I Never Asked To Be Gifted...

It was a normal day for me just like any other, rainy, depressing and slow. I have just woken up from a very restless, sleepless night. I looked up at my old, crumbly roof only to find a long crack in it which was letting water drip over my reasonably clean, very old, yet favourite black bedspread. Suspectingly I looked at my out-of-date digital alarm clock sitting on top of my dark brown, beaten up bedside table. The brightly shining red digits almost blinded me at first as my eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to light after being technically asleep all night. When my eyes finally adjusted after five minutes of rubbing and blankly staring, I managed to faintly see the time as being 6:16am. I slowly sat up –with no need to hurry, letting my back stretch and crack after spending the night practically lying straight. Even through my dark black curtains, some annoying sun shone through. I preferred the dark instead of the light. The light is too bright and cheerful for my liking. Darkness always suited my mood and gives my room a nice suspenseful feel to it, being in the attic and all.

So I gradually got up from my creaky, half broken bed trying to be as silent and as slow as possible as I didn’t particularly want to face the coming day. Unfortunately, already I could feel the sense of dread quickly rush through my body and for a second an urge to go back to bed and sleep was mentally registered. I didn’t know why I was actually so worried in the first place as I had relived the same day so many times before… I suddenly realized I was walking back towards my bed and made myself stop. I liked to scold myself with a mental wound rather than having to explain the evidence on my body, so I quickly made myself think about last month’s incident. It was one of the worst one’s I had seen yet so it was a stinging memory I was longing to forget, yet keep at the same time.

I turned around again and started heading towards the small and only bathroom in the house. As I lived in the attic I had to climb down the most unsafe ladder in the world to reach the floor of the second story. The ladder was made of a weak wood and didn’t hold much weight nor agreed with being run up and down millions of times. Almost all of the steps had a huge crack in the middle of them or had already snapped into two. Every day I managed to climb down the ladder without getting wounded in the process was a miracle in itself.

The two story building which I unfortunately had to call home was very cramped, old, never clean, out of date and altogether completely unsafe (in my part anyways). There was not one single thing about or object in the house that was more than at least 60 years old. My grandmother who I was forced to live with since the age six was a huge antiques fanatic. So then of course her collection was very quickly built upon, hence forth why everything she owned – now – was in my opinion old, too fragile and a waste of space (practically the definition of antique). I could bet you any money you liked if a feather landed on anything in this house it would crumble to a thousand pieces.

As I walked through the doorway which led into the bathroom I froze. Right across the room was the shiny, white antique mirror. The mirror which told me today’s fate. It could go either way – “work” or freedom – as there was no sign edging the decision either way. Today being a nice crisp, overcast day I was hoping to have freedom. Just for once I would like to be able to do whatever I wanted without being duty bound. Although I didn’t have the burning/tingling sensation in my hands this morning as I usually did, it meant absolutely nothing as I had gone weeks without it in the past.

It was time. I just had to walk forward and face today’s fate. Today however was Friday the 13th which was a dangerous day for us/our kind to be roaming around freely. Around every corner there was darkness, there were enemies waiting to attack and there was opportunities for souls to be lost. I didn’t mind the date though because I was strong enough to tackle anything that came my way… right? I took a deep breath and urged myself to take the first step.