She rolled over grudgingly when her alarm went off at 6:30. She really didn't want to get up, but it was her first day of work in a new city, and she didn't want to give a bad impression by being late. So instead of hitting the snooze button like she had planned she hit the button that turned her alarm off and sat slowly up in bed. She felt her eyelids slowly lower and fought the urge to go back to sleep by throwing the covers off her and swinging her slender legs off the side of the bed. She felt smart when her feet touched carpet instead of the cold wood floors that she had been almost ready to get.

Standing there in the dark she decided that a good stretch would wake her up, as it usually did. Lifting her hands behind her back, she leaned back as far as she could go. When she came back up she felt more awake then she had been mere seconds ago. She walked across the bedroom, through the door and into her living room. Tastefully decorated, it was the style that she brought with her from Charleston, classical, yet modern enough. She walked quickly through the living room, as it was one of the rooms in the apartment that did have wood floors and they were cold on her bare feet. Once she reached her bathroom, the cold tile didn't help any, so she through a towel under her feet and took off her bathrobe and turned on the shower.

Stepping into the warm water, she really felt awake. Breathing in deeply, she felt the steam enter her lungs, making her breathe easily. She lathered her shoulder length dark brown hair and washed it quickly out, for she realized she was spending too much time in the shower. Once she was done, she turned the water off and stepped into the chilly air and wrapped a towel around herself and headed back to her bedroom. Turning on the light, she surveyed her bedroom. The walls were painted a shade of eggshell white, with a dark brown poster bed, with the colors of decoration being brown and blue. Walking over to her closet, she decided on what to wear for her first day. Something tasteful, yet she also wanted to make an impression on her colleagues. She decided on a black pencil skirt, with a red shirt and black undershirt. Bending down she studied her massive shoe collection, and decided upon a pair of pointy toe black high heels.

Once she had dried herself off, she began dressing. It didn't take her long, for in her old job, she had to look good and in a short amount of time. Once she was fully dressed, minus the shoes, she walked back into the bathroom to dry her hair and apply her makeup. She stared into the mirror for a second, studying her image. Now, she didn't consider herself a beauty, but down in Charleston, she had so many men who followed her around, but she didn't really understand why. All her life she had been in the shadow of six of her cousins. Girls who had won beauty pageants, and who were all married by the age of twenty. At twenty-eight, though, she felt that she was losing time. She quickly looked over her features to see if there was anything visibly wrong with them. She couldn't see anything. Her dark brown hair was set off by her pale skin. Something that Southern women were supposed to have. She felt, growing up that that was the only thing she could do right. Her eyes were a mixture of blue, green, and grey. They often turned to one color or the other depending on her moods. The only thing that she really hated about her face was her long, thin nose. Her aunt said it was a relic from their German ancestors, but she wasn't so sure.

Looking at the watch on her wrist, she had wasted time dallying in her sorrows, and reached under the cabinet and took out her hairdryer. Flipping her head over, she quickly dried her hair. Speedily putting on her makeup, she raced back into the bedroom, and grabbed her heels, dashing back into the bathroom to finish her dressing ritual. Stepping back to examine the final result, she was pleased. The choice of the pencil skirt and shirt set off her best features. Growing up she had had a bigger chest then all her cousins and got teased all the time about it. But as she matured and grew, she decided that they were not such a bad thing. The red shirt showed just enough cleavage to be intriguing, but didn't show too much. The pencil skirt showed off her little waist that she had gained through her years as a fencer.

Glancing at her watch one last time, she ran back into her bedroom and grabbed her purse. She took out her keys and walked out of her apartment, locking the door and then headed down the stairs and out the door onto the sidewalk. Walking over to her red Nissan Altima, she hit the button that unlocked it. Settling into her car, she turned it on, looked carefully down the street to make sure no one was coming, pulled out and then headed into the unknown.