Stifling another yawn, my head collapsed against the double-stacked pillows. One of my hands – my right – bent at a nearly unnatural angle around to drop the Nintendo 3DS system I had been playing onto the chair by the bed. With my eyes closed, I could only imagine gentle blue light pulsating slightly – an indication that the device was not turned off, but merely resting. It would wait until the morning, when I would take it up to play the game again...

Not that I would likely be allowed. My facial muscles contorted into a frown, the bed beneath me suddenly foreign and uncomfortable. The air in the room around me suddenly oppressive and unfamiliar. This wasn't my room, and I was painfully aware of it. I didn't have a room to call my own, nor a house anymore. My old room... My sanctuary... It was lost to me now.

It had been about a month now. I didn't count the days, the numbered system of dates did that for me. Every new day seemed the same, but I tried to hold fast to the hope that each day would be another grand opportunity to actually find a house to call my own.

Well, my mum's house, but my home... Even at 21, I was still living with my mother. Not that I really minded. She was a good mother to me, and I loved her dearly. But she seemed reluctant to leave this temporary abode.

It had started last year. Well, not really – the problem had started years ago really, when my parents had first announced they were splitting up. My sister and I had been devastated and, perhaps simply because he wore his heart on his sleeve more, we had sided with our father. We blamed mother for the fact that our father was no longer living with us, and those weekend visits to his dingy little house or going with him to the cinema had always drove home the harsh reality of the situation.

Then, years later, during one of those visits, my older sister suddenly cut off contact with him. Visits to his house became less frequent, and then came that fateful day.

I still remember it, though I wish I didn't.

It was January. I know because I hadn't heard anything from my father for over a month by then, and I was worried. It wasn't like him. Christmas had come and gone with no word from him, and no news about that film I had wanted to watch with him at the cinema. But on that day, when I got home, I was suddenly pleased to see a letter waiting for me.

It was from dad, but my pleasure quickly turned to shock as I opened that letter. The first word I had seen, a confusing word in the middle of the page summed it all up.

My mother got home from work to find me crying on the floor, the traitorous letter in my hands.

For days and weeks... And still now, it's something so hard to believe.

Exams came and went. I performed nowhere nearly as good as anybody had expected, but I still went to university to study game design as I had always wanted. Never mind that it wasn't the university I had wanted to go. Never mind that letter from father or the dreams I had about them that left me crying and missing lessons. Never mind the fact that suddenly I was on my own in a new city, my friends slowly drifting away. Never mind my realisation that I was still in love with my ex-girlfriend – who was now the only friend I had left, but was now married. Never mind my lack of confidence in my abilities which led to more missed lessons.

Never mind that in the meantime, my mother revealed she would have to sell our house.

And that leads to today. I finally withdrew from university after two years – mental health reasons, mainly. I was back in my sanctuary. My home... That I would soon have to part with.

The place I had lived for 21 years. The place where my cat, whom I had loved like a younger sister had lived too, until she died before I went to university. The only place I felt safe anymore.

The "For Sale" sign went up, and we looked fervently for a new house, visiting estate agents, browsing the internet... All the time I tried to see the positives in it...

My sister had moved out by this point, going to live and start a family with her fiancé. Of course she'd take the other cat with her. She did "belong" to her, after all.

Still, an offer was made on our house. A nice, though young, family. They needed to move in, though we still hadn't found a house.

Then we did. It was nice, only slightly smaller, and I would have a spacious attic bedroom. I was actually excited by something other than games or fictional worlds for the first time in a while. We went to look at it, my mother and I. My mother's boyfriend came too. They had met at a dancing session, where they go every Monday, Friday and Saturday night. He was an architect or something, though retired.

While my mother and I admired the house, he came to his own conclusions about it. He pointed out all of the work that needed to be done: this floor, those windows, that entire wall.

Mother didn't buy that house, but we still needed to move out. Now, we're living in his house.

I rolled over in my mother's boyfriend's spare bed again, my frown slowly fading away as I forced my thoughts back to the wonderful fictional worlds that dwelled within games.

Of course, when I woke up, those worlds would suddenly become less fictional.

Author's Note: This is pretty much just an exercise in writing, with me writing down whatever comes to my mind while I'm trying to nod off to sleep. I'm mainly writing this to entertain myself, and a few of my friends, but I hope this story can be enjoyed by everyone.

Anyway, this was a short prologue just to introduce my mopey self. The rest of the chapters should will be longer.