Just another one

Just Another Morning

Hi! I hope you guys enjoy reading this, please please please feel free to leave comments with writing advice as I've just started and would greatly appreciate feedback. Thanks!

I woke up this morning to the sound of pots and pans clanging in the kitchen, and feet shuffling around my room. I share a room with my sister Raelyn, she's fourteen, and Cameron, he's nineteen, one of my four brothers. Raelyn and Cam are such early risers. They're always up by seven in the morning, and don't know how to keep it down when I'm sleeping. It's always around this time I wake up, listening to them walk around obnoxiously. I opened my eyes just enough to see the ceiling, but it was still blurry. My eyelids were so heavy, begging me to let them close again, but I sat up anyway. We had a bunk bed for Raelyn and I, and a twin for Cam. I slept on the bottom bunk, and Raelyn on the top. We tried having me sleep on the top, but then I kept falling down the ladder in the mornings since I'm not too much of a morning person. So I threw off my blanket, and stood up looking like a crazed, sleep deprived zombie. (And didn't fall off any ladders)

"Ha, good morning sunshine."

I looked over to see Cam staring at me, looking like he was about to double over laughing. I couldn't really blame him, my hair was a mess, my eyes half closed, and I was looking around the room like I'd never been there before. But for me, sleep deprived means easily aggravated.

"Shut up Cam, before I rip your kneecaps out and go bowling with them."

"Well," piped up Raelyn from the other side of the room, "Someone's in a good mood this morning."

I turned to glare at her now instead of Cam. "No dip, Sherlock."

Those two imbeciles have a habit of poking fun at me when I'm half asleep. Putting that aside, I went over to our dresser, or rather little drawer of clothes that we call a dresser, and grabbed my clothes for the day. I didn't have many things to choose from. I'm a red, and for some unearthly reason that means I'm basically a piece of crap who deserves nothing. We're broke, most of us don't have jobs, and own about four articles of clothing each. Just enough to be able to wear one thing while we wash another. Don't want to waste too much money on that, when we still need to worry about food and such. I walked over to our bathroom to change, being in there is the only ounce of privacy one can get in the house, and it doesn't last for long. Five minutes after you walk in, someone else needs to shower, or get dressed, or whatever. I pulled on my leggings, and threw on my t shirt. Used the bathroom, brushed my teeth, and pulled my hair into a braid.

"Geez Aspen! Hurry up and get out if the bathroom, I need to get ready for work or I'm gonna be late!"

And there it was. That was my brother Ryder. He's twenty one, and thinks he owns all of us younger than him. He's one of two people in this family that has a job. Those are rare to come by since everyone wants one.

"If you didn't want to be late you should've woken up earlier!" I was done with everything I needed to do, but I felt like driving him insane, so I just paced back and forth for a solid three minutes. As soon as I walked out, I ran for my room and locked the door. Ryder kept banging on it until Mom told him to shut up and get ready for work.

"You're so dead Aspen!" He yelled.

"Yeah right, like you could kill me."

I opened the door and we both looked at each other and laughed as he headed to the bathroom to change. We all act like we hate each other, but we'd all take a bullet for one another. We just make sure that the fact that we'd do that goes without saying. This family is not good at feelings.

I walked into the kitchen, smelling some sort of delicious breakfast. Mom doesn't make breakfast often, we generally just grab an apple or don't eat at all. But every once in a while we can scrounge up enough money to buy food for a nice breakfast, and still have a decent amount of food left over for dinner. I found out that this morning she made some bacon and buttered toast, it's my favorite breakfast, and we rarely ever have it. It's expensive to feed eight mouths a nice breakfast. I've got four brothers, Cam, Ryder, Alex, and Dustin, Alex is fourteen, him and Raelyn are twins, and Dustin's thirteen, the baby of the family. So trying to feed all of us plus our parents is a lot of food. There's also the fact that half of us are greedy, hungry, teenage boys, and Raelyn can eat like no one's business. Reds are treated as lesser than dirt. I mean, we genuinely can't afford anything. Mom walked over to the table and put down the steaming pan full of bacon, and a plate with hot toast and butter. I inhaled the smell of the melted butter, and the bacon on the plate as my mouth watered so much I could fill an ocean with my saliva. As soon as I saw my siblings coming from around the corner, my hands shot out to the food to grab as much as my hands could hold so I can put it on my plate. Food doesn't last long in this house, so you have to take it while it's still there.

"Hey stupid!" Dustin hollered at me. "Why'd you take so much bacon?"

I rolled my eyes. "Gee Dustin, I don't know. Maybe it's because you awful people like to inhale all the food before I can get any!"

Just to prove my point, across the table Alex and Raelyn had their cheeks stuffed with food, and both of them had one hand full of bacon, and the other with a couple pieces of toast. When Ryder, Dustin, and Cam looked at Raelyn, she giggled and booked it to our room and locked the door. No one was about to take her food. So then they turned to Alex.

"Crap." He muttered.

He dropped the food and ran into the living room and out back, knowing full well that if he had took the food with him, he'd be beat up in his near future.

"Y'all are cruel." I said.

"Yeah we know," replied Ryder with at least 3 pieces of bacon in his mouth, "But it's fun, and everyone's alive, so I don't care."

Ugh, like I said, he thinks he owns everyone. I finished my food, and turned to say bye to my parents.

"Hey Mom, thanks for breakfast! I'm leaving for the day but I'll see you later."

"Ok sweetie, have fun at school today!" She yelled from the other room.

Yeah, I'm totally going to school. "Will do! Bye!"

I ran out the door to go meet Zeke, I completely forgot how we met but we've been best friends since we were seven. Ten whole years of friendship. We only really go to school if we have nothing better to do, which isn't often. There's no point to going to school, we don't have jobs, and within a year we'll be conscripted. So we try to enjoy as much as we can until we're dead in a ditch because let's be real, neither of us will survive conscription. I have a shot, but not because I'm good with a gun. You see, Zeke and I usually skip school to work on something else. Something that if anyone besides the two of us find out, we're dead. I'm not red, not silver, I'm something else completely. I am not just another person for the silvers to manipulate. I am not, just another one.