MF1.0 - 57 - Home Again

Stef watched as Dorian’s train came and went, her own arrived a few minutes later. The carriage she stepped onto had half a dozen other occupants, a couple only interested in each other, three half-asleep men in team colours and a man with lank black hair staring out the window.

She stepped off the train a few minutes later and walked up past all of the reconstruction, flashed the ticket to the guard and walked out onto the street.

They Valley was a lot safer than it had been a decade ago, but somehow, the fear associated with it had clung like a bad smell.

The walk to her apartment took a few minutes longer than it usually did, as she kept pausing every few minutes to make sure everything that had happened was still real.

By the time she got to the main door of the building, her pockets were full of small required trinkets.

She instinctively patted her pockets, looking for a key that wasn’t there.

The door opened anyway. ‘Welcome home. Forget your key again?’ Mr Jenkins, the landlord, asked.

She brushed the hair back from her face. ‘Yeah…’

He smiled. ‘Come on in Stephanie, I’ll loan you a master. Just pop it back into the mailbox as always. Speaking of which, your rent is…’

Suddenly, the realisation that she’d been gone for more than a week hit her. ‘Oh right,’ she fumbled with her pockets again, requiring just enough to cover the rent. ‘Here, sorry, I was…out.’

‘So long as you’re safe, I don’t like the idea of trying to rent that apartment again.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Yeah, rent you charge, it’d be on the market for a whole eight seconds before it got taken again.’

He stared at the notes in his hand. ‘I could always put it up.’

‘I didn’t mean, I-’

He handed her a key. ‘Leave full sentences for someone who needs them to understand.’

‘Night,’ she said as she made her way up the stairs. She didn’t bother the mailbox – the only time she kept an eye on it was when she had ordered something, the rest of her bills were paid electronically, so the paper was only the unnecessary murder of trees. Probably evil trees though.

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">The stink was the first thing to hit her when she opened the door. Rotting garbage and mouldy food. She dropped the bag to the floor and slammed the door. ‘Great…’

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">Require: make my damn apartment clean.

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">The smell remained.

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">‘Some magic power you are.’

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">She flicked on the light.

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">The complete destruction that lay at her feet became more important than the smell.

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">There was graffiti on the walls, the couch had been ripped apart, its stuffing strewn around. There were broken jars of sauce and pasta on the carpet, there were muddy boot prints all over the cream carpet and the rug.

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">The curtains covering the glass door the balcony had been torn down. Someone had broken the screen of the television. There was still a small hatchet in the DVD player.

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">She took an experimental step forward. Her fridge was open, its contents all over the floor. Cabinet doors were off their hinges. Spices and herbs coated the floor along with the rotting food.

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">Stepping over the broken remnants of her life, she made her way to the bedroom. The bed had been upturned, her few boxes of possessions had been torn apart. Her clothes were piled onto the floor.

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">Her computers were missing.

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">The black curtain that hid the sunlight so well was gone. As was her secret stash of chocolate-covered coffee beans.

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">The bathroom was flooded, the shampoo and soap covered the floor.

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">She slumped against the wall and slid down onto one of the only remaining patches of carpet, staring at the piles of clothing. Up until this point, she had been aware of how much clothing she actually owned.

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">She knew the “who” - Solstice. She knew the “how” – the balcony door was open, and it was possible to get in from the outside, this she knew for sure. It was the “why” that escaped her.

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">She had very few things that meant anything to her. Photos of her parents counted for very little – and most of them could be replaced with a few phone calls and minor bribes. She had no…

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">‘Alexandria…’ the word tumbled from her mouth before the thought finished itself.

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">She pushed herself up and ran back into the lounge room. The bookcase where she usually sat, appraising the world with one ice-blue eye and faded red hair, was upturned. She pushed it aside, onto the corpse of the DVD player and found most of her CDs and DVDs missing – they were easily replaceable.

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">A small glass vase that she’s bought as a place to store marbles – as proof that she really hadn’t lost hers – was broken.

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">Alexandria lay face down, crushed into the carpet.

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">She crouched and gently picked the doll up, wincing as she heard small pieces of the head drop back to the ground. One hand was nothing but ceramic dust, the other was almost complete. She swallowed and turned the doll over.

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">Alexandria’s head had been broken for years now, but the half face she’d had for a decade was better than the ruins of the one she had now.

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">Only a small piece of the face remained, and as she lifted her, the last blue eye fell away, and rolled onto the floor.

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">Moisture slipped from her eyes, and she fell back against the wall, on top of broken disc cases and vase fragments.