Empty World "Chapter 1: Consuming"

       I was running. Back to my home? No. I was now without one. I guess you could call me a failure; a disappointment. I ran away from home at the age of 14 and have been hoping around from homeless shelter to homeless shelter ever since. I was once in an orphanage, there I met my first “friend” Fuko. It’s funny her name meant “unhappiness” in Japanese because that’s what she alluded to in the end, but not her unhappiness, mine. Although she didn’t talk much, I considered her a friend and would often steal food from the local farmers’ market for me and her when the orphanage was having a financial crisis, but when she figured out I was stealing instead of earning money and paying for it, she ratted me out. That was when I was 16, now I’m 18, running away from what may have just been a dream. I made it to the nearby clothing store in which I went inside and sat down in a changing room, here I believed I was safe until I took a look into the wide mirror. There I saw myself, once again, without eyes, but this time my mouth was stitched together and my hair was completely white. I was so concerned and frantic that I ran outside to the cashier and asked them what color was my hair and if I looked okay, the cashier replied “Your hair is brownish and uhm…you look like you need to rest”. In a brief moment of relief, I stood there praying that this was all an illusion, an imagination due to that unsettling dream. The rain had cleared away and the sun was out so I walked outside, but then I noticed…I had no shadow.