The Ghost Town

Chapter Nine

TW: Panic attack, issues with food intake, fainting, potentially upsetting content
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Tia tried to brush her hair and tried to take care of herself. She wished Ellie would do the same, but she wasn't going to worry about that right now. She had to worry about herself first. But it was getting really hard.

Tia didn't feel very well. Not in a sick way, in a mental way. She hated how she felt, but she also felt unwell in a sick way. She could barely keep herself awake and standing. She was so tired and she didn't know why. She was sleeping fine lately.

Maybe it was constantly being on edge. Walking on eggshells so Pip didn't get upset at her. That may have been it. Tia didn't like it very much. Sometimes she wondered if Pip hated her, but she had hope that wasn't true. She had to have hope. She knew that.

Tia tried to brush her hair, it was all ratty and unkempt. All the traveling took so much time that she didn't have any time left to care for herself. That made her feel really bad. She wanted to take care of herself and she knew that she had to.

She tried her best to stay calm, but she wasn't sure if it was working very well. She had no reason to be upset, but she was. Really upset. And she didn't want to be upset anymore. She hated feeling upset, she never knew how to get out of it.

She looked at herself in the mirror. Her mind was becoming a jumbled mess of negative thoughts about herself. She never knew what to think about herself. She felt weird. Her stomach was hurting. She hadn't eaten. She wasn't hungry. Or maybe she was. She couldn't tell.

When she was lost, she didn't really have much for groceries. Motel hopping was expensive. She had to ration her meals to make sure she could eat. So only small bites every day. She eventually just stopped caring about how much she ate. She didn't have the money to care.

But the main thing that was freaking Tia out right now was how weak she felt. She tried to focus more on her hair and tried to steady her breathing. It was getting harder and harder. She was feeling dizzy and she didn't like it. She tried to stop it.

She felt the world spin around. She was spinning with it as if she were in orbit. She wasn't a planet, so why would she be in orbit? That didn't make much sense, but not a lot of things in Tia's life made much sense. She tried harder to breathe.

Tia couldn't focus on brushing her hair anymore. The world was spinning and she needed it to stop. She felt her grip on reality fading away minute by minute. She couldn't stay standing. Her vision was blurry. She eventually heard a loud thump.

And then, her whole world went black.

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Veronica arrived home early from work that day. She had decided to cash in her paid vacation time so she could spend more time with her housemates. She was growing more and more paranoid and she needed to make sure that they were all okay. It was just her nature.

Veronica could immediately tell something was amiss from the moment she entered the house. It was quiet. Too quiet. The house was almost never quiet. There was always something happening. Whether it be Pip shouting or someone crying or maybe the odd time where they did something fun all together.

She then heard an earth shattering scream. Ellie. That had to have been Ellie. She heard rustling next. Like someone was looking for something. Veronica had to figure out what was going on. Something was going wrong and she needed to fix it. She couldn't let her housemates get hurt.

She ran up the steps and towards the sounds of the rustling. It was coming from hers and Tia's room. Why was Ellie in her room? That was really odd. Veronica opened up the door quietly, but what she saw next was something that nothing ever could've prepared her for.