[WARNING: extreme violence, abuse; light mentions of drugs; mentions of death]

⌠𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟏⌡
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They tell you that once you're dead, there is no coming back.

They say that it's the end, that you cease to exist. Of course, there are millions of theories out there. Some say you get reborn, some say you find peace, some say you go to heaven, and so on. But they say you stop and that nothing but your soul goes with you. They say it's. . . . a break from life. Because, after all, you're dead.

In Charlie's case. . . . Well, that wasn't the case at all.

She had indeed died. Dreadful death at that. It was rather shocking in fact and it may have been too much for some readers to handle.

Charlie had been ambushed by her drunk of a father when she got home. Abused physically until she was on the brink of death only to be dumped in a dumpster outside of their house, slowly withering away until she died.

For all of you out there thinking that her death was tragic and dramatic, you are indeed correct. It was truly tragic the death of the eighteen-year-old girl. Killed by her sperm donor.

The only detail missing though—or rather the story missing—was that her father's first and very last outburst of violence wasn't exactly what you would call random. In fact, Charlie might have slightly provoked it, but, in no way, at all, did her actions deserve such a strong punishment as death. After all, she was just trying to live.

But let's back up a bit because if you aren't lost I am.

This is the story of Charlene "Charlie" Monroe. A rather dashing name for such a sorrowful girl.

Charlie's mother, Alice Monroe (née Jackson) had left her and her father, Richard Monroe, when she was merely a toddler, in their small house, in their small town. Her mother's departure had led to the cause of her father's drinking, and the asshole of a man he was, multiplied. Henceforth, Charlie Monroe had a shit show of a childhood.

A major factor for her shitty childhood was the child labor. A detail you should know was that Richard Monroe owned Monroe's Mechanic shop. Subsequently, Charlie was forced to start working there, starting as the cashier and actually moving up to start fixing the cars and vehicles that came along. Her working there was mainly seeing as any opportunity her father had to hire someone, got lost as soon as they got close enough to smell the alcohol reeking off him. In fact, her father only had one employee—who was also his "best friend"—, a mousy guy named Tom Nelson, that was as much of an asshole as her dad.

Charlie's routine basically consisted of going to school during the day—ignoring everything and everyone—hoping that the day would pass by fast, only to then walk the path to her father's shop—working there until the night was out. Then she would return home, walking the long way there—because her father refused to drive her—and had to take care of her dad, who usually got home earlier and could be found nearly passed out on the couch. However, taking care of her father, only meant going to get him another beer and changing the channels on the Tv. Finally, she would go to bed, not even worrying about homework or anything else, for that matter, and would fall asleep. Only to wake up the next morning and repeat everything again. That was her life and Charlie loathed everything about it.

Hence why she decided to change it, and, dear readers, it might've been her worst or best choice. But that would only be determined in the future.

When she was fourteen she started, well, for the lack of a better word, befriending a group of people that were. . . . questionable. Those kinds of people your parents tell you not to associate with. But Charlie didn't really have a father that cared, so she wasn't warned.

The interesting fact, though, was that the group of people were actually skilled thieves. And you are now able to see how that would be a good thing. They eventually started to teach Charlie the art of burglary, theft, and pickpocketing—all of which fit in the same category. Together the group of them would pull off jobs in low-security shops or in high movement places. Charlie found out she actually had a gift for it and she was proud. Why shouldn't she be?

This. . . . business, was really profitable for Charlie, everything divided evenly among the members of the group and what they did with the money was their own problem. In Charlie's case she was saving up the lot, making some real money, so she could earn enough to leave her father and along with him that godawful town.

But the problem?

Well, the problem was that Charlie was out of luck. She really didn't have it at all.

By the age of sixteen Charlie's lack of luck caught up to her and she and her group had been caught red-handed in the middle of a job in a jewelry shop. Half of them had gone to jail as they were already of age, another part got out with bail money and a warning, the last part, with no other option, got time in a juvenile detention center. Charlie was with the latter group.

However, that option wasn't that bad. The detention center—though still constricting— was much better than her house; if Charlie had known this earlier she would have been caught much sooner. But the lack of freedom was something she hated and mainly because she didn't have any special treatment. All because of her lack of money; the problem she was trying to fix when she got caught.

Nonetheless, Charlie wasn't unhappy and she had made something that you might've called her first-ever friend.

Eva Oliver was her roommate at the center. She was one of the rich girls that had privileges—she was brought in a little after Charlie, sentenced to two years (like Charlie), due to drug dealing between her friends. She was going to get out of it on bail money her parents were going to pay, but after she threw a tantrum because her father would be cutting her off from her allowance, her parents decided it was best for her to go to the detention center and hopefully learn something.

After two years, Charlie was ready to leave the center, saying goodbye to Eva, who still had a month ahead of her. She planned on going home, hopefully avoiding her father, getting her stuff from below the wooden board of her room's floor—by stuff, one means the money she had saved up over the years as some of her clothes.

But guess what? Charlie was out of luck.

Indeed, when she got to her small house after two years away l, she found the place a wreck, furniture broken and stinking. The first thing she saw though, was her father stumbling out of the kitchen, his face hollow and darkened, drunkenly holding on in one hand to a bunch of money. Her money.

Charlie didn't quite know exactly what happened next or maybe she decided to forget it, I know I would because what happened to Charlie shouldn't be happening to anyone.

Her father, or asshole as we will now call him, started yelling at Charlie for keeping the money a secret from him, making a point of telling her how much of a disappointment and useless wench she was. Blaming her for being born, for her mother leaving. As he kept yelling, he grew angrier and at some point, the bottle of alcohol he was holding in his other hand was thrown over the room, directed at her. And, well, it hit Charlie straight in the head. The bottle broke from the impact and Charlie fell to the ground unconscious and bleeding, most likely with a concussion, the pieces of glasses smoothing her landing as they pierced through her skin.

Once Charlie finally stirred awake, she found every inch of her body aching and probably badly bruised from where her father had kicked and punched her. Cuts scattering her skin and her head throbbing violently. She tried to move, trying to get her muscles to work, but all she managed was a little twitch of her fingers. She was too weak. Charlie tried to open her eyes and look at her surroundings but it was too dark to see and the stinking sent around her was so gruesome that Charlie was having difficulty breathing as she gasped out for air.

And that was why and how Charlene Monroe, at eighteen years of age, died, her tragic death, from lack of oxygen and extreme loss of blood inside of a fucking dumpster.

So you can see now, why I mentioned her death to be dreadful and her life to have been a shit show from beginning to end. Or at least from the first beginning to the first end. Because somehow and someway Charlie would live on from there.

And to be honest? Charlie wasn't even there for her death—not mentally—, she couldn't care less about it if she was being frank. Charlie found herself actually pleased that she would be able to find some sort of peace to put a break to her freak show of a life. That she would be able to take a break.

But Charlie was out of luck. When was she not, really?

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