She had no nightmares.
Echos silenced
Blood is running upon the floor
But she sees not what she does
Not
Want
"Aargh..."
Coraline stretched as she spun around the computer's chair, only half suppressing a yawn. She glanced at the clock.
3:27 AM
Ah, well. There wasn't any school tomorrow anyway, she thought as she curled up in her bed, not bothering to put on pajamas. And it wasn't as if it had been a night wasted, either, though many people would have classified it as such.
But it really didn't matter, Coraline reasoned as she drifted off, what she had gotten done, or what she had not done, because it wasn't a big deal, not really...She yawned. After all...
Everyone dies eventually, and then where will you be?
"Come on Coraline! We need you up now!"
The girl in question growled softly from under her blankets.
"I don't wanna go..."
"And do I sound like I want your father to be gone for the next three months?" Mel Jones snapped irritably back at her daughter.
Oh, yeah, that was today...Coraline winced slightly at the remembrance.
"Alright, alright, 'm comin'..." She half-groaned, half-spoke, throwing the sheets off of her body and shaking her head in a valiant attempt to wake up.
"You slept in your clothes?"
Coraline rolled her eyes.
"Just let me get dressed, okay? I'll be out in a minute."
Mel hesitated for a moment, but after a few seconds of contemplation, seemed to decide that Coraline's readiness for the trip to the airport was more important than her own oncoming lecture, left the room.
As she did, Corline glanced reluctantly at the clock.
5:31
The blue-haired youth groaned once more, and flung herself back on her bed.
A few minutes later, Coraline was dressed and in the car sulking in the backseat.
"Why do we have to get up so early?" She spat contemputously to no one in particular.
"Don't ask me. I'm the one getting the sharp edge of the knife."
Coraline sighed, scowling. "It's the blunt edge of the stick, Dad, not sharp edge of the knife."
Charlie Jones turned around slightly in his chair to face his daughter. "They both mean the same thing you know," He said, smirking slightly.
"Yes, but your metaphor isn't a real one!" Coraline shot back.
"Neither of those phrases were metaphors, Coraline," Her father said in a singsong voice. "They were-"
"Who cares what they were?"
Charlie sighed. "I'm not any happier about this than you, you know. If it was up to me, then I wouldn't even be going on this trip."
This did nothing to help Coraline's mood. "Well, how come you can't tell them not to send you to some other flipping country for the whole summer?"
"I work for them, you know. I don't exactly dictate what I do at my job. And it's not the whole summer, either. Just the next three months," Her father replied. His tone wasn't exactly enthusiastic, as if he could tell that nothing he could say would improve his daughters mood.
"Hrmph."
The replying snort that he got as a response only confirmed his theory.
"Alright, everyone, let's get moving," Mel said tiredly as she climbed into the car reluctantly.
Coraline did not respond.
A few hours later, though, back at the flat, she had much to say, though none of it was to anyone in particular.
"Three months! Three months he's going to be gone, off to God-only-knows-where for his stupid job!"
Coraline shrieked in near-hysteria. She opened her mouth as though to say something more, but seemed to think better of it, and sat down, scowling, on the edge of her bed.
"This is so stupid..."
She paused for just a moment, hesitated before continuing.
"It almost makes me wish..."
The last few words, she uttered so quietly and so carefully, that no one could possibly have heard them, unless they had been sitting directly next to her.
"That something interesting would happen..."
A/N: The real action and plot will start popping up in the next chapter! And just so you know, this is a combined universe; The book and the movie. This will come into the plot later...
~JTS