Paralyzing Devotion

Chapter One: A Friend in a Kitchen

(A/N: This is my first story, but I have a good feeling about it. I do not know if it is a Mary-Sue story or not for I am not exactly sure what a girl like that is! :) Please send reviews and tell me how I am doing, but no flames please.) ;)

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The sound of running water filled the room as the young girl washed the dishes piled on the kitchen counter. Her golden hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail and her clothes hung loosely off her body for she was still in her pajamas.

"Oh, I hate washing dishes! I want a dishwasher, but instead I am the dishwasher." The fifteen-year-old complained. Hair hung down in front of her dark sapphire blue eyes as she tried to blow it away from her face, but stopped when it just fell back into place. She rolled her eyes as she grabbed a half-full wineglass and took a long drink from it before she dumped it into the dirty dishwater.

It seemed like a waste to dump good wine in dirty water, but the teenager could not even think about getting drunk. Not with her stepfamily around her.

"Hey Skinny!" The voice of her stepfather yelled as he walked into the kitchen. "Do you have dinner done, yet? Your mother is going to be home in less then an hour and will want food! Hurry up or I will give you another beating, but worse than yesterdays!" The stepfather smiled a cruel smile as he started to walk out of the kitchen door, but turned back to look at his stepdaughter. "And make sure that the food is good for your mother thinks that I am a good cook! If you don't and my pride of being a great cook is ruined, you will not eat for a month!" Soon after he spoke the threat, he was gone and left his stepdaughter alone in the kitchen once more.

"It's not like that I have been eating food lately any ways!" The girl muttered softly as she looked down at the dirty water that her hands were under as she wiped clean a small bowl. She hated her Stepfather for he was always mean to her when her mother was away. He starved her of any food and sometimes forced her to watch her four stepbrothers and two stepsisters eat their food away while she starved.

"Hey, spt," a noise came from the doorway. "Hey, Terra, hey, step-sis! How is the work in the kitchen?"

"Everything is going as well as I could hope for, Cathy, but I still have troubles with keeping up."

"Well, what do you have to do? What slave work did my father place on you now?" Cathy, the older of the two stepsisters, spoke as she walked up to Terra. "Is there anything I can do to speed this up?"

"Do you have any food?" Terra's voice was meek as she continued to look down and away from Cathy's face.

"Do you think that I would let my own sister starve while we all get our faces stuffed? No way, here," Cathy took out a stuffed napkin, "I have bread, turkey, stuffing, carrots, and a hot potato in there. It is not much, but it should help a little and they are a bit cold."

"Oh, this is more food in this small napkin then I have had for the last week!" Terra exclaimed as she reached out for the napkin with a wet hand.

"Ah, no you don't, food spoils fast when it becomes wet and that water is dirty and unsafe to drink so I will place this," held up the napkin, "over here so you can finish those dishes and I will start to make the food for our mother's return home."

"I thank you, stepsister."

"No, we are sisters, not stepsisters. My stepmother is your mother so that means she is my full mother, but your stepfather is also my stepfather. I want nothing keeping us from sisters and I am sure your mother would say the same." Terra smiled at Cathy as she continued to wash the dishes. It was going to be a fine night.

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A/N: Only a few changes have been done, but hey, I felt like I needed to change some things. Hope you like them. I am doing this to all the chapters.