Blackbird

My Heroes and My Values

Screaming, she ran through the forest.

Maybe, it was just a bear, maybe a coyote, she's not too sure. Running just became the norm as her legs never seemed to hurt. She edged the end of the woods, right before falling into an endless void. She was weightless, as if gravity wasn't a thing. All of a sudden, she was at school. She hadn't remembered how she got there, but the light blinded her. She hated it.

Hate was a word that was passed around a lot at school. I hate her. I hate that outfit, oh and that hair? Hideous. It came in many prominent shapes and forms, but was a constant.

She was at lunch, it seemed. Well, she was in the cafeteria, but no one had food in front of them, they had shoes. Which was quite weird. No one was talking, their mouths were open, but no words came out. But soon, all attention was taken away from her classmates, but brought towards a figure in the middle of the large room. She tried to render to whom it could be, but they were blurred out. Nothing was visible, except their mouth. They too opened their mouths. But instead of words coming out, a beeping siren did.

The morning light shined into Riley's room as she got up from a strange dream. Her alarm was going off, seeming a lot louder than usual. From a distance, she could hear the sounds coming from downstairs. Her mother, making what seemed to be pancakes. Her dog, outside, barking at what was probably his own shadow.

Once she got tired of the constant beeping coming from her alarm, Riley slammed her hand down on it. It came to a quick halt. She groaned, ready to go back to sleep. That was before she remembered she had to go to Sam's house after school. This made her get up, begrudgingly, and head to her bathroom.

Her room was smaller than her school bathrooms, with barely enough room for her bed. Which was the reason why she and Sam usually met up at Sam's house. Although small, she made good use of her limited room. Her dad had built a shelf for her, which kept the three books she had actually read, and the rest of her junk.

She had only read three books, despite being encouraged around five times a day by her language arts teacher to read every single day. Who needed books anyway? They did no good now. Realistic books only taught her about how depressing life was. Fantasy gave her false hope, along with sci-fi. And who would want to read Historical Fiction or Informational books?

On the opposite side of her room, beside the bathroom, was a dresser. It stored her clothes and was close enough to her bed to use as a desk. The walls of her room were plain beige, with the carpeted floors. She seemed pretty basic. For the most part anyway.

She walked inside her bathroom, grabbing her toothbrush and toothpaste. If anything, she was gonna make sure her teeth were clean. Riley had taken a shower that previous night, so all that was left was to grab her pills. She opened up the medicine cabinet, but didn't find them there. Weird. Riley knew she hadn't done anything with them. Oh well, Riley sighed. "Great way to start my day."

She walked back into her room after putting on deodorant. Clothes were arguably the hardest part of her day, what to wear? If you were to wear one wrong thing at school, you'd might as well have been chopped liver. She settled on a white t-shirt with the earth on it, with black trousers and a green jacket. As long as Sam was with her, she wouldn't be called any names or anything anyway. Riley grabbed her school bag off of her dresser and a cap. She looked outside one more time, noticing the plain town's landscape. It was the middle of winter, so most of the kids headed to school were in jackets and sweaters. She sighed, heading out of the room.

The staircase headed downstairs was narrow. The walls suffocated her. Pictures laid on both sides, showcasing what a happier family they were when she was seven. They had a lot of extended family. This included her dad's brother. Riley hadn't seen him in awhile, but her mom said that she didn't need to. Last she heard, he was in jail for dealing drugs to minors.