The Ghost Town

Chapter Six

TW: Fighting, refusal to eat, depression, implied Dissociative Identity Disorder, mentions of addiction, panic attack, potentially upsetting content.
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Ellie hadn't left her bed in days.

She was just too sad. She couldn't make herself get up, no matter how hard she tried. She felt too sad. She just couldn't make herself get out of bed and she was done trying. It didn't work, so why even bother trying.

She wasn't eating very much either. She couldn't stomach much. She'd just end up merely picking at her food and then pushing it aside, promising that she would eat it later, but later never came. Of course it didn't. Why would it. She just wasn't hungry. She wasn't going to force herself to eat.

Maybe she should, but she wasn't going to. She wasn't going to force herself to do something that she didn't want to do. She just didn't see the point of doing that.

She was tired. Tired of Pip's drinking. Tired of Aurora's smoking. Tired of Tia constantly waking up screaming. Tired of Veronica trying to constantly make sure she was healthy. Tired of Lozza trying to make her eat. Tired of Tayce crying over Aurora, tired of Joe seemingly being off in another world.

"Ellie. You need to get up." Lozza spoke. Of course it was Lozza. No one else cared so much for Ellie. It had to have been Lozza. Who else cared so deeply for her throughout her life. Her and Lozza were friends long before they came to this ghost town.

"Go away, Lozza. I'm trying to sleep." Ellie whined. She would say more, but she couldn't. She was too tired and she was too sad. She didn't want to talk. She hated talking. She hated that she couldn't be Dirty Diamond. She felt better when she was Dirty Diamond.

"No. You need to get up and you need to eat." Lawrence spoke. This time it was Lawrence, not Lozza. Lozza was soft and quiet. Lawrence was rough and loud. It's funny how a nickname can mean so much. Or maybe Lozza and Lawrence were the same after all.

"I said go away, Lozza." Ellie repeated. She repeated her words as if it would change Lozza's mind. It probably wouldn't, but it was worth a shot nonetheless. That was Ellie's philosophy on life and the world. "It would be worth a shot" applied to many things. Not all, mind you.

"Ellie, get up." Lozza was getting irritated. Lozza never got mad. Not with Ellie. Why were they mad now? That didn't make any sense. Ellie just wanted to be left alone, why didn't Lozza understand that? It wasn't hard to understand. She just wanted to be left by herself.

"I said go away!" Ellie snapped. She never snapped. Not at Lozza. But now she did. And she immediately felt horrible. But she wasn't going to back down. She couldn't back down. If she backed down now, it'd mean Lawrence had won the argument, and Ellie was too prideful to lose.

Ellie wanted to be alone. There was nothing wrong with that. Ellie just wanted to be by herself and she didn't want to be bothered. She couldn't get up. She didn't want to. She couldn't get up and she wasn't going to make herself do something she just couldn't do.

Ellie didn't want to eat anything either. She simply wasn't hungry. There was nothing wrong with that, people just aren't hungry sometimes. It's natural. Sometimes you just aren't hungry. But Ellie also knew that she hadn't been hungry in a couple of days. And she knew that was not normal.

She also just didn't feel like herself. Pip had hurt her. She slapped her and made her cry. She didn't want to cry and she wished Pip would just apologize but that was wishful thinking and she knew that was wishful thinking. She hated it. She wanted to be happy.

Ellie just didn't feel happy. She didn't feel like herself. But not in the way that she feels when she's Dirty Diamond. She called this version of herself "Ell" because in this state, she was only halfway to being Ellie. It didn't make much sense to others, but it did to her.