Welcome To The Dark Side

Cherry had no idea how she actually managed to return to her apartment.

What was clear was that after getting inside it, she realized that something did not add up!

After blankly staring at her reflection in the full-body mirror, she screamed, "Ahhhhhh!"

The reflected image sported the same surprised expression and also crouched down and covered her face.

"AHHHHH! Why did I have so much blood on me!!!"

Cherry stormed into the small bathroom of her apartment just to check whether the mirror there would show the same image as the one in the living room.

Because the reflection was really scary due to the pale face of the girl in there and the red splashes on her dirty, damaged clothes, Cherry once again let out a shriek. Body shivering, she fell on her butt while crawling backwards. Unfortunately, her bathroom was only so big, not even three seconds passed and her back came in contact with the tiled walls.

The trembling girl resorted to closing her eyes. All sorts of reactions and curses came from her due to shock.

Since her brain froze for a long while, it had taken her several minutes to think of cleaning herself up and changing into another set of clothes.

Like a guilty criminal, she checked how securely closed her windows and doors were, then paced in the living room, wincing as she caught sight of the wrecked shirt and jacket on the low table.

"Ughhh!" A moment later, she finally moved close to the table to study the bloody clothes.

"Dang, it is really drenched in blood, and several parts showed signs of being stabbed."

Cherry frowned, massaging her aching forehead. "But how could this happen?"

The girl apparently had no recollection of her encounter with the drunkard. Therefore, time passed and no answer came to her.

Sighing, she gave up trying to recall for clues and just picked the clothes and washed them in the laundry area in the bathroom. Her goal was only to remove the blood so once she disposed them and someone saw, she would not garner unwanted suspicions. When she placed the stuff in a black bag though, her heart ached.

"I only have very few change of clothes but here I am, forced to throw away a set." Cherry really felt so depressed as she looked up outside the apartment building. The sky was yet to be graced upon by the sun. Before heading back to her cramped place, she gave the trash bin a reluctant look.

Returning to her room, she cried from the killer headache that the hangover brought her and swore never to drink again.

When morning came, Cherry was forced to get off her bed to see who was the annoying person banging her door. No one knew how bad she felt as she smiled at somebody looking murderously at her.

"G-good morning, Mrs. Simpsons," she stuttered out, her hand that was smoothing out her messy hair paused for a moment.

Sadly, her warm greetings did not earn her the same courtesy.

"Cherry, you b*tch. Why the hell are you so noisy earlier, huh?! And when the hell do you plan to pay your rent?"

"Mrs. Simpsons, please don't worry, I will pay next week."

"Next week?" The gaze of the fat middle-aged woman did not mellow down, but turned more hostile. "Cherry, didn't you say that last week too? Are you making a fool out of me?"

"No. No. Please believe me this time. I, I have just found a job! It pays weekly!"

The landlady turned angry, her large and heavy palm stuck the wooden door. "You also said that to me last week!"

Cherry stepped back in fright, her smile that was uglier than crying collapsed. However, she knew she could not be driven out of this place if she did not want to sleep under the bridge from now on. After swallowing, she smiled again. "L-look, don't you see, I look drunk? Actually, it's because I celebrated with a few friends yesterday. I really found a job this time!"

She kept lying through her teeth.

The fat lady seemed to have seen through it, but thankfully, was not really heartless to not give her the benefits of the doubt.

"I'll go back again on Monday," coldly said the landlady.

"Yes, yes."

Cherry hurriedly closed the door, then slumped on the ground, almost crying.

'Really, damn. F*ck my life.'

Just like that, her bad day began. But of course, she was not one to accept defeat easily so immediately got back to her feet, planning to wash her face before eating.

...

"Not this one... Not this one..."

Using her phone, Cherry passed her morning looking through the various job ads that could be found on the internet. She was done trying walk-in applications even to small restaurants, since nobody wanted to accept her, so she turned her attention to online jobs.

By the way, her internet came from the neighbor who still did not know that she managed to overhear their Wifi password. Cherry was broke that to get an internet connection made her resort to this.

The girl applied for some micro-jobs and even turned to captcha sites.

Then deeming that she was done for now and should go fry some eggs for her lunch and dinner, she tossed her phone on the bed and stood up. When afternoon came, she only went out to go to take a brief walk.

Then nighttime came.

The phone that was left on the bed... Cherry looked for it after eating her not-so-healthy dinner.

She nearly threw it away when she powered it on, only to see a large image of a skull filling her screen.

What else could escape from the mouth of a scared girl?

"F*ck! F*ck!" She fumbled in the air, catching the phone that slipped from her hands. After the initial scare, she became too annoyed.

"Who the hell made ads like this?" Closing one eye and turning her neck to one side while she clicked on the back button, she hissed.

Sure enough, the damn image was from an ad. Her screen returned to its normal screen saver, with various survey apps dotting the home page.

Cherry was not in a pleasant mood as she plopped down her bed and lied on her back.

However, when she was about to click her mailbox to check if anybody accepted her application, she noticed something new in the corner of her screen. It was the mini-icon of the spooky skull image earlier.

"Wow." An amused laugh rang from her. "I didn't know developers are so low now that without the owner's consent, an app auto-downloads."

With a frown, Cherry clicked the app opened and a row of red letters in a pitch-black background popped up before her, forming words that made her laugh out loud.

"Welcome to The Dark Side."