Chapter I - Black
Her hair was dyed. Of course, no one actually noticed that minute point, but Kat knew that her hair was dyed black—dark black so that it rivaled the deepest night. She gained many double-takes as she walked by, but all the while they stared at her, she knew that one day one of them would discover the fact that her hair was not naturally black. That would ruin her reputation, and so Kat kept her head down low as she walked by, hoping that none would notice the light strands at the top of her head where the dye was beginning to fade.
She hoped that the dark eyeliner and the tight black clothes would hide the fact that her hair color was not a natural color. She hoped that the zippers and chains would mask the fact that her hair was in all truth a very rich and shiny brown.
"It's a reflection of what you are inside," her friends would drawl often. "You're not really a goth deep down."
Kat's lips thinned as she thought of the words. In response every time, she would only snort and breeze off the comments. Kat made a corned in the road as her thoughts began to take a bleaker course.
She was one of them, wasn't she? She had had a rough time when her family had moved back to London, coming from their time in Germany. She had lost herself trying to readjust to the English lifestyle, and in her confusion, she had turned to those who let their black hair shine and their clothes shimmer in darkness. But she...she had dyed hair.
Kat let out a heavy and distressed sigh as she stuck her key into the keyhole of her home, flinging open the door. She ignored her mother's greeting and stormed up the steps of the house. She didn't even glance at her father as she threw open her door, stepped inside, and slammed it promptly behind her.
"Can't I ever get rid of the fact that my hair is dyed?!" she screamed in the confines of her room, throwing her pillow against the wall. It hit with a smack, silencing Kat's ramblings dramatically. From the other side of the wall, her brother pounded back, his music shaking the house.
"Kick it down a notch," he called above the din of the guitar. Kat's hand curled into a furious fist.
Oh why can't he just move out? she grumbled in her mind. Her brother was supposed to be in the university, but instead of living on the campus, he had stayed home...stealing her room and making her move into the old nursery of the house.
People like you aren't supposed to live in nurseries, a voice sneered in her mind. Kat grimaced, knowing that the words were true. How could they not be? She was fifteen, not a baby.
Kat moved over to the window, sinking down into the cushioned seat, overlooking the city of London. It was a pretty night, she noted, glancing up at the huge moon that was gently rising over the buildings. She wished that she could be outside then...in the air...just somewhere away from where she was.
"It's your fault!" Kat heard her father yell from the kitchen downstairs. Her parents were fighting again—over her, she could tell without even hearing any more of their conversation.
"She's going crazy, Linda," her father told her mam. Kat could imagine him shaking his finger at her mother. "She'll turn out just like your batty aunt!"
Aunt Wendy. Kat smiled slightly. She liked Aunt Wendy. The woman was late in age, in the hospital actually—or the last she had heard. Always, on every single time Kat had seen her aunt, the woman had gone on and on unend about her adventures in a place called Neverland.
"Children's tales," Kat whispered longingly, quoting her father. She leaned against the window, her forehead touching the cold glass. She shivered slightly, but didn't move.
She closed her eyes, but the image of the brilliant moon still shined in her mind. A few tears slid down her cheeks, ruining the makeup around her eyes—the facade of something darker...a demon of the night that Kat did not want to be.
Blocking out the sounds of her brother's music, blocking out the words of her parents' fight, blocking out the thoughts of her black mind, Kat fell to sleep.