The Designer and the Model

Chapter 1 - Home

"Hey, where are you?" Charlotte called as she aggressively defended the camp, duel-welding smoking pistols.

"Around the corner. I'm coming! Your headset must be fucked, you keep missing what we're saying to you." Thrones22 gamer tag could be spotted from a distance, health-bar low. Charlotte jumped on her horse to regroup.

"Better? Can you's hear me better?" Charlotte asked as she adjusted her poorly tape-repaired microphone, Thrones22 and 420Offf agreed she was now reading clear.

Charging forward as a united front, Thrones22's cowboy hat flung off in the wind as a bullet stuck straight through it.

"Shit! Guy's, after you take them down get my inventory out from my horse's saddlebag, I'm gonna grab a drink. Seriously, don't die. I'm not doing this mission again. BRB"

"I'm taking his gold." 420Offf joked with Charlotte as they struggled through the rest of the bandits. Awarded new outfits and gold after the mission, Charlotte and 420Offf collected Thrones22's inventory.

"God he's such a fucking noob, he only has 50 gold pieces. Why even bother? He got Red Dead Redemption 2 before you or me..." 420Offf pointed out before whistling over his horse and mounted up, "Hello?" he yelled into his mic loudly making it crackle in Charlotte's ears.

Spun around in her worn office chair. Charlotte told him to wait as her mum was at the door, arms folded and shaking her head.

"When are you going to stop wasting your life play those stupid fucking games Charlotte?"

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"I'll talk to you later Oofff, GTG." She mumbled in the mic under her breath before logging off, collecting rubbish and glass cups—most half-filled with diet coke from her desk.

Mum still stood at the door, watching her. Charlotte paused, taking in her mum's look of disgust.

"You've been wearing those polar bear Pajamas for days, seriously!" She huffed as if baffled, marching down the hall with Charlotte's overflowing laundry basket, audibly muttering how fed up she was with Charlotte and her father. Her daughter followed her path down the narrow stairs, avoiding the one with a broken wooden panel as she made her way into the kitchen. Dropping her dishes in the sink, dumping the rubbish in the bin underneath it before starting her retreat back to her room but halted with hast.

"You are fucking kidding ME!"

Charlotte cringed and held her barefoot on the bottom step trying to decide if it was better to go hide in her room while her mother blows up about whatever was going on in the laundry room, or if it would make things worse to leave without checking. Placing her foot down to the mostly cracked tiled floor, she tried option two to be safe, she could hear it before she saw it.

Water pooled rapidly from under the washing machine.

"Don't mind me! Just fucking stand there, PLEASE!" Her Mom shouted sarcastically as she struggled to move the washing machine, "I know you're awake! Get out of fucking bed and help me! I'm getting my work uniform wet!"

Charlotte was right to move her head away from her mother as she bellowed out to her Dad upstairs, getting more and more frustrated she mumbled hateful things that a daughter shouldn't have to hear. Still, Charlotte was trapped, using her frustration and great desire to leave she heaved. Once it moved far enough, her mum bent behind it with a wrench.

The leak diminished as she tightened the pipe but threw the wrench down as it continued to drip and became more aware of the time that had passed, which put her into more of a rage.