Work Text:
Olivia is ten.
She’s chasing Guinevere, who once again is trying to escape from her cage palace and run away from Planet Park, a giant gift made by an emotionally and physically distant father to her traumatized child. Usually this ends with Guinevere being dragged back to Olivia’s room and subjected to an intensive “operation” in order to “fix” her, but this time it ends with Guinevere (accidentally or intentionally?) throwing her off a balcony and into the ocean where Planet Park was floating on at the moment. The last thing she saw before the impact with the water and the loss of consciousness is Guinevere falling towards her and attempting to shield her.
When she reopens her eyes, she’s in a crowded hospital room, laying on a bed with many broken bones caused by the impact and numerous chemical burns. A nurse that is checking on a nearby patient notices that she is awake and told her bluntly that a guy on a boat that was looking for junk to sell for cheap found her floating in the sea, injured and covered in industrial sewage, saved her and dumped her there, where the doctors did the bare minimum to treat her injuries and prevent any damage from the chemicals. She then asks her her name and the names of her parents so that the hospital can contact them and charge them the cost of the operation and the rehabilitation process, but when she tells her that she’s Olivia Park the nurse mocks her and refuses to believe it. After shouting for half an hour that she really was Olivia Park and what happened to her and the nurse not believing a single word another nurse comes and sedates her because she’s bothering the rest of the patients. As Olivia loses consciousness her last thought is that her father will find and rescue her.
The following days for Olivia feel like a loop, with her laying in a bed staring at the roof and trying to ignore the rest of the patients as she desperately hopes that her father will come to rescue her, occasionally interrupted by the unhelpful nurse that checks on her to see if she’s getting better so that they can kick her out of the hospital and give the bed to someone else who can pay for their cures. One month later she’s finally able to stand with the help of crutches without feeling too much pain they ship her to an overcrowded and run-down foster home, run by a despotic old man who only runs the place because the government pay him well enough to justify taking in 20 kids and “educating” them so that one day they will join Park Industries and have an honest job… as easily replaceable wage slaves. When the old man hears her name and her story he laughs at her face and calls her a delusional nobody and proclaims that from now on she’ll just be Liv, a shorter name easier to remember for him, and shows her the bed in the dormitory where she’ll sleep until she’s legally an adult and she will be forced to leave the place. She spends the first night awake, trying to ignore the crying and the shouting of the other kids and hoping that her father will come to rescue her soon.
A month later things aren’t much better for Olivia: she made the mistake of telling the other kids who she was and they began to insult and bully her, the food is awful, the beds are uncomfortable, the clothes the old man gave her are ill fitting and old and the “school” is closer to a propaganda machine than a proper school and it basically does nothing but teach them to read, write and the bare minimum to operate machines in a factory. The only thing that keeps her going is the hope that her father will find her one day.
And then it happened.
An old tv screen always turned on the Park Channel was showing the latest parade of Planet Park, made to celebrate the release of a new movie starring Guinevere. Olivia and a few other kids were watching it, but she was doing it in the hope to see her father again, even if just from a tv screen. After a long wait he finally appeared at the end of the parade, on a big, beautiful parade float, waving hands and thanking the audience… alongside his daughter, who was smiling at his side.
Olivia rushed towards the screen, ignoring the complaints of the other kids and stared in horror at what was happening on screen. Her father and “Olivia” looked happy, actually he looked happier than he had ever been with her, and her heart broke the moment he claimed that ha was so happy that after so many months of illness his daughter was finally able to participate to these celebrations, followed by “Olivia” telling him how much she loved her dad for having made this parade extra special just for her. They kept speaking for a while but Olivia didn’t hear any of it because she got dragged away from the tv by an older kid, too shocked to react to what she just saw. Her father never searched for her after the incident (or if he did, he did so for a very short time before giving up), instead he replaced her with another child, a happier, nicer, more grateful one than her.
Olivia shambled towards the dormitory, laid down on her bed and for the first time in years she began to cry. She had been thrown away and replaced by the only family she had left.
She was alone and no one would come to save her.