So... I'm really nervous. Just, terrified that you guys are going to hate it. Am I regretting my choice to do this? Yes. Am I going to do it anyway and face my fear? ... Yes? Enjoy...

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I woke up to the annoying sound of my alarm. God, I need to remember to keep my phone closer. I rolled out of bed and stumbled towards my dresser before picking my phone up and turning that infernal noise off. The clock on my phone read 8:04. And I was supposed to meet Triston and Addison at La Fleur. Triston's mum owned the place.

I quickly got changed, tucking my beige button up shirt into my black shorts and tying up my black martin docs. I ran downstairs and took my "edgy leather jacket" according to Addison, and my mask and put them on. I slung my purse over my shoulder and just as I turned to leave, I saw Jade. AKA, the worst sister in the world.

"Where do you think you're going?" She asked folding her arms. "Remember what happened last time you went out?"

Yes, how could I forget, I thought. The last time I went out was a week ago. To put it simply, a guy from my school got way to close for comfort and I broke his arm. But he put his hands a little too low on my hips for it to not be assault, so it was well deserved.

"I'm just going to meet Tris and Addy at La Fleur," I explained. "I promise I won't break any bones."

Jade gave me a look.

"Fine," I sighed in annoyance, "I won't break any bones that aren't mine."

Jade rolled her eyes and mumbled something under her breath that I couldn't hear. She had complained about how boys seemed to gravitate towards me. I assumed it was because of my reputation. Problem was that relationships aren't my thing. I'm sure some day someone will sweep me off my feet, but that wasn't happening any time soon. So, she'll just have to deal with watching me turn down every single person that shows interest.

I went into the office to see my parents packing up their things for work. They were both lawyers, it was actually how they met. They were working a case against each other and hit it off according to Samara. Samara is Dad's little sister. She worked in manufacturing, apparently it was a family business and Dad broke his parent's hearts when he went to law school. Strange dynamic, I know, but there's the Fickle family for you. Strange.

"Hi sweetheart," Mum said, "are you going out?"

"Yeah," I replied with a smile. "I'm going to see Tris and Addy."

Dad groaned. "I don't like that Triston kid."

"You're just saying that because he's a boy," I said.

"Yeah actually," Dad replied, "that's exactly why I'm saying that. Because boys are nothing but trouble."

Mum quickly intervened, sensing the start of a fight that I definitely would have won. "Come on, we have work."

My parents kissed me goodbye and then they were gone. Sometimes it was difficult to get along with my parents. They just didn't understand what it was like to be a kid anymore. Or at least not kids of this century.

My phone beeped and I smiled at the message. It was from Triston. 'Are you gonna make it to La Fleur or are we going to have to sneak you out?' It was ridiculous. I asked them to help sneak me out one time and it stuck. But Jade had invited her boyfriend Terrance over and I didn't want to walk past that. Terrance and his family had moved to the Heathridge area of Perth. Jade was crying over missing Terrance for months. To say it was annoying was an understatement.

I shot a text back saying that I was on my way and left. The walk to La Fleur wasn't too bad. It was located in a shopping centre nearby. I really just had to cross the street and walk in between two of the houses to reach it. Perth was like that. No matter where you lived there always seemed to be at least two parks a walking distance from your house and a shopping centre a short trip away. Although, I had never seen much of the outskirt bush areas. I'm guessing there aren't as many park's and shops there.

I walked up to the café and admired the décor. It was an old building made of cedar with flowers in front of the windows. Inside was decorated in a similar way. Little plant pots in the centre of each table. The name La Fleur really suited it.

I wormed my way through the café, sitting down once I spotted my friends and sat on the opposite side of the table to them.

"Hello," I greeted, before noticing Addison's hair. "What did you do?"

"I dyed it," Addison said, shaking her head to make the purple hair fly around. "Aren't I hot?"

Triston chuckled. "Come on Flo, it's just a colour."

"But–" I furrowed my brows, "she looked nice with black hair."

I could never understand the need to dye your hair, whether it was greying or not. Addison's black hair had complimented her dark skin and brown eyes nicely. The purple looked decent, I'll admit that much, but it looked better black. I suppose it wasn't my place to critique her choices though.

"I can do whatever I want with my hair," Addison argued. "And I think I look sexy."

Triston's eyes wrinkled smiled at her with something in his eyes that wasn't normal for friends. It was then that I noticed they were holding hands. For some reason that stung.

"Oh my God!" I exclaimed in fake excitement. "You two are together?"

Triston and Addison's eyes creased in joy.

"Yeah," Addison looked down, "we wanted you here to tell you."

"That's great," I smiled brightly, and they bought it. Guess they forgot about the promise we made as six-year-olds. It was stupid, I know, but I never figured that I'd become the third wheel. Romance just seemed kind of like a waste of time to me. I'm sure there are plenty of girls with the same opinion, I had just always figured Addison was one of them. "You two belong together."

"Yeah," Triston was probably smiling. "Apparently we're both blind as bats when it comes to people being interested."

He wasn't wrong there.

We continued talking about all sorts of things before getting up to leave. We got outside and I turned to see a grown man drop an oily wrapper onto the grass. Overwhelmed with rage a quickly walked over and picked his rubbish up.

"Hey!" I exclaimed. "You dropped this!"

The man turned and laughed at me. "So what?"

"So what?" I mocked. "It's called littering."

He rolled his eyes. "What are you going to do about it little girl?"

"Put it in the bin," I demanded.

"You're already holding it," he said, annoyance evident in his voice, "you put it in the bin."

The bubble of anger that had been building popped and I grabbed him by the head and stuffed the wrapper into his mouth. I then kicked him in the shin, and he fell on the ground before pulling the rubbish out of his mouth, a look of disgust painting his face.

"Looks like you're holding it now," I smiled and walked back to Triston and Addison who stood and shook their heads.

"You're scary, you know," Triston said.

"I didn't know such a small person could hold so much anger," Addison said. "How do you have enough room for all of your other emotions?"

"I don't," I chimed in. "I replaced love with rage."

We laughed and started walking around aimlessly, just talking about plans for school. We were going to be year tens, how exciting is that? We'll finally be part of the senior club!

My phone rang and I pulled it out. It was my Dad. I pressed the green button and held it up to my ear.

"Hi Dad," I greeted with a smile he couldn't see. "What's this about?"

"Does this phone belong to your Father?" A stranger's voice asked.

"Yes?" I replied in a questioning tone. "Why do you have my Dad's phone?"

At this Triston and Addison started to make gestures in an attempt to ask what they were saying, although it just made them look ridiculous.

"I heard two people screaming and found this phone on the ground," the stranger explained, and my heart dropped.

"W-What?" I stammered as my eyes began to water.

"The screens cracked, and it was on," the stranger was talking fast, "I clicked the person at the top of the contacts list."

"Did something happen to my parents?" I demanded.

Triston and Addison started waving their arms around like crazy, but I paid little attention to them.

"I've called triple zero on my phone –"

"I don't care!" I exclaimed as a tear trailed down my cheek. "Just tell me! Are my parents okay!?"

There was a long pause before the stranger answered. "No, I – I don't think so."

And after that, everything went to Hell.

Addison and Triston were worried sick about what had happened, but before I even considered telling them I had to get home. I began sprinting through the buildings and weaving my way around pedestrians with Addison and Triston not far behind, calling out my name.

"Flora!" Addison yelled. "What happened!? Who was it on the phone!?"

The wind against my face pushed my blonde hair behind me and helped dry out my eyes from the tears that tried to escape.

"Flora, where are you going!?" Triston called out.

I wouldn't have noticed that I had used a rock to jump onto a bin, going from bin to bin behind one of the buildings if it weren't for the crash landing after jumping off. I rolled onto the ground, grazed my shins, and left wrist, but quickly got up and continued to run. I didn't bother looking back, I could hear from how quiet their voices had gotten that I was far ahead of Triston and Addison.

I made a sharp turn once I reached the alley and only then; did I start to slow down and notice the stinging sensation in all of my scratches. Although, it turned out they weren't all just scratches. I looked down to see beads of blood forming on my bright pink shins. I checked my arm and saw that a layer of flesh from my wrist had been scratched off and blood already began to drip down my fingers.

I waited there for a moment as the pure adrenaline I had been running on drained from my body and I felt the sheer pain of my impact. I'd have to wash up and mummify myself after telling Jade about everything.

After a few minutes of leaning against a corrugated fence, I stood up and began limping home. I looked down and saw a few drops of blood from my wrist and cursed under my breath before sucking it in upon hitting my shin against a branch. That was a problem when it came to alley's in Perth. You're guaranteed that there are holes in the fencing and that the garden of the houses with reach into your path.

I pulled my leg away from the shrubbery, clawing its way into the alley and stepped over the branches that reached for any innocent dog walkers or joggers' legs.

I breathed in heavily and the tears the wind had blown away started to form again. As I practiced in my head how I might explain to Jade that our parents were gone it set in that we wouldn't get to see them before going back to school. Granted, we'd had the first week off because of COVID-19, but we'd have to go back to school regardless next week. We probably wouldn't even get to see them within a few months if all past Australian missing cases were anything to go by.

I avoided the bees crowding around the flower bush crawling over the fence. I had never been stung before, but I knew from Jade that it "hurt like surprise injection from a really big needle without anything to help with the pain" to quote her. And I planned on not getting that experience added to my list of injuries I already had to take care of.

The smell of my own blood filled my nostrils and I cringed as I felt drops from my wrist land on my legs. The last time I had anything even close to that bad was when I got into a fight with a girl at school. Apparently, her boyfriend was checking me out and she took a swing. I tried to settle things civilly, but she wouldn't stop coming at me. Of course, teachers only showed up after I began winning the fight and I got in trouble while she got nothing, despite the clear bruising on my face, scratches that weren't even that bad, on my arms and giant scab on my leg. Although I guess she did have a broken nose and bleeding elbows.

So, distracted by everything, I forgot to check both ways before crossing the road and only noticed a car was coming when it honked its' horn. I didn't have the time or energy to run across the road, so instead I dived out of the way and rolled onto my back with a groan. I lightly brushed the small rocks out of my scabs and dusted off the new scratches on the back of my right thigh and right palm. There was no blood, but they still stung like Hell. Today was just not my day.

As I limped all the way up my driveway, I noticed the stinging on my forehead and – surprise, surprise – there was a small scratch there too. By the time I managed to get inside there was just about not a single part of my body that didn't have a layer of skin removed. No matter how small that layer.

I used the staircase railing as support while trying to climb up the stairs without falling down them and possibly hurting anything else. Lucky for me, I successfully managed to climb the steps and limped towards Jade's bedroom door. I rapped on the door and called out her name before hearing a series of sounds, indicating she fell off something and struggled to her feet before opening the door.

"Hey Flo," she greeted, brushing her brunette hair out of her face, "I thought you were going to La Fleur?"

It took a moment, but she eventually saw my scratches and tears.

"Oh dear," she said under her breath. "What happened to you?"

"Mum and Dad are gone," I breathed out. "Someone took them, I got a call and got here as fast as I could. Obviously, I hit a few road bumps."

"Mum and Dad are, what?" Jade started to form tears of her own.

"Missing," I broke down and fell into Jade's arms. We had never really hugged before, but nonetheless she wrapped her arms around me and began to sob into my head. We stayed like that until we both dried up and Jade helped me into the bathroom.

She got a large bowl from the kitchen and filled it with water before adding in some salt. She got out two cloths and offered one to me, before we both soaked them in the salty water and went to clean up my scratches and scabs – which had started to drip as well. I hissed as the cold liquid hit my flesh, but we continued to clean.

"Seriously Flo," Jade said as she rinsed out her cloth, "you should be in the Guinness World Record book for most injuries in one day."

I chuckled at that. "I could get a telethon for severe lack of coordination."

Jade laughed.

Once we finished cleaning any dirt or germs out, we bandaged up my wrist and shins before putting a band-aid on my forehead. What can I say, mummified.

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Hi, so, it's set in Australia, so anything that seems different to what you're used to might just be because of that. I typed this into word first, and I set the page size to that of a page in a novel and added a header and footer. In total it rounds up to ten pages, which is slightly less than the average size of a chapter, which is a dozen pages. So, this is around 2500 words, so if you want to make an accurately sized chapter, shoot for that. No suggestions this time. But please comment your thoughts and vote. Thank you!

      - Turtlefreakakw2 <3