The Masks We Wear [Human! Reader x Grimm]

Chapter 1: A New Day

           It was the sound of an alarm that made you stir from your deep slumber. A dark room with clothes scattered on the floor here and there, pictures and posters from your days of youth left on the walls, and the only light that did pull to you was your phone by your bedside which rang loudly. The default iPhone alarm ringtone that by this point made you want to rip your ears off your head, the same alarm you woke up to for the past six months so you could get to class on time.

With a passive-aggressive motion, you snatched up your phone and fumbled to shut off the alarm while making sure to not just put it to snooze. Once the feat was met, you let a soft sigh pass your lips as you broke free from your cocoon of heavy blankets to slide your bare feet onto the cold wood floors. It was an unkind feeling that came with the colder weather of course. Living in the Northeast of the United States meant that the winters were less than kind. It made the air slightly frigid no matter how far you turned up the heat and caused every surface to be cold and jarring if touched with bare skin. You did your best to grab a hoodie, your most decent pair of sweatpants, and at least some socks to save you from the cold floor while you made your way to the bathroom next door to take a shower.

The clothes you chose were basically pajamas in disguise but being a second-year student at community college came with the blessing that as long as you just showed up, the professors did not care if you came in a t-shirt and your boxers. You knew the guy a row in front of you in your Calculus class last semester did, which went unnoticed. You at least still had the dignity to change from your flannel pajama pants and baggy t-shirt to something different for the day.

Once cleaned, dressed, and prepped for the day's endeavors you left the bathroom and returned to your room to collect your belongings and a pair of shoes. Not before you peaked out your bedroom window, pulling the thick material of curtain back to show you the world. You could only give a deadpan look at the sight of the Northeast's finest precipitation, snow. Fat wet flakes of frozen water danced from the sky and had already stacked up about three to four inches off the ground. Your car and your mother's car were coated in it along with your entire front yard and just about the whole street.

"Great. Just great. Classes aren't even canceled, are you serious?" You muttered to yourself as you picked up your phone from off your nightstand again. Quickly checking the community college's website to see that classes were still on as far as you could tell. You groaned in a strained tone to still be quiet and not wake your sleeping mother across the hall but you did ponder just skipping classes today. The highway was Hell enough as it was, adding snow only made it the most dangerous place in all of Massachusetts. You paced a bit before you decided that staying home risked the chance of your mother becoming more irritated with you.

You had almost failed your exams last semester and your mother was on your back about doing well in your final semester of community college so you could finish off your bachelor's degree at a nicer university. The same institute she and your father went to and met before getting married and having you. They had both wanted you to go there first but you had talked them down to starting at community college instead. In all actuality, life was not as sweet as it sounded plainly at first glance.

Your mother and father had been divorced years prior to you even starting college. Eight years to be exact as of today. They never saw eye to eye, which as you grew up you began to understand why. Your mother was a textbook case of a workaholic. Work came first and on top of that, it had to be perfect and right. Your father was more laid back but was stern. He barely showed any emotions and preferred solitude over any human interaction. Mix them while adding in a mortgage, one child, and the two of them working full-time jobs and you got a clean divorce. They both shared custody of you and even now as a young woman at the age of nineteen, you still flipped between houses every two weeks since you had no job and nowhere else to live.

While they never saw eye to eye on many topics, the one thing they did agree on was your future. Picking out your career path and where you would go after college was probably the only thing they could sip tea to. If they just talked about your future, business-wise, they might still be married and happily at that. They wanted you to follow in their footsteps by becoming a Business Law major and getting a job in some high paying attorney's office. They didn't care about anything else, as long as you majored in Business Law nothing else mattered. Never your passion, or your talents, or even your dreams.

While packing your bag for the day with the essentials for class you picked up a notebook off of your desk and saw the doodle you made instead of the notes you were meant to take. Human anatomy and body proportions you would see done by an art student, what you wished you could be. Art had always been a deep passion of yours that pulled you out of the darkest pits of sadness. When you were only eleven and your parents split, you began to take your drawing a bit more seriously as it was your one way to escape. Were you the best? No, far from it. Though you were more devoted to improving your art than you were studying to be a Business Law major. It was a shame how no matter how many times you hinted to your parents about your desires, they never seemed to notice. Unless it was just as simple that they didn't even care.

It brought pain, and as you had to close the notebook you knew that it was pointless to argue. So much time was wasted, money already down the drain. To turn away from it all now would only aggravate both your parents and leave you with no one else to support you. You had no other family, no real friends you could trust with even your deepest secrets. You would talk to your peers here and there who were in your classes, and every now and then you would talk with old friends from High School online, but there was no true support system for you.

You could only put on a mellow smile as you slipped on your shoes and exited your bedroom with your bag. The hallways of your mother's house being the ones you grew up with your entire life that creaked ever so slightly with the weight you placed on them. Stairs lead you down to the connected family room, dining room, and kitchen. Checking the time, you knew that breakfast would need to be found on campus as it was best for you to leave early with the weather outside being as bad as it was.

You grabbed your car keys to your semi beaten up and used Sudan and made your way out into the cold weather. You did have to wipe your car off along with shoveling the driveway enough for you to leave. Despite the cold weather and the feeling of snowflakes littering your hair along with your clothes, you were kind enough to wipe the snow off your mother's vehicle as well as she would be getting up for work in another hour or so. She may not respect your wishes for your future, but you knew how her life was still hard. Being alone, working a full-time job... She was only doing what she thought was right. Your father as well. Maybe you were too kind, a bleeding heart.

It wasn't long after cleaning your mother's car that you got in yours and started off on your way to college. The snow is not showing signs of slowing. You swore, if they canceled class by the time you got there, you were going to raise Hell. Turning onto the highway and doing your best to be careful.

Of course this morning you were heavily in thought. Trying to remember what you were going to be doing in your class. It made your brain hurt. You didn't understand any of it, and by this point it was torture. Even if you did pass this semester and finished off community college, heading upstate to university after all of this would lead you into madness. You wished you did have a say in your own life. You wished for a bit of change. If only your mother and father saw your passion, your inner desire. Your true dream.

That was when things began to become an issue. The snow picked up and even after setting your windshield wipers to max your vision was limited. You could barely see the road in front of you. Matching the speed of the highway in this weather, something was bound to go wrong. Just your luck, your car hit a patch of ice. It instant was having a hard time keeping traction on the slick surface as your body went into a panic. Trying to slam on the brakes was a big mistake also as your tires gilded seamlessly and you began to slide back and forth. Your car's tires were not prepared for this and you were in no four-wheel-drive vehicle. Gaining control back was near impossible while the road led to a more downhill area and you naturally picked up speed. You were at the mercy of the road and your poor quality vehicle for the situation.

It wasn't long until you hit the middle divider and flipped into the oncoming lanes of traffic. Your car went airborne as headlights of the vehicles coming the opposite way blinded you as you came back down. Your stomach in your throat as time seemed to slow down. The white light of the headlights... This was it. You were going to die. You were going to die as your car hit the ground on its side and the only thing you heard was the loud blare of a truck's horn.

Then there was nothingness.