and they slowly drift in that direction, their faces concealed by sinister masks.

She wish she had never seen it. She wished she could just briskly walk the other way, forgetting the masked strangers, who looked ready to kill. But Penelope was there, and the other children were there as well. There were kindergartners, children as young as three or four years old.

Taking a deep breath, the blonde girl leaps through an alleyway, a longer way to the school. Short breaths escape her mouth as her golden ponytail flies behind her, fear and desperation consuming her fierce eyes. Her dusty converse barely meet the broken pavement as she finally reaches the backdoor of the elementary school.

Her lithe arms throw the metal, prison-like door open with great force, as she continues bolting down the bare, tiled halls. She was late to class, no doubt, but the roaring in her ears and her pounding heart tell her to find somebody...anybody with a voice.

The school hallway is eerie, it's nauseating flickering lights cast a menacing glow on everything it touches, a perfect set for the future massacre no one knows about. Her heart beats like a hummingbird's as she feverishly searches for the principles office in the sudden maze of lockers that is her school. A primal instinct told her they were getting nearer with each moment wasted, their heavy black boots carrying them to the elementary school.

The halls seemed to twist and turn like tunnels in a wild rabbit's warren, and it felt like thousands of eternities had passed in such a short amount of time before finally finding the sad wooden door near the front entrance of the building with a faux gold plate reading: Principle Fufflebottom. Not-so-carefully opening the door, she sees the oily-skinned pink-faced man with his abnormally small nose in a cruddy magazine from several years ago.

Clapping her hands, the hog-like man drops his paper, performing an awkward series of attempted catches, but his coordination ultimately failing him. He looks back up at the youngster before him, and gives her an irritated glare before confronting her about missing class. She watches his many chins jiggle with each word spoken in his crude voice, his breath smelling of KFC.

His words are incomprehensible to the student, for her ears rang with panic, and she shakily points to the front door, nervous as to when the flames would begin to show. Perhaps this dreadful anticipation of doom was yet another joke the heavens are playing on her. Sadistic arsonists were just outside these walls dumping flammable gasses along the broken gravel, yet no one knew it.

In a last attempt to explain the dangerous situation, she stomps and tugs on his stained, plaid shirt. Fufflebottom yells once more, before his chubby hands smack hers away, his beady eyes giving her another fierce glare. It is when he pulls out a disciplinary note to have her parents sign do they smell the smoke.

Running into the hall, they see furious orange flames licking away the student's art on bulletin boards and ash slowly consuming the air. Silent yells and screams of terror remain unheard as the dreadful heat spreads throughout the school, the fire exposing the asbestos deep within the walls.

The girl hears various thuds through the school from people collapsing, Fufflebottom being one of them. Her hair glows a brilliant auburn and her eyes filled with fire and tears, charcoal smudges appearing on her doll-like face.

Biting her lip, she sinks to the ground, her hair tie snapping as her head gently lays on the ground. Smoke burns her lungs as the heat increases. Her hands quiver, but she remains looking up, that same whimsical look in her eye which only ever appeared when she could gaze at the stars. Perhaps she could join them in their shimmering splendor. Should this be her destiny, she accepts it. However, her eyes still water, but not from smoke. She can almost hear the ghost of a child's scream as she closes her stormy eyes.

If only they listened.