Abode Bound

This story has light reference to a death of a parent and distant caregivers.

The warnings for this story can, and likely will, update as it continues. If you are someone who has severe triggers or discomforts, you may want to check back here before reading newer sections.

You awaken, dappled sunlight stretching over you from between the strikingly low treetops. You lay upon the floodplain floor, listening to the creek flow and the trees creak in the wind, before sitting up and observing your surroundings.

The old peppertrees and river red-gums and bent and twisted from years of wind, and the old riverbed runs dry. It makes for a good, if rocky, path in the otherwise untouched floodplain.
Well, almost untouched. Even here, rubbish finds its unwanted home. An empty can of energy drink lays rusted on the opposite side of the bank.

The sunlight is long and orange hued - it must be nearly sunset. You're absolutely sure of this. Your impromptu midday nap must've morphed into a five-hour sleep. Heat radiates from your skin, reddened with sunburn despite your near-obsessive use of sunscreen.

You stand to leave, knowing your way back home like it's a part of you. It's in your blood, or somewhere deeper within. Your heart, perhaps.
You jump from the bank into the empty, shallow bed, and you walk towards north. A well-practiced path.

The floodplain grows darker, with more overhead coverage and less sunlight to flow through. Branches hang lower and lower the closer to home you get. Kookaburras laugh in the old cypress trees towering atop the cliffs - a sound that buries itself in your heart. It's the sound of home, and you're getting closer to it.

You step over the milky thistles, and duck under the branches of invasive willows. Annoying and unwelcome as they are, you can't help but feel a certain kinship with them.
Until you're stung by the thistles, that is. Then they can get fucked.

The closer to home you get, the more rubbish you stumble upon. Things that you couldn't pick up yourself, nor dispose of properly. Chunks of styrofoam and abandoned tyres are scattered haphazardly by anonymous criminals, left to disintegrate over the next few centuries. Rage and bile bubble in your chest as you walk past, helpless to do anything about it.
At least, not until you get yourself a ute. Then you could take them to the dump. But for now, you can only complain. And that you will.

The riverstone bed grows overgrown as your exit comes into view - a red-dirt ramp leading you up the shortest cliff section. You say goodbye to the peppertrees and willows as you leave.
Above lays the hilly grasslands you call home. It's a short dirt path walk from here to your house, the whole way surrounded by dried and brown grass. A symptom of the summer heat.

You make short work of the hill your house sits upon, a dull ache slowly growing in your legs as you walk.
Being the eyesore it is, you'd have to be walking blindfolded to miss it. A two-storey white monstrosity, with a veranda lining the bottom floor. Inherited by your big sister from your presumed-dead parents, who are lost at sea.

What an interesting life you lead.

You step inside the sterile white door.

Your name is Tina Watkins, and you are 16 years old. The only question on your mind right now is; What should you do, on this warm February evening?