BEEP! BEEP!
I slap the button on the alarm clock, trying to stop its irritating wails. I am lying in my bed, my fluffy stuffed animals surrounding my heavily buried form. I have many of them, a whole collection from my childhood, which I can't bear to get rid of.
Gold tones flood through my small windows, illuminating my face as I sit up into the glaring sunlight. Just beyond the glass lays a beautiful milieu of crisp, green grass, crystal clear lake water, and tall trees. Puffy clouds hang in the blue sky, birds cruising across the horizon.
I wearily drag myself from the covers, my feet causing a thump as they collide with the floor.
Stumbling over to my dresser, I carelessly grab a t-shirt and a pair of jeans, sliding it over my form.
My spare pair of glasses, the other lost in the storm, squeak as I slide it onto my nose. I, by chance, catch a glance of my body in the mirror, and gasp.
A huge, black-and-blue bruise sprawls across my left shoulder, extreme redness surrounding it.
Another one, though not quite so major, decorates my knee, bringing back painfully stark memories from the previous night. It isn't only a dream.
I really did meet a handsome crazy man last night who saved me from certain death.
I can still remember his perfect face, his startling green eyes, and his uniqueness I did not understand. Even thinking of him sends tingles through my body, alertness flooding through me.
How can a brief memory affect me so much?
I shuffle to the door, looking out along the hallway. Rows of doors greet me, stuffiness overtaking my senses. A repugnant stench makes my nose wrinkle in disgust, but not surprise. It always smells like this. The other kids all got used to it, but I never did.
From the very beginning, my ninth birthday spanning until the present, I have felt like I didn't belong. Almost... like my parents were not fated to die, that I was meant to be by their side even now. It was just a feeling, in the pit of my stomach, that something was terribly wrong.
The other kids, as I grew up, seemed to understand that also, gladly treating me like I didn't belong. At first, I was a pretty nice kid. I wanted more friends.
I wanted to play in their games. I wanted Ms. Penn to treat me just like everyone else. And, most of all, I wanted desperately to laugh. To smile.
But I soon gave up on that fantasy.