Note: This is more fun and more readable if you half the width of your browser window, so the word wraps narrower (Assuming a fairly standard 1920x1080 resolution). Alternatively, put an A5 book against your screen and scale the window so the DeviantArt reading area (the white bit with the words) fits! That way you'll read it the same way I edit it and you'll get the intended experience.

Edit: I've just found out that DeviantArt has a built in option for reading things that way - on the top right of the reading area there's a toolbar with options for readability. If you click on the button that's labelled (c) it will align the text inside your window for you. It's a bit wider than I'd like, but for ease of use, I will edit to that format in the future.

For future reference, I will edit to the following readability options:

Text Size: Small
Font: Sans Serif
Paragraph Spacing: Off
Visibility: Black on White
(c): On

---

*...oxygen status 98%.*

*Any sign of habitation?*

*Not so much as a... Woaaahhh there, horsey. What the...*

Maddie stared at the screen, her face smooshed by the rigid armrest it rested upon and illuminated by the orange-tinted flicker of the television before her. Her eyes began to droop, partly in response to the uninspiring music video dialogue, but mostly due to the increasing lateness of her post-school MTV binges. With dad coming home later and later every night, there was nothing to break the visual hypnosis that lightly glued her to the living room sofa.

*Cute... what is it?*

*Oh, it's cute, alright... it couldn't be...*

The tinny voices were quickly drowned out by an equally tinny rumbling noise. The fourteen-year-old cast her gaze to the front door next to the television, half-expecting the lock to turn.

*Mars Lander, what's happening up there?*

Two strong musical stings pierce the room.

*...♫ mmyeah.*

The television bathed the room a bright red and the walls seemed to melt away. The singer filled the frame, commanding every ounce of Maddie's attention. She stared enraptured at the red-suited girl on the screen, drawn in by the ethereal gloss of her pink lips and her suit. The light glistened across the girl's second skin as the dance burned itself into her subconscious memory. Behind her quickly flushing cheeks, questions take form. What was she wearing? What was it made of? What did it feel like? How would she...

...how would she get out?

The pop song continued to burn into her mind as she pondered these strange thoughts, unable to fully comprehend the sensations coursing through her body. An idea gripped her tightly, and it refused to leave her be. She just had to know. Sliding her hands between her legs, Maddie bundled up the front end of her dress, grasping the gray cotton in her small fist. Passing it to herself through her legs, she gently pulled on the flap, closing her mock-suit tightly over her naked crotch. She chews her lower lip, wincing as the cotton slides against her, sending strange, darting sensations across her body.

Burying her head in the sofa, she pulled the dress tighter between her legs, imagining herself in the tight, full-bodied suit. This must be what it feels like. Her hips gyrate with the song. This... must be... Her body shudders. It feels... so... Her feet claw at the cushions beneath her as the music crescendos to its encroaching climax.


A key turns. Maddie scrambles to right herself.

The door's latch fumbles and falls loose. She hugs a pillow tightly, obscuring her heaving body as the door swings open.



---

Maddie stared intently at the airspace between her computer screen and her face. Pixels moved about in front of her and vibrations carried speech into her ears, but as usual, the girl's mind was elsewhere. At times it was constructing whole universes, neither seen nor heard by anyone outside of her consciousness. Other times it brooded over past regrets, blowing the smallest of altercations out of proportion, turning failures over and over in the hot grill of her mind. Other times it set out fantasizing of-

Her eyes refocused, her brain fumbling to start like a proud driver struggling to recover after dropping a clutch too quickly. She stared at the pixels and began to recognize the array of light formed before her.



Maddie took a breath,


Dad smiles. It dimples his cheek and highlights the crows' feet etching into his face.

"You're gonna be alright."

A smile begins to cross Maddie's lips but quickly dissipates.

Maddie's heart fluttered - the cupboard. Her cupboard.

Oh shit. She begins to fluster as she sees the familiar Adidas bag, ripped from the privacy and safety of the dark cupboard and now dangling in her father's ignorant grip.




Maddie winks - tries to. Dad doesn't seem to know what to make of the odd facial contortion, but tosses the bag aside anyway.

Her smile decides to return, staying a little longer this time.




Maddie couldn't help but laugh.


Maddie mirrors the expression, both Chew's cheeks dimpling in the same places.



The video cuts out and the Skype call ends. The room is plunged into silence once again. Light pours out of the frosted glass doorway and into the living room outside. The rest of the house was fast asleep and Maddie would have it no other way. The gears of her head began to turn again, contextualizing and reanalyzing herself and her experiences. Her thoughts bounced across her childhood home, touring her past like an impatient Chinese tour group. The sofa, her stash, her bed. She found herself thinking about Tom, and marveled at the disservice he'd done to lawyers' reputations everywhere.

With an absent-minded, almost trance-like state of being, Maddie pushed into the darkness and stumbled into the kitchen. Glass. Tap. Drink. Wash. Dry.

The frosted glass door slid back into place, the light beyond, extinguished.

Maddie laid in bed, but stared at the ceiling. Sleep rarely came easily. Once upon a time she'd have huffed and puffed and gotten angry at her inability to seek rest. Anyone who'd come across her today would have described her as serene. More astute fellows would describe it as a subdued melancholy. As far as Maddie was concerned, she'd merely learned to suffer her madness in silence.

As we all do, she began to ponder. Each thought twisted and reformed itself in her mind, pulling her farther and farther away from the sleep she knew she needed.

It'd be a long day tomorrow.