Symphonies of warbling birds awaken me, and I'm forced to face daylight as my eyes flutter open. Sweltering rays of light rain down on me, and I grunt, ramming my face into the satiny bed sheets that waver around me.
"Pikxe! Get up!" My mother snarls, and without warning, rakes away the bed sheets that veil me. I unfasten my eyelids, which seem to be cemented together, then begin howling as I wrestle for the sheets she holds to her chest.
"Give!" I bark, tugging on the silky bundle of sheets, when I realize. The Reaping! Unlacing my fingers from the sheets, I vault from my bed and dart for my rotting wardrobe. As I reach the putrid wardrobe, I whirl around stare into my mother's inky orbs. "Beat it."
With a frown, she saunters from the room, slamming the door shut behind her. My mother and I, well, we aren't very close. Ever since dad died, she transformed into a whole new person. Cold, sadistic and malicious. For the past few years, she's tried her downright hardest to rekindle into her old self.
Unlocking my wardrobe, I select one of my few bedraggled dresses, slip it on, then lumber towards my mirror, also rotting.
The reflection in the mirror is somewhat pleasanter than I expected. My rugged, mystifying hair, shaded strawberry-blonde, drapes with promise. My olive skin flickers with the sprinkling rays of sun that break through my shattered window, and my plum coloured eyes twinkle with a mixture of determination and mystery.
Many admire my so called 'beauty', but I just can't see it. In fact, I look rotten compared to all the other girls I attend school with. I grapple my filthy hairbrush, caked with chunks of knotty hair, then give my hair a brisk brush before heading out my bedroom door.