Crash! My head whips up from my history textbook and swivels toward the cacophony of squeaks and squeals that follow the unmistakable sound of glass shattering. My leathery, black wings press closer to my back as I quickly and quietly scurry to the origin of the noise, also known as my room. I exit the "study room", as my father calls it. He refuses to let me do my homework in my bedroom because he is afraid I will SnapChat boys in secret, more specifically, boys he doesn't approve of.
I am within 10 steps of my room when I hear my father's gravelly voice coming through the wall to the right of me, the kitchen.
"Did you break something?" I know he sounds nonchalant, but he is secretly glaring an actual hole in the wall between us. I grab the tip of my rough wing, rubbing it, a nervous habit that I developed over the years. I try to school my voice into a somewhat convincing "All's good, Dad!", but it comes out as something more like a suspicious squeak with equally suspicious wording.
"Nope! Absolutely nothing broken over here! I just...tripped! Yeah, that's it, I tripped." Wow. That was epicly terrible, my voice even cracked over the word "here". I can almost feel him rolling his eyes. A non committal grunt sounds, I can hear his whisk stirring faster in our traditional friday night pancake batter as he tries to decide whether or not to believe me.(He most definitely doesn't, but I can still hope for the best.)
"Are you alright, Si?" The question is more obligatory, rather than actual concern, as he knew better, and that I had most definitely not tripped.
"I'm fine." I offer in a resigned tone. I let go of my wing in a complacent gesture, I am so dead, but then my father does something totally unexpected, though he does like to pride himself in being unpredictable.
"Very well, and Si? Please make sure to clean up whatever 'absolutely didn't break'" I nearly pinch myself to make sure that I didn't fall asleep doing my homework and that i'm not dreaming. He must be able to tell that I'm still standing on the opposite side of the wall, starstruck. "Well? Go on." He urges. My powerful wings flare, mimicking my glee, and almost knock one of my father's vases off its shelf. I quickly pull them in and sprint the rest of the way to my room.
I nearly wish I hadn't entered my room. Two of my piles of books have fallen and are spread across the floor like a peacock's tail, my mirror with its curving silver frame has dropped, shattered, onto the floor. I search for the culprit, noticing that my rabbit, Iowa, is nowhere to be found. Suddenly my head is wrenched back as my ivory horns get caught in my chandelier. Wait a second, I specifically measured myself and the chandelier so that this exact thing wouldn't happen. I turn to look up and a furry mass drops onto my face and my life flashes before my eyes, said furry mass then crawls into my arms and lets out a satisfied grunt. After I recover from my near-death experience, I gaze down into the beast cradled in my arms, not surprised to find a very terrified Iowa with her fur sticking out every which way. Her weight must have caused the chandelier wires to stretch. I take one last look around the room, taking in all of the damage and clutter, then lean down and whisper to Iowa.
"How on earth did you manage that? I was led to believe you were a rabbit, not some kind of flying squirrel!" She shifts in my arms, as if trying to shrug like the troublesome creature she is. I set her down and went to work fixing my mess of a room. I stack my books in record time, not caring about the order, I would fix that later, I fly up to hover by the top of my chandelier's wires. I take one of my drop-down ceiling tiles out and pulled the wires back, looping them around one of the strings holding my ceiling up. I gently wrap my broken mirror in one of my many oversized sweatshirts and set it under my bed where Iowa makes a nest on top of it. I will spend the next month slowly fixing the mirror, out from beneath my father's watchful eye.
"Sigon! Dinner time!" I hear my father beckoning me from the kitchen, he didn't even need to call, I had smelled his irresistible pancakes mere moments ago and was already on my way by the time he opened his mouth. Friday pancake days were the best, it was the one night that I felt the most like a normal teenager, rather than a hybrid child of the d-Oh I finally made it to the kitchen.
Our simple wooden table is set with such a feast, anyone else might think we are having a king over for dinner! There must be at least three large plates piled with pancakes, and two more with piles of sausage. Two place settings for my father and I were set as normal, opposite each always, there was a third, and permanently empty, place setting in front of an equally empty chair. My father is cleaning up his legendary mess, and looks absolutely ridiculous in his cliche "Grill Sergeant" apron, I had gotten it for Father's Day when I was very young. My mother had helped me choose it. His smooth black hair, along with his red shirt and black jeans stand out starkly from his fluorescent green apron. He turns and his normally pale and sour face alights with a smile that no one would expect he could conjure up. He doesn't smile enough lately, so I am always happy when I can wrangle one out.
"Si, darling? Could you let in the dog?" His dark eyes turn back to his cleaning up.
"Sure, Dad." I make my way over to the dark oak door, already able to hear Cerby whining outside. He, like most dogs, has this uncanny ability to know when he was going to be fed or let in, even if we don't vocalize it. I unlock the door's deadbolt lock and barely manage to leap out of the way before Cerberus' entire torso is where I was standing mere moments ago. His three heads, all equally drooly, mind you, were swinging and straining on the leash that keeps him in place to do his job, keeping damned souls in hell. Father handles the other, more hospitable sections of the underworld which are reserved for those who led better lives. That's right. My father is the Devil, Asmodeus, Satan, Hades, Lucifer, Pluto, Azaezel, Beezlebub, what have you. He's not as bad a father as you would think, but anyways back to my insane life.
"Cerberus!" I cry, "are you ready to come inside for dinner!" His tail was whipping left and right, almost gouging parts of the doorframe where he strikes. In one fluid and practiced motion, I unclip all three clasps to his lead and once again dive out of his way, so as not to get trampled. I know what some you are thinking, 'he's just a dog, a three-headed dog, but just a dog.' If you have found yourself thinking this, then you clearly have never owned a big dog. It doesn't matter how old you are, the most honestly terrifying thing to see is a colossal dog with rippling muscles, tearing its way towards you.
Cerberus quickly found is way to his designated spot, next to the oven, with his bowl perfectly positioned in front of him, the red letters of his name angled outwards. I sigh and opened the top cupboard above the oven. My leathery wings unfurl and I gently fly up to Cerberus' bag of food. The placement of it in a top cupboard would be a hassle for most families, but it's the only spot Cerby can't get to, and my father's and my wings make the top cupboard quite accessible.
I pour Cerberus' Blue Buffalo kibble into his bowl. 'What? Even the devil wants his dog to have top of the line, healthy dog food. As he messily eats his meal like he hasn't eaten in a month, I take my seat across from my father. He smiles.
"What?" I ask, my face flushing.
My father is still smiling. "You've grown into a beautiful young demon Sigon."
My face looks like a tomato as I thank him. We both then simultaneously look to the empty place setting at the head of the table.
"She'd be proud of you." My father whispers. I nod, I know she would be. My father smiles at me once more and then starts to dig into the pancakes. I look at my mother's place setting a second longer before I do the same, smiling as I see my father getting syrup in his horns and hearing cerberus start to eat his bowl again. My life isn't perfect, it's far from it, but I love it all the same.