R.E.M

Chapter one: Water

A long and slow gasp for air as she breaks out in a cold sweat with her shining steel gray eyes now wide open as her pupils dilated. Confused, she pulled her body to a sitting position and pulled off the bedsheets throwing them to the floor. She turned around slowly as if she had no sleep at all and fixed her pillow to a comfortable position so that she could rest her back on it. Looking to her left she could see light drops of rain trickling down on her window while the only other sounds were coming from the waves that were slowly crashing on the shore outside her house. Looking at the dark sky it felt like it was exactly the middle of the night or maybe it was just dark because many clouds were covering the only light that was coming from the moon. Everything was rushing through her head. Her life was flashing before her eyes for no reason. It felt like she had just come from a completely different world. Strange how it felt like she was running for her life with nothing holding her back, no anchor to keep her down. She was back in her bed though, nothing had happened.

She was still there and she was still herself. Her body felt cold as did her room but it wasn't a freezing and uncomfortable kind of cold, no. Instead, it was a fresh kind of cold like she was sitting in the middle of the forest after it had just rained and that feeling comforted her enough to make her smile. At that very moment, she felt safer than when she was asleep. She doesn't know what it was about her sleep but it gave her a strange rush. She took another slow but this time shaky deep breath as she stood up slowly from her bed. It felt like she could barely stand up. Her whole body felt weak but she still managed to take slow steps towards the bathroom.

Her shaking hands turned on the sink tap for cold water. She looked in the mirror and saw herself. Her face was still the same and so was her hair, long, wavy and as bright as the finest gold. Her skin still looked pale spotted with some freckles, it wasn't different but then again why would it change? It was her. Just her but still it felt like it was just a mask, an unauthentic one. The face she's been seeing in front of the mirror for fifteen years of her life was just a distorted image that reality shaped or well at least that's what it felt like, just surreal but why? Why was she feeling like that's not her and why was it that it felt out of place? Maybe the pills weren't kicking in, they were new after all. They're supposed to turn her into a normal person. They're supposed to help her not be different but somehow, she was feeling different. She shrugged off those feelings, cupped her hands and splashed the cold water on her face in an attempt to feel better. She closed the tap and looked at her wet face expecting something to change but yet again she was still there. She let out a sigh as if she failed to do something and wiped off the water with a towel. She had a moment to think and reflect in the bathroom.

Obviously, she felt out of place after she woke up from her sleep. When she woke up she felt as if she was taking the first breath of her life like she was reborn but that felt almost impossible. She had such a normal day with the usual routine. Went up for a counseling session right next to the principal's office, skip a couple of lessons. She's fed up... Well was fed up. Fed up with being the lonely girl that had no friends and always sat alone reading a book by the fountain or under a palm tree. She was tired of other people pitying her, looking at her like she was incapable of speaking to anyone like she was so afraid to look up from the surreal world her books had created. In reality, she wasn't. Deep down she was a very outgoing spirit that loved people but the world molded her like clay and that's what made her act the way she did, that's why she's broken. She misses her old friends but she's too scared of being judged and that's why she can't confront them so she has to suck it up and sit with the people that don't let her feel how she wants to feel and honestly that makes her worse.

That made her into the sensitive person that she is and the person that can ruin all happiness or love with a simple mood swing but nobody will ever understand that no matter how close they are to her. All they do is judge without knowing who she is. After school, she went to buy some pills that the doctor prescribed her. She often had different ideas that her peers didn't approve of. They were either too dark or too abstract for them but to her, they were a proud masterpiece that her mind made, however, her masterpieces were shunned and that made her feel more insecure than she already was. Those pills were supposed to help but instead, she stood in front of a mirror questioning whether or not she was existing at that very moment, questioning who she was a person. She turned off the lights and slowly walked back towards her bedroom.

She sat down on her bed and picked up one of the silver blister packs on her bedside table. Half empty already. She popped out 2 and chugged them down with a glass of water. She wiped her lips and picked up her bedsheets. Now warmly under the covers, she crossed both her arms on her chest and told herself "I'm going to be okay. I will be a normal teenage girl again. My friends will approve of me." She let a cold tear roll down her cheek. She was holding back a storm of emotions as her heart was beating quickly. She wiped it away as she tried to ignore all her feelings and convince herself that she was okay. Tomorrow is going to be a new day. She thought maybe she could change somehow overnight. She didn't think of the harsh reality that things only come with time, she just wanted to get it over with.  All she ever wanted was to be good enough for everyone and she really thought she could achieve it. Little did she know that in life you can't please everyone. She closed her eyes hoping she would drift away into a deep sleep to wake up to a better tomorrow. She whispered to herself "Just a few more weeks Alexis"