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What Is There to Love About Pot Pie?

Nnuumie
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Synopsis
For the last three years, 17-year-old Rue Joel has been cooped up in his single-bedroom apartment, surviving off of nothing but regular ol' chicken and peas pot pie, but what choice does he have? After all, a fatal, fast-acting airborne disease plagues his very streets, leaving him with no choice but to stay put in his apartment. Of course, no one would want to die, right? Well, after having to eat his least favorite food on the planet, a chicken and peas pot pie, for three years straight, Rue questions if it is really worth continuing to live a life like this, forced to stay confined in this single-bedroom apartment.  And so, after surviving in his apartment five more days, Rue decides to step outside for the first time in three years.
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Chapter 1 - The Painter's Missing Half

A white space, mostly devoid of any life.

At its center a single girl stands before a half-completed canvas. She is about five feet in height and has a rather skinny build. Her hair is white, unkept, frizzy and quite long as the ends of her hair reach her calves. She wears only a single, long, white nightgown-like cloth that wraps around her collarbones and droops down to her ankles.

The girl holds two objects, a used paintbrush in her right hand and a palette full of both dried and new paint in her left. The palette holds many colors atop its wooden surface, most of which had been mixed together as a result of her continuous painting and lack of cleaning.

Stacked on the floor like a pile of trash to her left were several discarded canvas'. Most of them were either broken, messed up or outright demolished.

The girl hated each of those pieces.

She would always start with the same half of the painting every single time, and every single time it would come out to her liking; however, when it came to painting the other half of the picture, she always paused. She would then think, often straining her brain as much as possible as she pondered on the next stroke. Should she stroke her brush upwards? Downwards? To the left, or right? What color should she use? How much pressure should she apply to the canvas? Where should be the first place on this half to touch with her paintbrush? All equally fair questions, yet never any answers.

She could ask questions like that for eternity and never once would she receive an answer at all.

She would be doomed to fail.

Over and over and over and over and over and over again.

She would always be half done.

She would always be half complete.

The girl stared at her half-completed canvas.

The same result appeared before her very eyes like always.

Why...? Why... can't I... finish it? What is...wrong with me? The girl wondered as she began to sob. The strength to keep painting had left her body almost completely as she fell to her knees-- the paintbrush and palette she held also fell simultaneously. 

Once on her knees, the girl grabbed at the canvas' legs and squeezed while bowing her head. The girl continued to sob, and while this feeling of sadness usually only swelled inside of her, it had never reached to this extent.

An unhealthy sadness.

A feeling of complete and utter despair.

The girl couldn't bear it. She didn't want to bear it anymore. To always fail, to never have that half completed, is that my fate? The girl wondered.

The girl continued to kneel as she sobbed almost uncontrollably.

A few moments later, the girl somehow, someway, within this endless void of white, heard a faint sound akin to that of a whisper.

"Noel..." the voice whispered.

Startled, the girl spun her head around-- her eyes desperately searching the endless space of white to find the source of the sound.

Strangely enough, there was no trace of any person around, only an empty white void devoid of any life besides hers existed.

After examining her surroundings for a while, the girl turned her head back to the canvas and stared at its incomplete state with teary eyes.

Normally seeing the half-completed canvas heavily upset the girl; however, something about the canvas felt...different this time around.

"...Noel..." The girl repeated this name with a teary-eyed smile.