Ramona: Ramona, #1

By O.K.B

Alice is just a young girl living a life some may deem far from normal while all too many would deem heavily relatable. Experiencing more than most for her age, she finds her ways of coping may be more harmful than helpful when her inner demon, Ramona, causes her to bite off far more than she ever wanted to endure. Now she must learn how to control said endeavors while avoiding harming anyone else in the process. Take on this short but intense journey following part one of a three part series experiencing all the fight Alice has to give while uncovering the many psychological bandaids her mind and body has released to help her cope. Will she be a survivor? Or will her demons get the best of her? Only time will tell. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: O.K.B
• Release date: Mar 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215664803

Book preview

The Beginning

We as humans hold a special place in our minds for trauma. Though it seems some are able to avoid it altogether, others find themselves hunted and haunted. There is no one way of knowing how our minds, our bodies, our very beings will react to the volatile actions different traumas bring into our lives. As soon as the ball begins to roll, it is an indefinite fight back to our humanly found normalcies. Our societal bound tendencies, activities, and possibilities from which we all stem and thrive off of. Some pick up habits of toxic nature. Some just cannot cope to even survive. And some, like Alice, fall into a whole other world completely.

Alice was a thirteen-year-old girl who lived with her family in a small town just outside the city. She was poise yet ruthless, caring but guarded. Able to disguise and manipulate herself into any reality she knew she needed to survive. Two days before her home burnt down, Alice was setting up for her little brother’s 7th birthday. She didn’t have the money to go out and buy the decorations she knew he would love, so instead she took her time carefully connecting scraps of paper and random items found around the house to make her own. Frustrated that nobody else had even mentioned Tommy’s birthday, she was determined to give him one of his best parties yet.

Well, that should do it, she said cheerfully to herself as she finished hanging the last creatively fashioned streamer.

It looks like you just dumped trash all over the place, Ramona chimed in sarcastically.

You act like trash has been dumped on everything, Alice replied to herself as she cleaned around her parents who laid passed out on the couch from the night before. Can I just have one day without you picking on every little thing?

Sure, sure...you seem to know what you’re doing. Please, continue your ritual of crap.........your craptual. Ramona joked as her voice echoed through Alice’s head.

She could feel her joy and frustration fighting inside her. Normally she kept in good spirits and didn’t pay too close attention to the darkness around her. But then there was Ramona, the bad news loving pessimist that lived inside Alice’s head. She didn’t tend to mind the extra company most of the time, but she wished she could have conjured up someone a little more optimistic like she tries to be.

As she finished up with the cleaning, trying to ignore Ramona’s constant you missed a spot nagging, Alice stood at the base of her work and scoped out the rooms around her. Besides the clutter of junk that had become a part of the house’s framework at this point, she wasn’t too disappointed with the job she had done.

Now it’s time to get these saps off their butts and in the birthday mood, Alice said trying to hold on to her last bit of positivity.

She didn’t understand why nobody else was taking point like she was and getting the place ready to celebrate. Any other day of the week this behavior would be spot on, but birthdays always got celebrated. Her mom would bake a cake and made sure to have at least one thoughtful gift. Her older brother, Marcus, would play his guitar and get everybody dancing in the backyard. And her dad would get the grill going and cook up whatever slab of meat he scored at the market that week.

From the outside looking in, it wasn’t much, but it was meaningful to her. It was the one normal thing they did as a family. But today they were treating it like any other with Marcus locked in his room listening to music way too loud while her parents continued wasting the day on the couch thanks to cheap booze and whatever drug they could score from the sketchy mailman next door.

As Tommy adventured in the backyard, Alice did her best to keep a positive attitude while she finished getting everything ready for the celebration. She pulled the cake out of