The Violet Hour

Chapter 1 - Daughters

I awoke the same as I had for the past three years, screaming until I was sure my throat was bleeding. I screamed and shook until I managed to calm myself down. My body was slick with sweat and made my covers damp. I wiped my forehead and hung my head in between my knees. I heard Gale's soft snores rise and fall in the rhythm of sleep in her room down the hall. My aunt never came in to check on me anymore. After the second month she realized that my nightmares were going to continue. So she stayed asleep and let me sweat and cry into my sheets.

            Not that I minded of course, I liked it better that way. Gale was such a sweet woman. She took me in after everything that had happened, and she treated me as if I were her own daughter. I didn't want to bother her with the turmoil of a mentally troubled youth. Besides, I preferred being left alone with the nightmare. It had been the same night after night. Something was chasing me, I didn't know who or what, or even why. I just knew that they had started and never seemed to stop, and that I was never able to outrun it. I think that was what scared me the most about it, the fact that I was rendered powerless, a thought that had never failed to shake me ever since I was 13.

            I slowly sat up and looked around my dark room until my eyes adjusted. I sighed and looked back longingly at my pillow, wishing I wasn't so afraid to go back to sleep. How could such a simple thing as sleep seem so wickedly lovely? I was exhausted from years of insomnia, but that was overruled by pure fear of what I knew would come along with my sleeping.

            I stumbled out of my bed and walked towards the wall with the light switch. I groggily felt around the wall until my fingers found it. Once the room was lit I slowly sank towards the floor and tried to calm myself down. I hit the hardwood with a loud "thud," and ignored the subtle pain in my rear.  

            I looked around at my room; I looked at the black walls that had once been a sheer, iridescent green. I looked at the empty space on the wall by my bed that used to contain giant wooden letters that had spelled "Live;" An homage to both what I used to be doing with my life, and my name. The photo frames that had contained multiple pictures of me on the cheerleading squad, the academic team, and smiling brightly squished next to all my friends at the football games had been turned down and shattered. My old favorite silk flower lamp had been replaced with a metal stand with a single dim red bulb. My once tidy floor was littered with discarded clothes, CD's, and towels. My pink and green floral drapes had been stripped and replaced with my new scraggly gray ones. Needless to say I went on an existential redecorating spree after my dad died and my mom killed herself.

            I didn't always used to be melodramatic, misunderstood, depressed, psychotic, or whatever the hell I was. There was a time when I was fun, interesting, smart, and beautiful. It was safe to say I had checked out, moved on, left nothing behind for anyone else to discover. I was like an empty house, abandoned, neglected, and left for somebody else to take care of. But nobody had bothered. I was a bit surprised. I thought maybe someone would try to pick up the pieces, but they left it to me, and eventually lost all hope.

            I shook all the thoughts from my head and pushed myself up from the floor. The little red numbers on my clock on the far side of the room read 5:38. I was going to have to get up soon anyways, might as well start the day. I slipped into my small bathroom and gently shut the door behind me so as to not wake Gale, a seemingly useless attempt considering my earlier screams.

            I studied my reflection in the small bathroom mirror. I pushed my deep brown hair out of my face and looked closer. What I saw alone made me want to burst into tears all over again.

            The new girl I saw staring back at me was a mere corpse compared to what she used to be. My once beautiful, tanned, heart-shaped face looked as if it had been hollowed. I was a ghostly pale color and had dreary bags under my eyes from lack of sleep. My rounded, rosy cheeks had sunken in, and hung beneath my jagged cheekbones. My canopy of thick, straight, dark hair still framed my face, but it looked odd compared to my anemic appearance. The most drastic change had been my eyes. They were once a lively green that had sparkled when I laughed and earned me many compliments over the years. But now they were lifeless, dull, not a single spark lay behind them as they sat empty on my face. I took one last depressing glance before I hurried into the shower.