Stitch: The lore of Sara Foxgrave

The morning sun fought its way through the grime-streaked window, but it offered no warmth to the small bedroom. For Sara, mornings were never a gentle transition from sleep to wakefulness; they were a battleground of orientation. She blinked heavily, her eyelids feeling like sandpaper against her eyes. Every single day began with the same disorienting fog, a heavy shroud of uncertainty that made her question the very reality of her surroundings. She rubbed her eyes aggressively, trying to clear the static from her vision, and forced herself to look around the room. She looked once, then blinked, and looked a second time. It was a mandatory ritual. She had to verify the geometry of the walls, the placement of the door, and the specific tilt of the ceiling before she could trust that she was exactly where she thought she was.

With a low, guttural groan that sounded less like tiredness and more like the protest of a soul that had simply had enough, Sara finally sat up. The temptation to pull the heavy blankets back over her head and disappear into the darkness was overwhelming. She didn't want to face the day, but a nagging sense of obligation kept her moving. Today was her day off—a rare luxury that should have meant peace—but Birdi had been relentless. For as long as the stores have put the Halloween decor out, Birdi had insisted, demanded, and practically scheduled them to go shopping for Halloween decorations. There was no backing out now. This was Birdi's, THEIR family holiday. everyday was Halloween in their house, but the actual season caused Birdi to go bonkers.

Pushing the covers aside, Sara stood up on the cold floor, her body aching with a familiar stiffness. As she began the walk toward the upstairs bathroom, she paused, her eyes sweeping over her childhood bedroom. Even after all this time, she was utterly astonished by Birdi’s fierce, almost obsessive preservation of the past. It was like stepping into a time capsule, or a museum dedicated to a life they used to live. Birdi had kept absolutely everything the same.

Sara’s eyes lingered on the walls, which were still cluttered with the faded, curled edges of old punk band photos from their teenage years. Then there was the couch. It was the exact same worn-out, saggy sofa they had all piled onto years ago, drinking cheap beer and talking late into the night. Sara couldn’t help but smirk faintly, a cynical thought crossing her mind; she was absolutely certain Birdie must have had that thing professionally steam-cleaned since those days. Back then, that couch was downright filthy, a biohazard of spilled drinks, cigarette ash, and mystery stains. Now, it sat there like a clean monument to a chaotic youth.

Absorbed in her thoughts, Sara continued her trek up the stairs, completely on autopilot. She was wearing nothing but a pair of black boyshorts underpants and a black sports bra. Because her mind was still half-caught in the haze of her waking routine, her guard was completely down. She moved freely, her bare skin exposed, totally forgetting that the rest of the house was awake. More importantly, she forgot that she was putting her reality on full display. The extensive network of scars slicing across her torso, arms, and her leg were fully visible, uncovered and un-hidden. all of her tattoos and her prosthetic.She hadn't braced herself for the impact those marks usually had on people who weren't used to seeing them.

She reached the top of the stairs and stepped into the common area, only to realize the house was much more crowded than she anticipated. Kathrine was there this morning, sitting at the table, and the sight of her instantly made Sara’s stomach twist and her eyes roll. It took Sara only a fraction of a second to realize that Kathrine was wearing something brand new—or rather, new to her. It was an old shirt of Sara’s, unmistakable in its faded graphic print. It wasn't just the clothes, either. As Sara looked closer, she noticed Kathrine was parting her hair down the exact same line, styling it in a mirror image of Sara’s own signature look. The imitation was blatant, borderline pathological, and deeply unsettling.

Beside Kathrine sat John, and he looked terrible. "Well" was the last word anyone would use to describe him today. John was deathly pale, his skin possessing a translucent, sickly quality under the harsh kitchen light. His brown eyes looking sunken in. he usually looked as if he were about to take down the whole forest, thick strong and healthy, but not now. even his jeans and blue t shirt looked unhappy and dirty. something not John at all. He was constantly fidgeting, scratching at his arms and neck with an itchy, restless energy that screamed withdrawal. It was as if his entire nervous system was misfiring. Anyone looking at him could tell that something was profoundly, dangerously off.

At the stove stood Birdi, the atmosphere around her practically vibrating with tension. Birdi looked absolutely furious, aggressively slamming a spatula against the pan as she cooked breakfast, her shoulders tense and unyielding under her thick black hair. Jeff sat quietly at the wooden table, flanked by John and Kathrine. He wasn't eating. He was just staring at his coffee, his silence heavy and ominous, acting as the quiet before an inevitable storm.

"Good morning," Sara muttered into the tense air, her voice thick with sleep.

The reaction was instantaneous and suffocating. The room went dead silent. The boys' faces dropped, and Kathrine froze. Their eyes locked directly onto Sara’s exposed body, their gazes traveling down the jagged lines of her scars, staring with a mixture of morbid curiosity and profound shock. The heavy silence stretched as they all were looking down at her prosthetic leg, until Birdi sharply broke it.

"Stop staring and eat your food!" Birdi snapped at the table, her voice cutting through the tension like a knife. Usually Birdi has an explanation for her sharpness. but this was an order she barked.

Sara didn't stay to hear the rest. The burning discomfort of their stares pricked at her skin worse than the scars themselves. She turned sharply into the bathroom, shut the heavy wooden door behind her, and clicked the lock into place.

Safely isolated, she turned on the shower. She dialed the knob until the water was scalding hot, letting the steam quickly fill the small room and obscure the mirror. Stepping into the stall, the heat was exactly what she needed. It washed away the lingering fog of her morning, numbing the phantom aches in her leg and washing the dirt of the house’s heavy atmosphere off her skin. For fifteen minutes, the rhythmic roar of the water was her sanctuary, drowning out the world outside.

But the peace didn't last. Through the thick hiss of the shower, a new sound began to bleed through the walls. It started as a muffled rumble, but quickly escalated into sharp, unmistakable screaming.

Sara froze under the stream, her heart hammering against her ribs. She reached out and twisted the faucet handle, shutting the water off completely. Standing shivering in the sudden silence of the bathroom, the chaotic voices from the living room became crystal clear. A full-blown riot had erupted in the house.

The accusations flew loud and fast. Apparently, Kathrine had been caught red-handed trying to steal from Sara's room yet again, rummaging through her things while she was in the shower, just now. At the same time, Johnny was frantically cornering Jeff, desperately begging for money, his voice cracking as he spun a transparent lie to cover up his urgent need for drug money disguised as getting into rehab. The betrayal and the desperation triggered an absolute explosion. Both Birdi and Jeff were screaming at the top of their lungs, their voices overlapping in a cacophony of rage, profanity, and broken trust.

Sara couldn't understand every syllable of the chaotic shouting, but she knew danger when she heard it. Panic surging through her veins, she grabbed her clothes, throwing them on as fast as humanly possible, her damp skin making the fabric stick and bunch up. She frantically yanked her sports bra over her head, scrambled for shorts, and threw the bathroom door open.

She sprinted down the hallway half clad and burst into the living room, her breath catching in her throat. She arrived just in time to witness the climax of the fury. Jeff, his face flushed dark crimson with an anger Sara had never seen in him, had finally snapped. He had Johnny by the collar of his shirt and the belt of his pants. With a display of raw, unbridled physical force, Jeff was violently and physically hurling Johnny out of the house, throwing him through the front doorway and slamming the door shut on the wreckage of their morning.

The sound of the front door slamming shut vibrated through the floorboards, a definitive exclamation point at the end of Johnny’s desperate plea. For a few agonizing seconds, the house was entirely silent, save for the heavy, ragged breathing of Jeff standing by the threshold. The violent eruption of energy had left a vacuum in the living room, a thick, suffocating layer of tension that settled over everyone like dust.

Sara stood frozen just outside the bathroom hallway half dressed. Her heart hammered a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She looked from Jeff, whose knuckles were still white from gripping Johnny’s collar, over to the kitchen table. Sara had never known Jeff to ever even raise his voice let alone put his hands on someone, especially John, They'd all been friends since elementary school.

Kathrine hadn't moved. She sat there like a statue, frozen in the middle of her imitation. In the sharp, unforgiving light of the post-chaos silence, the sight of her was even more grotesque. She sat in Sara’s old graphic tee, her hair split down that familiar, mirrored part line, her eyes wide but strangely vacant. She didn't look remorseful about being caught trying to steal from Sara again; she looked annoyed that the theater had been interrupted.

"Is he gone?" Birdi’s voice broke the quiet. She was still holding the spatula, her knuckles just as white as Jeff’s. Her eyes were fixed on the door, filled with a mixture of bitter exhaustion and protective fury.

"He's gone," Jeff grunted, straightening his shirt with a sharp, violent jerk of his arms. He turned back toward the room, his face still flushed a dangerous crimson. He didn't look at Kathrine, and he didn't look at Sara. Instead, his gaze dropped to the floor, avoiding the wreckage of the morning they had all just participated in. "If he comes back, I’m calling the cops. I don’t care if he’s family or not. The drugs, the lying... it ends today."

Birdi let out a breath that sounded like a deflating balloon, throwing the spatula onto the counter with a loud clatter. The breakfast she had been aggressively preparing was ruined, smoking faintly in the pan, a stark monument to a ruined day off. She rubbed her temples, looking older than her years, the punk rock defiance of the house’s decor clashing terribly with the reality of the people trapped inside it.

finally looking up, Birdi's eyes softened just a fraction as they locked onto Sara, scanning her face for signs of panic. " Did she... did she take anything before we caught her?"

Sara swallowed past the lump in her throat, her gaze sliding over to Kathrine. Kathrine slowly looked up, her expression shifting from blankness to a subtle, mocking smirk. It was a look that said I can take whatever I want from you, and you can’t stop me.

"I don't think so," Sara whispered, her voice rough. She crossed her arms tightly over her chest, a defensive reflex to hide the phantom aches where her scars hid beneath her shirt. "I came out as soon as I heard the screaming."

"She was in your room, Sara," Jeff said, his voice dropping into a low, gravelly register as he finally walked back toward the table. He pointed a heavy, accusatory finger at Kathrine. "I saw her slipping out. She had her hands in your drawer. If Birdi hadn't yelled, who knows what she would've taken this time."

"I was just looking for a hair tie," Kathrine lied smoothly, her voice a perfect imitation of nonchalance. She twirled a strand of her parted hair around her finger, staring directly at Sara. "we have the same hair, I just assumed she would have a better hair tie"

The entitlement in her voice made the air in the room turn icy. Sara felt a cold shiver trace the line of the old stitch marks on her leg—a physical reminder of what happens when you let people get too close, when you let them carve pieces out of you until there's nothing left but a map of survival.

Birdi slammed her hand on the counter. "why are you still fucking here. go get your mans before he jumps on the next one that pays him mind and looks like Sara". Everyone's jaws were onto he floor now as Birdi said what everyone had always thought out loud.

Kathrine didn't argue. She stood up slowly, deliberately smoothing out the wrinkles of Sara's stolen shirt, ensuring Sara saw every inch of the violation. With a slow, theatrical roll of her eyes, she turned and sauntered down the the entryway hall and out of the front door with a slam. Birdi, Jeff and Sara left in the silence of the house and the faint argument happening outside between John and Katherine.

Jeff sank into a kitchen chair, burying his face in his hands. The silence returned, but it wasn't the volatile silence from before. It was the heavy, exhausting quiet of a battlefield after the smoke clears.

Birdi walked over to Sara, her furious facade completely melting away, leaving only the tired girl Sara had known for years. She reached out, her hand hesitant before gently touching Sara's shoulder.

"I'm sorry," Birdi murmured, her voice barely audible over the hum of the refrigerator. "Today was supposed to be a good day. We were supposed to get out of this house. Go get the Halloween stuff. Leave all... this behind for a few hours."

Sara looked toward the front door, the hallway, the bathroom and finally thinking of the dirty punk photos lining the walls in her childhood bedroom that never changed. The house was a time capsule, but it wasn't just preserving the good memories. It was keeping the rot alive, too.

"We can still go," Sara said, the words surprising even herself. She looked at Birdi, forcing a small, tight nod. She needed to get out. If she stayed in this house for one more hour, surrounded by stolen clothes, pale ghosts, and the suffocating weight of the past, she felt like she might break entirely. "Let's go shopping, Birdi. Let's just leave."

Birdi blinked at her, then exhaled like she’d been holding her breath for days. “Portland?” she asked, already reaching for her jacket. “I could use a day where nothing is haunted.”

Jeff stepped into the doorway, wiping drywall dust off his hands. He looked between them—Sara’s strained face, Birdi’s restless energy—and nodded like he’d been waiting for this moment. “Portland sounds good,” he said. “Hell, anywhere sounds good.”

Sara grabbed her keys, her movements sharp, decisive. “I just need to not be here.”

Jeff let out a humorless laugh. “Yeah. I get that.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and started dialing. “I’m calling the contractor. I’m telling him to put a rush on the new house. I don’t care what it costs. We need out of this place.”

Birdi paused halfway through tying her boots. “You think he’ll actually hurry?”

“Oh, he’ll hurry,” Jeff said, already pacing. “I’ll make sure of it. I’m done living in this half-collapsed memory box. John can have it. Let him deal with whatever the hell is still clinging to the walls.”

Sara froze at that—Johns name always hit her like a cold wind—but she didn’t argue. She didn’t have the energy to. “Good,” she said quietly. “Let him keep it.”

Jeff ended the call with a curt, “Tomorrow. I want progress tomorrow,” then shoved the phone back into his pocket. “Alright. Let’s go. Portland. Fresh air. Normal people. Stores that don’t smell like mildew and regret.”

Birdi snorted. “And coffee. I want coffee that wasn’t brewed in a kitchen full of ghosts.”

Sara managed a small smile. “Coffee sounds perfect.” and she rushed down to her room to go get dressed for the day, a basic black t shirt and a pair of black jeans with holes in the knees and her busted up combat boots Birdi is always spraying with something.

They stepped out into the crisp air together—Sara locking the door behind her without looking back—each of them carrying their own reasons for needing to escape, but united in the simple, urgent truth:

They couldn’t stay here anymore. It was getting to crowded and with Sara being home it was time to start anew.

And Portland, even just for the day, felt like the first breath they’d taken in weeks.