lifeline

1.

Florence Armstrong would not say her life was particularly interesting. She wouldn't say it was particularly anything, in fact. If she had to describe it she'd say it was a state of nothingness, a constant. She walked the same way to work at the same time, ate the same monotonous lunch, clocked out at exactly twelve am and walked the same way home. She felt like she was living every day on repeat. A tiresome circle that she could not for the life of her break free from.

Her eyes stayed locked on the ticking clock. Each dreary second felt like a lifetime. Surely the clock was slow? Perhaps it was rusted? There was no way time moved this sluggishly. She urged with it to move rapidly, silently cursing the Gods for not blessing humanity with superpowers.

As the clock hit twelve, not a second before not a second later, Florence closed the tab she was browsing and logged off the laptop at the front desk. She grabbed her coat from the hook and, whilst waving the owner goodbye, darted from the door, leaving her hair bobble behind in the process. She pulled on her coat as she walked, shoving her hands deep within the pockets to try and keep out the cold. Florence sighed a little as she wandered through the town she'd lived her whole life. The cruel fingers of Father Time had etched his eerie symbols into almost everything.

She didn't particularly mind working at the bar but it bothered her that she had to walk home so late. She very rarely got to see the sunsets anymore and even less frequently saw sunrises. Both of those were very important parts of her childhood and it saddened her that she had to let them go.

As she continued along her walk home, Florence took note of something strange. Strange in the sense that nothing ever happened in this town so really anything new was strange. She watched as four men, dressed in all black, snuck into a house she knew to be unoccupied. Assuming it to be a robbery, she kept walking.

It's not that Florence didn't want to help out the public it's just that she was a young female, alone, in the middle of the night. She'd rather end up safely at home whilst some burglars were disappointed by an empty house than dead, thank you very much.

Her fingers danced along the seams of her pockets, poking through the several holes in the lining. She could afford a new jacket, she just preferred not to buy them. Florence saw her clothes almost like people. Each of them had been with her for important, and not particularly important, parts of her life and they all had a story to tell. To replace them would be unthinkable (unless they were hanging off her body, that is).

She let out a sigh of relief as her small bungalow came into view. She couldn't afford much but she made do with what she had. During the Christmas season, she made sure her house was the brightest on the street. During halloween, she made sure to have the sweets she knew the children wanted (it was often the case that they sent her a letter with their 'demands') and during Easter, she always hosted an easter egg hunt for the children of her street to allow the parents some time alone.

She slotted the key in the lock (yanking it up a little so that it would actually unlock) and waved to a neighbour who had just popped their head up to the window. The first thing Florence did when she got home was take off her shoes. She had a strict no shoe policy. In the immortal words of her mother, a messy home was an unhappy home.

She plodded towards the bedroom, coat in hand and, with her eyes half closed, she ripped her clothes off and replaced them with some pyjamas. Florence clambered into to bed whilst making a mental note to thank herself for changing the sheets and switched off her bedside lamp.

It was just as she was drifting off that she remembered the four men from earlier. Despite it being a robbery, something felt off about the situation but she couldn't quite place her finger on what it was.

-A/N-

Short chapter ik but i've gotta ease you into the story gently. Anyway let me know if you like it or if you want me to change up my writing style because i can😭