Married to the Prince of Darkness (COMPLETED)

Chapter 1

The day I died began like any other.

I wake up in the morning and start my day with the same old routine. I guess you might call it a kind of OCD, but without it I genuinely believe my day is doomed. Crawling out of bed, I head across my college dorm room and to my tiny shower room. I'm lucky that I don't have to share, otherwise my roomies would think I'm crazy for what I am about to do next.

I stand in front of the mirror, ignoring the rat's nest of bed hair on top of my head and begin my affirmations - it's something I learned from an elective self help seminar last year. I do it because it's supposed help me visualise and realise my goals, and that's something I need after being in college for three years without making a single friend.

Looking in the mirror, I stare at the hot mess of my reflection and say:

"My name is Amelia Hayden. I'm a successful college student and today I am going to be bright, confident, caring and assertive where necessary. In the future I'm going to have my own business, a husband, three children and a pug... or maybe two pugs. But either way, I'm going to be happy."

This is how I like to start my mornings, because when my alarm goes off at six o'clock and I have to drag my sorry butt out of bed, I forget why I am doing all of this. And this time of year is the worst because of the cold weather and dark nights. I can't help wishing I was back down on the Florida coast with my dad and my friends. Up here, all I have is my reflection to talk to, which I know is pathetic and borderline insane and sometimes I do feel like one of those budgie birds that has to looks at its reflection to relieve the crippling sense of loneliness of being trapped in a cage all by itself. And college did feel like a cage.

This is why I say the mantra. This is why I have to remind myself why I sacrificed so much to travel up North and go to college. There has to be a happy ending for me at the end of this.

After the mantra, I tame my hair and throw on some clothes - time to hit the library and prepare for my seminars. This is my life - I do the work, go home, eat, sleep, repeat. There are no parties, no fun, and most of all - no boys. Relationships come later, just like the pugs. Right now I'm in my final year, and my priority is focusing all my energy on getting the best degree possible.

I head straight to the library. My first seminar is at eleven and the tutor that is taking my class has a well deserved reputation for being a ball buster when it comes to scrutinising students about the set readings. I'd had a couple of classes with her before, and I had literally seen her squeeze answers out of a students who knew nothing. It was painful watch and people quickly learned that the only way to survive her seminars was to either learn the readings inside out, or not to bother turning up to seminars.

I walked to the Social Science Library where I liked to do my early morning studies. It was in the middle of the campus and literally looked like the place where things went to die. It was a great big gloomy concrete cube that stuck out of the beautiful green landscaped campus grounds like a giant sore thumb. I once heard a rumour it was consider an architectural wonder forty years ago, but now it looked like a dilapidated mess.

The inside to the library was not much better. Gray walls, gray carpet, and even gray plastic tables added to the dreariness of place. It wasn't the most stimulating place to go and study, but it's all I had.

Walking into the library, I passed the same librarian who I saw every morning since starting college. You think she would at least spare me a smile after walking past her everyday for the last three years, but she does what she always does and ignores me. I head over to my favourite study desk and spot someone out the corner of my eye - Laura Taylor.