Sweet Dreams (An Inception Fanfiction) (on hold)

Chapter One

       I smiled as I awoke to the impatient screeching of my alarm. There was something about waking up to the succulent atmosphere of Paris, France that made my alarm much more tolerable than it ever was in Long Island, New York. I pulled on my green silk bathrobe and stepped onto the balcony, staring at the golden fingers of dawn grasping the skyline. How on Earth did I ever deserve to end up in a paradise like this?

      I suppose I should start from the beginning. All my life, I had wanted to become an architect. I would spend hours a a little kid drawing sloppy crayon sketches of castles for my parents and I to live, instead of the dilapidated shack that we were currently abiding in. My father was constantly between jobs and my mother worked as a secretary, so money was always tight. But what we lacked in riches, we made up for in love. Or at least, that's what I thought.

       When I was eight, a large man in a uniform rang our doorbell at 3:08 p.m. My mother was fast asleep, but I was still awake, putting the finishing touches on my latest creation. It was a picture of a fifteen-story sky scraper with ornate stone columns. I still probably have it framed somewhere.

     I approached the doorway carefully and peered out of the peephole. The man stared back, checking his watch impatiently. I opened the door, wincing as the hinges squeaked loudly. The man looked down at me, his police badge shining sinisterly in the moonlight.

"Hello sweetie, is your mother home?" He asked in a low, gruff voice.

"Yes," I whispered, suddenly terrified.

"Go get her, your father's been killed in a car crash."

       Boom. No sympathy. No pity. This man might not have known it, but that was the day my entire world came crashing down on top of me.

     I don't remember much of what happened after that. I was told that my dad went out drinking with friends, had one too many, and then proceeded to crash his car into a tree. I was told that it was quick, almost painless. They said he crashed through the windshield and snapped his neck, which didn't sound very painless to me.

      After the accident, my mom took on another job as a secretary for Bradley Lewis, the CEO of a major home appliance company. He took a liking to her and, two months later, they were married, just a week after my parents' anniversary. It was like my mom completely forgot that she had ever loved my dad. Or me.

     We packed our things and moved from our humble home on the wrong side of the tracks to Mr. Lewis' monster of a McMansion in Cherrywood, Long Island. It was a town full of high-end boutiques and crystal fountains. Where everything was designer and a pair of last season's boots could get you laugheed out of any social circle. It was my own personal hell. Thankfully, I had just about the best friends anyone could ever ask for. They accepted me into their close-knit group when I first moved there, and we were joined at the hip ever since. My whole life, I was average. Average brown hair, average brown eyes, average height, average weight, and an average personality to boot. But they made me feel extraordinary.

     When I finished high school, I wanted to get as far away from home as possible. I was sick of living in that large, uninspired block of a house. I was sick of my mom pretending to be a high- class lady, when only a matter of years before, she was shoving six packs of beer up her shirt whenever she was short on cash. But most of all, I was sick of Bradley Lewis.

      From day one, he hated me. He always treated me like a rather unpleasant insect that just wouldn't die. At first, I tried to become friends with him. After all, I needed a father figure in my life. But he only wanted my mother, so he shot down every attempt I made at social interaction. He continued to make my life miserable by calling me fat, ugly, and undesirable, especially when he was stressed out from all the time he spent at work.