Daimonia gave herself the name, proudly believing she had made it up and unaware that it more-or-less means demon. Although, if she knew she’d probably be even more pleased with herself.

She’s been traveling through the foster system since she was four, and with every passing year and new family, she gives herself a new name. She’s made it to number nine. Once she was relatively cognisant that the system was fucked and she was destined for a burning, liquid-shit of a childhood, she decided to make a game out of the process. She promised herself that every year she would get herself kicked out of the home she was in and move onto the next one with a new, pretentious name.

The game was more enjoyable than being forced to actually get to know the other cunts that lived in the houses.

This year the game became slightly more interesting because Sherry gave her the option of choosing between two homes. Sherry is the CPS worker who has assisted Dai since her emergence in the system and is the only person amongst this dying population who has gotten relatively close to inspect the contents of Dai’s warped, convoluted mind.

Sherry knows about the game she plays and honestly doesn’t really give a shit because there aren’t that many children left to even go through the system. This is also why Dai gets to choose her home this time; more homes available than foster children alive.

“What’s it gonna be, Honey-cakes?” Sherry provided odd, endearing labels every time she saw Dai because she never knew when her name was going to change.

She had the choice of living in a home in the crumbling, rat-infested dystopia, where she’s remained her entire life, or go live with an actual family out west, down the city's single dirt road, smack-dab in Leewood Forest.

She had only been out there once when one of her homes decided to go camping and all of the kids got food-poisoning and ticks. Dai thought it was honestly hilarious, resembling a scene out of a horror movie created specifically for giving parental caretakers shit-stained nightmares. But, she was also utterly miserable out there, and even though the city is basically a flesh-rotting roadkill carcass, it’s what she knows.

The question made her sit in silence and think for about 10 seconds while the two wildly disappointing images of her choices switched back and forth in her mind.

Her masochistic tendencies made the decision for her.

“Leewood.”

“Well great, Gummy Bear! I think that is a really wise decision. This family seems really intriguing, I think you might actually like them. Maybe you’ll even stay?”

Although Sherry never scolds Dai for house hopping, she always goes into her lecture about how Dai needs to form relationships, or the isolation is going to make her manic and schizo. Dai knows she has a point because sometimes her thoughts do spiral, dragging her hair-first into temporary abysses, but she can usually Smeagol crawl out. However, she tunes out the lecture once again and begins contemplating how to convince Sherry to buy her a burger after this meeting.

A week later, Daimonia is in the back of an old, boxy Toyota Land Cruiser watching the dust of the dirt road erupt into clouds behind her. The sky is the color it always is and she is irritated that she has become so accustomed to the blue. She yearns for it to seem amazing that out of all the colors, the sky is blue within her mind. But it’s not, it’s just simply blue.

Sherry couldn’t take Dai to the new home, so she’s riding with some other CPS dude she likes to bother when Sherry isn’t available. He’s old and she studies where the end of his head rolls into his neck, forming an eyeless happy face. They make it to the entrance of Leewood where a security structure sits to force people to pay if they want to enter.

“Ask him if this is what God intended.” She says to the driver.

“What?”

“Ask him if he thinks God wanted us to pay to look at its creation.”

“No. Sit there and be quiet, we might not have to.”

He slowly pulls up to a guard.

“Hello sir, I should be on the list for a foster drop off. My name is Harold Gilche.”

“Let me go check.”

The guard walks back to the small, hut looking building in an overly masculine strut, weapons covering his belt.

“Jesus, why do all the guards need fucking swords?” she asks.

He gently shushes her.

A few seconds later the gate opens up and they drive through.

“It’s a machete by the way, not a sword,” Harold says.

“I know, I just like calling them that.”

The blue begins to disappear behind the towers of trees dangling their intricate tangles of greenery from the heavens above. She instantly notices a shift within her about this place.

It feels nothing like the time before. She feels bathed in perfection; temporarily washed clean of grime and deficiencies. The surroundings are dark and wet, but equally inviting and elusive, resembling a divinity dream, simply waiting to be traversed and explored.

For the first time, she can smell the dankness of the mother earth she was born from, onto, and into, and the windows aren't even down. Shoving her cheek against the glass, her dark irises chaotically dodged back and forth, trying to take in every sunlit and shadowed detail, until she gets nauseous. She sits back. She is giddy with excitement and repulsed by this feeling. “Don’t you dare fall in love with this place, you bitch” she thinks to herself.

Just a few minutes later, they pull up to a small, piss-colored house, that looks old and worn, but comfortable like broken in boots. Harold parks and turns around to look at her.

“Are you ready, kiddo?”

“Can you turn the other way for a sec so I can make a break for it and claw out a living space in the ground. I'll just live in the dirt. I'll be dirt lady. Lady living in the dirt hole. Dirt hole lady, that's what they'll call me.”

“Yeah, you'd have nice worm neighbors. I feel like you guys would get along.”

She looks out the window again at the house.

“God. Why doesn’t He just fucking end me already. I can join the masses in eternal oblivion. I’ll even take damnation.” After she says this, she knows it’s comically contradicting since her life is already hell.

“Oh, don’t say that. Your vocabulary is unsettling for a 14-year-old. Come on let's go, they're probably waiting.”

They get out of the car and open the trunk to remove her single bag that holds the entirety of her belongings. The downside of her game is that it’s annoying to pack up a bunch of shit and also she doesn’t think people need as much shit as they have anyways, so she keeps the shit to a minimum. As Harold closes up the trunk, the front door of the house flies open.