'This is so fucking boring,' Martha thought as stood on the lawn of the new house that her parents had forced her to move into; it was old and she half wondered by how dilapidated it was if her parents secretly hated her and were secretly trying to kill her as it was like all of the other houses that they had bought in the past, terrible enough that the roof might collapse on her head at any moment.

'Just another stupid quote, unquote fixer upper,' she thought with a grunt as she ignored her parents who were directing the movers about removing the boxes and went inside; somewhat hoping that maybe this would be the one to end her suffering, her life did suck, being forced to move from crap place to crap place as they fixed up old houses and sold them for a dime and occasionally scrounged up old objects that had been left behind that earned them quarters.

'Shitty on the inside too,' she noted as she entered the threshold and noted the peeling walls and the staircase with the disgusting looking carpet that may have seen a better decade; 'maybe I should keep my shoes on...' Now feeling extremely bored, she walked up the stairs as slowly as she could while avoiding the need to touch the railing; not really in the mood for a concussion. When she had reached the top, she ignored the rooms in favor of reaching to the ceiling to pull down the ladder that could only lead to the attic.

'Maybe I can find something to make my own money with?' Her parents kept all the money for themselves and didn't believe in allowances so what little she had was from the occasional odd job that she could find whenever they moved and that went into the bank where she was even barred from owning a debit card; all purchases she made had to go through them...she really, really hated that!

She was suddenly thankful that is had been cold enough to wear a sweatshirt because she had to pull the sleeve down over her hands so that she could put them on the stairs to help herself up them and there was just so much dust that she didn't place her hands or feet on them so as not to kick up so much for she was sure that it would be a storm.

The attic is as dusty as the stairs and her once purple sleeves may as well have been dyed grey; she groaned as she turned her arms outward to avoid any transfer as she looked around and was disappointed to see that it was empty...except for that one box with weird writing in the corner...

'Bingo!' She smirked as she carefully made her way over to it and tried not to be creeped out by the weird design that decorated it; she sure as hell couldn't read it as it clearly wasn't even in English, nor did she care, it could only be something valuable, right? She carefully knelt so her knees didn't touch the floor and carefully blew the dust off so she could reach under the lid to pull it off.

It stuck fast at first, presumably from being closed for so long but eventually she was able to pry it open but the forced used caused her to fall back and land hard on the floor, kicking up the dust high into the air before it began raining back down on her; she had only seconds to close her eyes and hold her breath to prevent herself from suffocating under all of it.

'This better be fucking worth it,' she thought sourly as she carefully opened her eyes to see that the dust had settled and took in her very gray clothes and groaned before she quickly jumped up and walked back to the box to see what she had gone through all the trouble for. She peered inside and the lack of light in the attic save for the sunlight shining through the window made it very hard for her to see what it was except that it was round and dark colored.

She picked it up to examine and the only thing she could think was 'I went through all that trouble for this...? A magic eight ball? Son of a bitch!'

It was a magic eight ball, but something about it set it apart from the others in existence, there was writing on it in dark red; presumably the same language that had been on its container. There were places that appeared to be cracked, whether from mishandling or age she could tell, some were quite deep and others were only on the surface; she wondered how old it actually was as the color itself was a bit faded, not as black as it should have been?

She was a bit disappointed in its appearance, what if no one was willing to buy something so shabby looking? Maybe if it works properly someone would look past that?

'Only one way to find out,' she thought as she took a breath and whispered into the opening; "will my parents ever stop flipping houses?" She gave it an extra good shake for extra measure before she stopped and awaited for the answer; once the insides finished swirling, the simple triangle said "Yes".

"As if," she scoffed under her breath at the unlikeliness of the balls message; she made to toss it back into the box but something halted her as a thought came to her.

'It's not like people actually takes these things seriously; I mean it's in working order so that means it has to be worth something, right? Well, I just need to figure out a time to smuggle this thing out without mom and dad noticing it; I just have to get this downstairs, they just finished putting my bed together before I came up here and I hope that I can smuggle this under there before they see it...'

She picked up the dropped lid and polished both it and box up before she replaced the lid and carried it tightly to her chest as she carefully made her way out of the attic, closing the stairs behind her although she knew that it would be useless to explain away all of the dust that she had accumulated on herself but she hoped that she could at least avoid everyone until she had the box safely stowed away in her room.

She had just cleared the hall to go back to her room when she noticed that she was leaving a faint trail of dusty footprints leading from the attic; not wanting to take any chances, she removed her shoes and put them onto the prints that she had stopped so she wouldn't track anymore dust. She crept slowly, praying the whole time that no one would come in to witness this; she had to hurry while being sneaky.

Somehow she had in fact been able to make to her room and stash the box under her bed, one of the few places that her parents would never trespass in and was out of her door and closing it before she heard voices downstairs and quickly dashed to put on her shoes, somehow managing to avoid tripping as she put them on before she went to join her parents; trying to think of a good excuse as to why she had gone to the attic in the first place.

Her brain was no so scrambled between the excuses and moving that she completely forgot about the crazy eight ball...for a few months anyway.

#

Three months after moving into the new house, Martha was even more miserable than before, she felt it every time she had to cook and bring food to her fully paralyzed bedridden mom; this routine had been ingrained in her life for the past month, ever since the car accident that had put her mom in bed and killed her dad.

'They can't flip houses now can they?' she thought snidely as she brought the empty dishes downstairs to wash so they wouldn't pile up and attract bugs; the nagging feeling of familiarity had returned to her the first time of the accident had come back again. It was while finishing the last dish that the dots had finally connected.

'No more flipping...that stupid eight ball' she nearly dropped the plate in shock; 'but that's stupid, eight balls don't really answer questions or cause shit to happen, right?' Still, she had to check...just in case. Quietly, she stepped back upstairs to her room where the long forgotten box had been stashed.

She pulled out the box and took off the lid before she removed the ball from the box before she took another breath and whispered into the ball, "is my life going to get better?" and shook it hard from all the frustration that she was pouring out. A big fat "NO" appeared and she dropped the ball in anger before a loud bang rang from above the house; she didn't have time to run before the plane crashed and smashed the house to pieces, destroying everything save for that one eight ball that was nestled safely in its box.

Just waiting for the next person to find it.