She was having that dream again. She could tell what would happen, always, but she would be powerless to stop it. She would have to see all the horrors like a movie on repeat. It would start the same way-- she'd be walking down the sidewalk, then out of nowhere she'd be surrounded by six scary-looking guys. They would start to harass her, push her around. One would pull out a wicked looking knife. Then... she starts fighting... getting stonger by the second, almost TOO strong... one tries to punch her, he misses, then she hits his arm-- BREAKS his arm... the other five are a blur... she's like a monster at this time... hitting, scratching, tearing, BITING them, drinking--
"SAM, IT'S TIME TO GET UP!"
Samantha Gibbons shot up out of bed, breathing hard. She looked around, making sure she was still in her room, before sighing in relief and flopping backwards onto her bed. She turned her head towards her alarm clock-- 6:30 a.m.
"Ugh, why must I suffer the torture of the damned and have to get up this early?" she muttered to herself. She rolled out of bed and stumbled upstairs to the kitchen. Her mom greeted her at the top of the stairs with a little plastic cup in her hand.
Sam saw the cup and stopped. "Aw, Mom, can't it wait until AFTER I'm awake and coherent?"
She raised a brow and said, "You look pretty awake, and you sound coherent enough. Now take your medicine before you forget."
When she was born, she'd had a heart defect that doctors had never seen. She had to take medicine for it ever since. And it wasn't all that pleasant either. It was in liquid form, tasted like aspirin left in your mouth for too long, and left her throat feeling like chalk afterwards. How could she forget?
She took the little cup, then walked around her mother into the kitchen where her twin brother, Adam, was sitting, eating cereal. He nodded to her in greeting, since he wasn't that much of a morning person either. She pulled out a glass and some grapefruit juice to go with her nasty medicine, while her mom was flitting around the kitchen, making sure everything was in shape before she left for work. She always worked hard to make sure EVERYTHING was the way it should be. Sam didn't want to think about some of the times that she had messed up-- only small things, like scraped knees or rough-housing in her "best" clothes.
Since her mom had to be both parents, she basically morphed into a control freak. And most of that was centered around Sam, because of her heart defect and a freaky problem with her eyes. Her pupils were shaped like a cat's were, and that usually got her teased. Nothing was wrong with her sight, but it was still a big deal, in more ways than one.
Sam watched her mom do her "security check", as both she and Adam loved calling her morning routine, then decided she'd better do her own before they had to go to he-- school.
They lived in New York, not in the city but close enough. They also went to a private school, which mostly consisted of either rich brats or stuck-up braniacs. Her brother was the star soccer player, so he was in a league of his own. As for her, well... if she was invisible, she'd get more attention. She had one friend, Corrinne, who was the only normal one in the bunch. Sam liked her right away, since she took one look at her eyes and said, "I'll bet you can freak out half of the 'dogs' in this school with eyes like that."
They lived in this little house about 5 miles out of town, so Adam's and Sam's form of rebellion, she was happy to say, was get a motorcycle instead of a car. Their mom flipped, but eventually got over herself and found new things to nitpick, so the motorcycle stayed. She couldn't be happier; it had become her one source of escapement... feeling the wind in her hair, the sun on her face... almost like she was flying. Nothing was better.
They had never met their father... apparently, he wasn't even around while they were being born. But Sam and Adam didn't care. They had each other-- at home, on the road, even in school. And nothing would change that.
She had finished her routine and set down her hairbrush as she heard the motorcycle enging roar to life. She quickly grabbed her backpack and took the stairs two at a time. "Sam!" her mom called, just as she reached the door. Her brother revved the engine, and she signaled for him to wait a minute before turning back into the kitchen.
"Yes, Mom?" she called.
"Don't go running up the stairs like that, you'll hurt yourself one of these times."
"Yes, Mom." She kissed her cheek, then swiftly walked out the door.
