Sefirian Chronicles: Avielle's Inferno

Chapter 1: The Girl

May 2016. Florida.

"Something to warm your stomach, kid."

A sudden bump on her shoulder made Avielle look up to her boss Steve. He held his hand up, offering her the flask in his hand. She curled her lips up in a tight smile, took a swig from the offered beverage, handing it back to her boss. Whiskey. It burned her throat, and the fumes stayed in her sinuses, at the back of her throat, but a second later it went down to her stomach where it warmed her up.

The air smelled crisply of salt. Sky a hazy swirl of darkness and purple. It wasn't quite morning yet, but it certainly wasn't night. Early mornings at the docks were always like that.

"That's some good shit. Is today a special occasion?" she rasped, following the man up to his boat.

"My daughter gave birth to my grandson just last night. I'm gonna visit them later," the man chirped up, handing her a crate to fill with fish.

She trodded up to the ice machine, shoveled a bucketful into her first crate before she let the on-boat fishermen load her up with the daily catch of herring and the occasional bass. As she waited, she conversed with her boss.

"Congratulations, Steve. First grandchild, right?"

"Yeah. Mira even named him after me."

The girl nodded at her boss' words, excusing herself to do her job.

She saw other workers about, giving them a nod in greeting and watching them nod back. She looked out of place. A teen girl among big, rugged men who towered over her. It was an odd, if not polarizing sight.

Her days at the docks started at four-thirty and only ended if the daily catch is unloaded. Come six-thirty, like the case today, she'll already be on her way home before her foster parents woke up.

She came home fifteen before seven, smelling of fish and sweat. She entered the bathroom, which didn't look any better than the rest of the house. Old, stained and barely functioning, with a certain moldy smell that irritated her, but it was never filthy, she made sure of that. She trod towards the sink, twisting the faucet while praying that it doesn't break off like the last time. She had gotten so much verbal beating that day, even though it wasn't even her fault that the faucet was broken to begin with.

Relieved that the faucet ran like it was supposed to, she washed her face. The water was icy; unbearably cold, but they didn't have hot water. They barely have any electricity. Her foster parents are cheap penny-pinchers, choosing to spend their money on... other vices.

Suppose she could report them to her social worker for neglect. He wasn't incompetent at his job. But she knew the situation could be worse; Marco and Stella could do much worse. Their foster parents were only too drunk or too high all the time to even care about them.

She took a shower and scrubbed the smell off of her. She brushed her dark brown hair and tied it into a neat ponytail. Avielle finished washing up and made her way towards her room to change. She lived in the attic. Her bed was two wooden pallets on the floor with a thin and uncomfortable mattress on top, never been washed in the last couple of decades.

Then it was up to her to wake and feed her foster siblings as quietly as she can.

"Hey, sleepy," she shook Marco. His eyes started fluttering open and his tiny arms went up as he stretched. She tousled his mousy mop of brown hair and whispered for him to get ready for school. Meanwhile, she heard a little yawn behind her and found Stella already sitting up and rubbing her eyes, clutching her ragged teddy bear close to her chest.

She made her way towards the little girl and crouched beside her.

"Hey, Stella. It's school time," she whispered. Stella recognized her immediately and gave her a smile, putting a finger on her lip and making a shushing sound.