#4 - Hannah.

           Hannah was a girl who had been granted, or cursed, with the ability to travel through time. Eerily, Hannah had suffered depression for much of her life, and she noticed it was an insidious, yet volatile, type of thing. The kind of thing that snuck up on you when you weren't aware and left you just as spontaneously. It hadn't left Hannah, not yet, not at this particular moment in time, anyway. Perhaps the gift remained until you were too jaded to believe you ever had it.

            Whatever the case, Hanna had accepted this new power the same way she had accepted everything else in life: nonchalantly. At first, she had no control over where it would take her, and so she made up her mind to simply play the part and let it be. Still, a strange prodding sensation told her that the answer to all her problems, the means of escaping a erratic, uncertain life, was the number 2000. Hannah knew she once knew the answer, but didn't know why it escaped her at the moment.

            It was a rainy Monday afternoon at St. Johannsberg public school where Hannah attended grade 5. She was an unsavory child.

            "Hey Lily, you're mommy made you those disgusting sugar cookies again?" her spittle visible from across the room. Her beady eyes darted to Lily's lunch bag. She didn't bother holding back her salivary glands despite having enjoyed this scene over a dozen times.

            "No-nothing" Lily shrank into her chair and wrapped her arm around the bag protectively. Lily's mother had always worked exceptionally hard to make Lily's lunch, and it was always something fancy. Lily herself was a dainty little blonde who always wore her hair in pigtails with two pink bows neatly tied at the ends. She was a cute little creature.

            "How about this? I'll give you my homemade cookies that I made myself if you show me what you have for lunch today." She produced an old zip-lock bag with five stale, vomit-coloured cookies and placed them on the desk.

            "Umm, thanks, but no thank you."

            "No thank you?" Hannah bellowed, " but I they're really good." She blew her nose into her hands and wiped them as best she could on her pants.

            She then shoved the translucent bag in Lily's face, "come on, Lily, don't be mean."

            But Lily stared at Hannah with large, frightened eyes without releasing her grip on her lunch bag, and Hannah's lip twitched with frustration.

            "How about this?" If you don't eat the cookies, then I'll snip off those nasty little worms growing from the sides of your head. She was, of course, referring to Lily's pigtails. Lily didn't move.

            "You don't believe me?" Hannah retrieved a pair of scissors from her desk, "how about I cut one off just to show you I can." Her nostrils flared, and she grabbed one of Lily's pigtails.

            "Okay, okay! I'll eat them, I'll eat them! Please don't cut them off." Large tears started to well up in Lily's eyes. And she took a nibble off the edge of a cookie. Hannah grinned, but didn't release the pigtail. She watched Lily's face distort. She had, unsurprisingly, used salt instead of sugar.

            Suddenly, the teacher walked in, "Hannah? You're mother's here."

            A frail woman with disheveled hair walked in and threw her cigarette at Hannah. "In case you were wondering, you forgot the sugar in my coffee."
Hannah felt a burn on her arm, then a softness beneath her.

            Hannah jumped off her bed and headed for the door.

            "Is that brat up yet?" Hannah mumbled to herself.

            "Is that brat up yet?" she heard a shrill scream from next door.

            "God! In grade 7 and she still can't wake up on her own?" Hannah mouthed.

            "God! In grade 7 and she still can't wake up on her own?" the voice echoed.

            "Mom, I'm in grade 5." Hannah slung her bag over her shoulders, "and I'm leaving. I left breakfast on the table."

            The door to her mother's bedroom opened.

            "What kind of crap did you make today?" Hannah said to herself.

            "What kind of crap did you make today?" her mother shuffled to the table and looked down. She spat in the eggs and took a sip of coffee.

            "You expect me to drink this *stuff*?" Hannah waited for it.

            "You expect me to drink this stuff?" she snarled, "and what the hell are you wearing? Those stupid pigtails make you look like a slut. You're not going to school like that." She grabbed a pair of scissors from the drawer and yanked Hannah's head closer by her ears. Two clean cuts and the braids fell silently to the floor.

            Hannah leaned down and picked up the last chocolate from the ground. Then she ran. She cursed as a couple chip bags slipped out from underneath her arm, but she kept running. 3 blocks, 4 blocks, she was starting to get tired now. Then she crashed into the trailer.

            "What took you so long?" Hannah heard a foot slam  on the gas, and they were off. Robbing convenience stores along the south coast was a sorry excuse for a living, but it got them by. Hannah opened a can of Coke and leaned against the window.

            "Hey Ted,  how long till we reach the next town from here?" She knew the answer, but she was suppose to ask the question. So she did. She also knew that Ted had about an hour of life left, but she wasn't suppose to know that. So she pretended she didn't.

            After a while, Hannah watched the street signs whisk by, counting them as they went. She never got past 10. The red Corola came out of nowhere and smashed into the side of the trailer where the driver sat. Ted was gone, like he would always be. Hannah checked his pulse like always, stepped out of the trailer like always, examined the driver of the Corola like always, then cried. The tears were the only things that felt different, more bitter, every time. Lilly's head was smashed against the wheel, and the airbag had not released, like always. She opened the passenger door and sat down next to Lily and braided her hair.

            Hannah looked up and saw a burly man with arms thicker than she was. He stood before her importantly and cleared his throat.

            "Hannah Rust, charged with the murder of Lily Hampton?" he pursed his lips but didn't look at her. Hanna stood up.

            She followed him down a long hallway to a large steel door at the end. She went into the room and saw two officers silently standing in the corner.  Hannah sat down and turned her head.

            She smiled. 2000 volts.

            -ceci

edit: edited out first 2 sentences cuz it was too similar to ellana's. Sorry dears : 3