The Story of Linnie, Part 2.

She was a smart enough girl and a decent enough student, when she wasn’t avoiding her work. Linnie was easily driven to anxiety; it was so much easier to delve into the escapism her tiny bedroom could provide, rather than face exams and grades and…the future.

Linnie didn’t speak to people, even through the safer medium of text. People were difficult, for her. She just couldn’t wrap her head around most of the things they did. All of the things they did, really.

She couldn’t even figure herself out.

Her father was her teacher, mostly, and seemed to avoid particular subjects. She received none of the education one would receive in a public school Health class; Sex Ed was skipped over entirely. No particular subject, of the ones he was trying to teach her, really captivated her interest. Math, Science, English.

There was something she was missing, but the more she tried to put her finger on what it was, the more lost she felt. Eventually, she just stopped trying to figure it out.

Linnie was listless, preferring the most mindless of games and stories to anything that might force her to face reality. She was expected to apply for college; how? She didn’t even know what she wanted to do with her life.

Besides, the thought of going outside turned her stomach.

After a great deal of debating and pleading, her parents managed to figure out online college courses for her, as well. They gave her a year to think about her major, before enrolling her. Linnie failed every class.

She fought with her mother, that night. Her father, more passive and quick to avoid, kept out of it.

Her mother screamed at her, claiming she’d wasted their money. They’d given her time, she yelled. They’d taught her everything they could. The government-issued tests, she’d passed with flying colors; how was it she hadn’t even scraped the barest of passing grades?

Linnie couldn’t argue back. Not coherently. She just cried, and repeated again and again, ‘I don’t know’.

The next morning, Linnie woke up to find that both of her parents were gone.

Days passed.

At first, she thought they’d left just to get away from her. She understood. She was trying to get away, too. Lose herself in mind-numbing pastimes that never left her with a feeling of accomplishment.

After three weeks, she was starting to worry. After six, she was in a panic.

She’d rationed food to the best of her ability, but there was nothing left, now. Not a word from her parents, or the outside world; not that she’d checked the latter. She was too terrified to step out of the house. Linnie made excuse after excuse, as to why she shouldn’t.

Three more empty-bellied days went by, and she couldn’t put it off any longer.

Linnie stepped outside for the first time in over ten years, and found no one.

The outside world was less frightening, without people…but there was never a time she felt honestly at ease. She’d lost her way from the moment she rounded the first street corner. Her house was gone. The street signs were blank. Nothing made sense, and every time she spent too long thinking on it, the wild beating of her heart and rasping, panicky gasps deafened her.

It played tricks on her mind. Her pulse would race and pound against her eardrums, and the vibration of it left the strangest impression of mocking laughter. As though the city, itself, was taunting her.

But she adapted. She was never calm, but there was no one around to hurt her. Linnie managed. Until the day she found out she wasn’t alone.