Cheryl

here hadn't been anything left to loose after she had lost her baby brother. The sparse satchel on her back rested just at the crest of her shoulder blade as she waited for the van to arrive to take her to her new nondescript future. When it arrived it appeared only as a vague moving uhaul too generic to tell apart from any other heap of junk on the road. The drive was long, a good many hours from the west coast life she and John had made for themselves. In the few hours she spent conscious during the ride, she had eaten though a pack of twizzlers and burned through any entire carton of lucky strikes. when the van finally stopped, she found herself stranded in a suburb of identical houses for as far as her eye could see. "Fuck, dont tell me were in Kansas."

It had been a whirlwind of a day. Pryor had finished packing that morning, while an unsuspecting van waited outside her now old house. She couldn’t pack a lot of things to take with her, just bare essentials. No comfort items. No photo books. Nothing from her life as Pryor Frey. Pryor Frey was gone. Dead. With her small amount of luggage being fit into a suitcase and a backpack, Pryor left her house for the last time, entering the van with a solemn look on her face. Over the course of a night, her life changed completely. Turned upside down. Pryor sat in the van with her pack of cigarettes and a small bag of snacks for the trip. She hadn’t uttered a word to the driver or armed passenger, both with the sole purpose that day of getting Pryor to her new life. She had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and now Pryor would be dead to them. She was being whisked away to a strange house in a strange neighborhood in a strange, unknown city. The scenery whizzed by as they drove on the highway, and with a sense of anxiety and fear, Pryor willed herself to nap for the rest of the journey. What was hours of driving only felt like a few minutes to her though. “We’re here.” The voice said, jostling Pryor from her sleep. The blonde sat up hastily, rubbing the sleep away from her eyes as she looked around at her surroundings. Well, here we go. Pryor thought to herself, climbing out of the van.

The agent had not answered Cheryl's question. Instead she was met with the request to simply explore the property until further instruction. Looking up at the two story house, she noted thee strange generic beigey yellow the house took on in the slowly falling dusk. Around each property's from yard it was politely lined with a thin white picket fence that grew into a taller natural wood plank fence only for what she assumed was privacy. Cheryl walked the cement drive way to pause before a glinting stone path way that wrapped around the corner out of sight. Seeing the agent had given her full reign, Cheryl made her way around to find the wooden door that led into the backyard, locked. She tugged uselessly at it and growled before finding clumsy footing to attempt to vault over with no success. Fallling down with a ungracefully grunt of pain, Cheryl listened to the world around her. The calming song of crickett and the familiar crunch of tires on gravel was comforting. The sound however grew louder and if she had been looking, Cheryl would have seen the second van pull up and unload its passenger, the complete and perfect stranger the red head would be spending the next few years with. When the man who had escorted Cheryl into her suburban hell eclipsed her view she rose begrudgingly. The secondary van had pulled into the driveway obscuring her view of the new arrival. Instead of being escorted to the van, the man led her to the house with a few tries of multiple keys on massive key ring. Were they all Keyes to other houses with people like them? When the door opened, cool air touched her face and when she entered the house matched its exterior much to her disappointment. The decor and furniture looked like a sterilized version of a magazine cover. Turning back, she held her breath as she chanted wordlessly, /please don't be a man, please don't be a man./