For Kaylee Jade and my brother,
the first two to listen to the story
I woke up like every other day to the sound of the alarm ringing. With my eyes shut tight, my fingers reached and searched the alarm until they touched the off button. I tried to get up, but my body just refused to leave the bed! I put the pillow above my head, shutting the world from around me. I wanted to skip school, skip life, and just lay there in bed. Finally, I reached out my hand to the shelf on top of my bed and turned on the music. I managed to open my eyes and sit up. But it was a matter of seconds before I laid back on the bed, my legs barely touching the ground. I knew that if I don't get up, I will be late to school just like last week! So, I finally put myself and strength together and flung myself out of bed, headed to the bathroom, washed my face and stared at myself in the mirror, dripping water with messy hair. Everyone says I am beautiful, especially my best friend Max, but I see no beauty in the girl I am seeing in the mirror. I am just normal. Grey eyes, natural brown straight hair with blonde highlights, natural tall eyelashes and a clear face. I turned away from the mirror and took the towel to dry my face. I brushed my teeth and pulled up my hair into a low, messy bun. I went back into my room, changed into my cargo jeans, and put on my black t-shirt and on top I wore my favorite cargo jacket, finally I wore my black sneakers. After I was done getting dressed, I took my phone, headphones, and notebook, packed them all in my small bag and left the room, closing the door behind me. I went out to the kitchen to find my younger brother, Mason, sitting at the table waiting for me to put breakfast. My parents were in their room like usual, still sleeping. "morning!" he greets me. "where's Amelia and Alex?" I ask. "Amelia is still in bed I guess, and Alexander will be here in a matter of minutes" he answers. "yeah a matter of minutes just like every morning" I say rolling my eyes and mason laughs. Amelia is the youngest and the only sister I have. Alexander on the other hand is the eldest of us. I am in 9th grade, which makes me 15 years old. Mason is in 7th grade, so he is 13. Amelia on the other hand is in 5th grade; she is about 11 years old and alexander finally is in 11th grade making him 17. I go to Amelia's room and wake her up. "come on you will be late for school you better hurry up" I tell her softly. She nods and goes to the bathroom to wash her face. "don't forget to brush your teeth" I remind her. "ok" she replies from the bathroom. I pick out a blue overall with a plain white long sleeve t-shirt, and her black leather boots. When she comes out of the bathroom, I make her dress into them. And as soon as she is done. I comb her brown hair that falls to her shoulders. Unlike me, her skin is tan. I am normal skin colored just like mason. Alexander is as tan as Amelia is. Me and Amelia have no similar features except for our long natural eyelashes. She has brown eyes not grey like mine. I look more like mason. Since we both have the same hair color, same skin, and same eye color. Alexander has green eyes, tan skin, and messy brown hair. Me and mason look like dad while Amelia looks like my mother. Alexander doesn't have any of my parents features except for his skin and hair color that's like my mother. His eyes are just different from all of us. I help Amelia pack her bag and then I look at her, my hands on her shoulders. Her brown hair falling down to her shoulders, her beautiful brown eyes, and her tan soft skin. "I wish I was beautiful like you" she tells me. "you're beautiful!" I whisper and then open my arms for her to come in. I hug her so tight my lips touching her soft hair. I kiss her head and tell her I love her. Then we go out to the kitchen so I could prepare breakfast. As soon as we reach the kitchen Alexander is already sitting at the table with mason waiting. " hey there" he tells me. "hi" I reply. I put some milk and cereal. We eat quietly. And when we finish Alexander pats me on the back and says "cheer up" I nod and give a small smile of approve. We walk to school like every other morning. I drop Amelia to class with a kiss on the cheek and go to my class. As I walk through the hallways, I hear a group of girls whispering of how they wish to be as beautiful as I am and then a group of boys whose eyes are just fixed on me. You except me to like it but I hate it! cause honestly, I am just normal not even beautiful. "hey" I say as I meet with max. "hey there" he says with a big smile as usual. He walks with me to class and then he leaves to his class. Max is a year older than me. we met when I was 8, in the playground. Ever since that day we became best friends, hanging out in the woods, sometimes hunting sometimes just watching the nature or the city. I don't have any friends at school, so Max is my only best friend. Later in the day as soon as chemistry was over, we had math's which was our last lesson and my least favorite class. As soon as the bell rings I start packing up "class dismissed, have a nice day and don't forget your homework is due on Thursday. See you tomorrow all" says our math teacher. I leave class without any word. As I pass the lockers, Ethan a boy in my class tries to talk to me but I don't stop to listen, I just keep walking. I am used to go hunting every other day in the forest after school but ever since what I saw of glimmer I got scared. Glimmer was a girl in our class. She went deep into the forest to do some research, and she never came back, not the same day anyway. We started to get worried that day, yet we tried to keep patient believing she will be back any minute later. But she didn't and that led us to conclusion that she was dead. The next morning, we heard a load shriek coming from the edge of the forest. We all went to where it was, and may your eyes never see what we saw! Glimmer was at the edge of the forest covered in blood. She looked like someone chewed her and spit her out. Dead. But worse. the scream was from another girl who came to the spotlight and saw her first. No one dared to go close to the body not even her family who were crying silently. Only her older brother David tried to run towards her, but they pulled him back while he fought and screamed for his sister. my eyes filled with tears at the sight of the brother fighting to get to his sister. Her other brother, the youngest and the one who loved her the most was crying so hard while his mom tried to calm him, although she herself had tears filled in her eyes. glimmer was a nice girl and maybe we weren't friends, but I never forgot when she helped me in math's when I was in 7th grade or when she used to sit next to me at lunch when max couldn't attend school. not to mention the fact that we have been neighbors for like forever. I could take her as a friend. I tried to swallow the tears back but there was so much of them, they just fell down my cheeks so fast. I couldn't help it anymore; I ran away back home. Entered my room and closed the door behind me. I sat on my bed crying so hard. What I saw there became a nightmare that will never leave me. I knew the government kept some kind of monster deep in the forest and bringing glimmers body back was a sign of something big. It was sign of war.