It's the quiet rustle of crumpling papers that pulls me out of my sleepy haze. Stretching, I turn to find Minerva, my cat, sitting atop a pile of old English assignments that she must've found under my bed.
"What have you gotten into this time?" I yawn, bending down to scoop her up. She was always getting herself into trouble, but that's just why I keep her around, she makes things interesting, and that's hard to do around here.
I swing my legs out of bed and plant my feet firmly on the floor, the cold hardwood greets them with a sharp bite, its always freezing this early in the morning. I toss Minerva back onto my bed, stand and head for the door. Reluctantly, I reach for the doorknob and turn. It lets out a sickening creak, and I wince, I didn't want anyone to know I was awake. I look back to see Minerva staring at me, wide eyed.
"Well I'd like to see you try to do any better." I whisper. She knows as well as I do its best not to be heard.
I live in an old house, wooden walls, and wooden floors, wooden everything. I live in the attic, so it's usually more so "dusty everything" but I like it that way. I chose to live in the attic, when we moved my parents insisted I live on the main floor with everyone else, but I refused. I like to be alone. Of course that is hard to accomplish with 6 brothers and sisters running around, so I usually try to get out as early as I can.
Pulling the door the rest of the way open I step out into the musty hallway. It's long and narrow, leading to a single spiral staircase at the far end. The only doors along the side walls consist of my own, a storage room, and a bathroom.
Carefully I tip-toe across the hall into the bathroom, and pull the door closed quickly behind me. I hit the light switch, and the dim lights flicker on. I turn to see myself in the dirty mirror, my clothes are crumpled from sleeping in them all night, and my long black hair is tied messily at the side of my head. I look a fright. I spin around and pull back the old yellowing shower curtain to turn on the water, I remove my clothes and step into the tub.
The warm water feels great against my shivering body, and I allow myself to stand still and let it engulf for me for a moment, before I have to quickly bathe and hurry out of the house.
"Hurry out..." I say quietly to myself.
Funny, isn't it? The meager concept of hurrying out of a place ironically referred to as "home", before sunrise, every day. But that's precisely what I do, every morning, before sunrise.
The reason is not because I have a bad life, in fact my life is quite the opposite. I live in a nice house, with nice people, in a nice neighborhood. But that's all it is... A nice house, not a home. Nice people, not my people. And a nice neighborhood, but still not a place I would refer to as my neighborhood.
I've never truly felt at peace here, I seem to constantly long for something else, something adventurous... But unfortunately, here I am. There is one thing though, one thing about this place that seems right. Her name is Sasha Auburnary, my best friend.
We first meet in preschool, neither of us talked to any of the other kids, so our teacher decided to sit us together at the lunch tables. For awhile we sat there in silence, but after a few weeks we had learned to live with each other.
