Steph drummed her pencil impatiently against her drawing pad. She was out of erasers, and she wanted - no, [i]needed[/i] - to finish this drawing today. She'd been working on it all week, an extra piece of art to stash in her various portfolios. Her walls were already taken up by paintings, drawings, print-outs and plans, maps of the fantasy worlds she obsessed over, copied to painstaking detail. Even her ceiling had been peppered with constellations and galaxies of other other universes - for her own universe was perfectly unworthy of life, in her opinion. Her very existence had no meaning - that was, until she discovered a hidden talent. Disconnecting.
That was truly the thing that had brought her back from the deepest pit of depression. It allowed her to journey to the worlds she so craved. Only last night she had been in the middle of creating sweeping landscapes that belonged to Middle-Earth. The red sun-set sky and the cool rush of the wind had overtaken her senses in her mind, Steph becoming so overcome with it all she cried in frustration as her alarm awoke her for school. That had been an hour ago - skipping breakfast in favour of finishing her drawing. But she had used up the tiniest nub of rubber, and still it lay un-finished.
"Thank God I have art today." She muttered, packing the A3 sheet of artists paper into a portfolio and tucking it under her arm, closing and locking her bedroom door behind her, and descending the shabby stairs of her house. From the lack of snoring often heard resonating from the front room, her Dad hadn't come in last night. Again. Not that she was complaining.
Opening the front door a crack, she exhaled for a moment, taking in the frost, and a grin growing on her face as the air misted around her warm breath, the clouds billowing out like steam from a dragon's maw.

Swiftly pulling an over-sized black coat on over her thin, off-shouldered sweater - displaying a motif of a lightsaber from Star Wars - and simple black leggings, the laces of her black combat boots trailed behind her as she walked towards the bus stop, her pace quickening to a job as she saw the school bus pull up.

Once on, she sighed inaudibly, taking in the overwhelming lack of seats barring one at the back. She preferred to sit on her own, staring out of the window and losing herself in her music. Keeping her head down - despite everyone ignoring her anyway - she walked to the back and sat next to the boy; Ethan, she was sure he was called. He never bothered her like most of the others boys did. Offering up a shy smile, she untucked her black curls from her ears, letting her mane of ebony swing forward and hiding her face. For some reason, she felt glad she had remembered to pull a brush through it this morning.