Isobel
She felt a bolt of electricity shoot through her body. Isobel leapt from the bed in one frantic motion.
"Shit!" she hissed through clenched teeth as a dozen sharp-edged lego pieces cluttering the floor dug into the tender flesh in the arches of her feet. She brushed the offending plastic cubes from the skin of her soles and stood straight to survey the room. The young girl's whole body swayed with the deep breaths she sucked through her lips as her feral glare darted across every piece of furniture, every shadow cast by the street lamps outside.
The air around her felt thick and hot, clinging to her skin and filling her throat. Energy seemed to course through her body, causing blood to rush through her veins like waves, rising to the surface of her pale cheeks. Every molecule in her body vibrated and a strange sense of power thrummed across her temples. She felt as if she were being used as a circuit and a current was passing through her bones, her folicles standing on end, sweat beading her hairline.
She knew no explaination for the strange surge that had woken her earlier, and yet she still felt electricity crackle along her palms as own as she paced to the murky window, slim, shaking fingers pulling her cotton night shirt from her clammy midriff. She pressed her hot forehead to the glass and let out a puff of warm breath. Long, dark lashes brushing against the window as her eye lids fluttered.
She knew she'd been having a nightmare before she had been so rudely awakened. However the memories were quickly slipping away from her, the heat she felt impaired her thought processes just as the darkness obscured her vision. Red, an emotionally detached voice in her head supplied. Blood. Lots of blood, Isobel remembered. A dark-haired girl, maybe her age, maybe older, slowly falling towards the ground. The glint of a gun. The expression of the man pulling the trigger.
She shook her head as if to physically remove the morbid thoughts from her mind as she wandered from the window to the crooked mirror to contemplate her reflection. Her thick titan hair had worked itself into an unruly mop while she slept and mascara had smudged beneath her lower lashes. To all outward apperances she was an ordinary 16 year old girl. However to the more trained eye, or those who bothered to look close enough, would notice the slight lines developing at the corners of her eyes. Cool blue irises which once easily portrayed amusement and youthful inteligence had grown hard and now only expressed a faint disgust with the image they scrutinized.
She turned again to look over the sparse, beaten-up room. The creme de la creme of orphanage accomodation, courtesy of social services she thought humourlessly. She was still infamiliar with her new room but it didn't matter, she wouldn't be staying long. Suddenly a small shape caught her eye. The twin shadows of the two compact rucksacks caught her gaze.
As the first tongues of sunlight licked the horizon, Isobel balled her small hands into fists and steeled herself for the day ahead.