sinking / sunk

chapter 1

Oh hell.

I stared down at my own lifeless body. My rust colored freckles stood out sharply against my pale skin. My heavily made up lashes were plastered to my cheeks. I must have been crying.

Mom will be so angry about the blood and glass on the carpet.

I don't remember my death, really. Just the events leading up to me having a gun pressed to my head. I didn't think he'd pull the trigger, kind of like an empty threat.

-

I was doing dishes in my decrepit kitchen. The paint was peeling, the once white tiles that covered the floor were cracked, and I never could see out the window over the sink it was so grimy. Also, mom was yelling at me drunkenly.

Ah, but it was home sweet home.

"God damnit Amelia! Why can't you be more like your sister, and not such a screw-up? I swear, you half ass everything you do! Do you even try?" she yelled. Her breath smelled like death warmed over. Booze, cigarettes, and Burger King. Yummmy. No wonder dad left us.

I grumbled, my hands in the soapy cold water in the sink. "Yes, mom. I'll try harder next time."

"Then shut up!" She screamed. Then, she slapped me hard in the back of the head with her heavily ringed hand. Tears prickled in my eyes and my vision was filled with dark dots. Painfully, I nodded.

When I was done in the kitchen, I marched up the rickety stairs to my room. I probably had the nicest room in the house, as I was kind of the neat freak in my family. My sister, Mariah, was the complete opposite. Empty soda cans and wrappers littered her floor. Old homework, probably from when she was in middle school, littered her computer desk and bed. It was a warzone. I couldn't step in there without gagging.

My room was the opposite. My desk was clear of loose-leaf papers and my carpet was recently vacuumed. My bed was made up nicely and the only thing out of place was the coffee-stained paperback from the small library down the street on my bedside table. I was reading that book when I met my sudden, somewhat tragic death.

It was about 11 when all hell broke loose. My mom had already gone out barhopping, or whatever, with her pack of friends who all secretly despised her hours ago. She just made every bar experience exciting, as she either slept with the bartender or attempted to buy drinks for everyone using only food stamps. Mariah was probably at her boyfriend's house, having told mom she was at one of her cheerleader friends' houses doing homework. Mom ate that story up immediately.

I didn't even hear the intruder come into my house. When I heard something in the kitchen, I simply ignored it or assumed Mariah came home early with her boyfriend and they were looking for a condom or something equally as gross.

I began to ignore the sound of items being shifted in the kitchen when, suddenly, something that sounded very, very large and equally as fragile crashed to the floor below me. I jumped up and yelled, "Mariah? Is everything okay? Don't go having sex, or whatever you're doing, on fragile things with that pig of a boyfriend!"

That was my first, and biggest mistake. Never let an intruder know you're there.

Suddenly, everything seemed to stop simultaneously, including time. It was eerily quiet. The whole house seemed to be holding it's breath, like it knew I made a terrible mistake and will soon meet a terrible fate.

I, however, was apparently more idiotic than my house. I didn't realize until moments later that little joke would end my life. When someone noisily trudged up the staircase was when I realized -

That isn't Mariah.