The Monster of Manchester

A New Start... Sort of.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

The incessant beeping of her alarm clock woke Velouria with a start. She dug her nails into her sheets, but stayed still, listening to the beeping and willing herself to get up. She kept her eyes shut tight and could feel herself falling asleep again. She was too tired for this crap. Her eyelids felt like sandpaper against her eyes and it felt like her limbs were twenty pounds too heavy. Had she always had this much dead weight?

Finally, she managed to push herself up into a sitting position, her head bowed and eyes droopy. Her incentive to wake up, however, was not of her own. It was her roommate, hung over and groggy from a party she had whisked off to in the late night. She had come home slobbering drunk and way-too-loud. She was singing something so loud Velouria had to cover her face with a pillow just to muffle the noise.

"Shut that damn thing off!" Jessica yelled, trying to throw one of her many multi-colored pillows across the room to hit Velouria. But, in her state of half-consciousness, she completely missed, and instead the pillow flew across the room and hit Velouria's bedside table, knocking her lamp and screaming alarm clock to the floor.

Velouria felt a surge of energy as she heard the lamp crash to the ground and she practically leaped out of bed to chase after it. At the same time, Jessica dive-bombed the floor, reaching for the alarm clock as well. The end result was a complete disaster. Their foreheads collided, rather painfully, and they both fell backwards. Val gasped, and touched the spot where their heads met. She closed her eyes against the stars she was seeing and tried to stop the room from spinning around her. She could hear Jesse slam her hand multiple times on the alarm clock, before her fist finally slammed onto the "Off" button. The alarm clock went quiet, and Jessica gave a small sigh as she fell back against the side of her bed.

"Nice going, smart one." Jesse said sarcastically, making Val open her eyes to look at her. She saw a bright red bruise start forming on her head, right in between her eyebrows. Val smirked, even though she knew she probably carried the same mark on her own throbbing head.

"Yeah, well. You're the one who threw the pillow, Einstein." She let her eyes shut again. "By the way, nice bruise."

Jesse laughed and threw a nearby slipper at her, which missed her completely and hit the wall behind the bed. "Fuck off, mate." Her English accent was always thicker when she was only half awake.

Val giggled and looked over at the calendar on the wall. Today was Friday. She let out a sigh of relief. Her weekend off. She doesn't have to go to her classes or work until Sunday. Jesse stood up first and extended her hand to Val, which she took gratefully. Once she was on her feet, she ran to fix the mess of blankets and pillows on her bed.

In the harsh morning rays of sun, Jesse watching Velouria make her bed. Birds sang outside their window and they could hear the stirrings of other students in the dorms surrounding theirs. Velouria liked having noises in the background because it gave her something to focus on, something other than the ringing in her ears she got whenever it was silent. The silence was the loudest thing to her.

Being in a dorm room always had Jessica complaining, either about their neighbors smoking pot, or the RA sneaking in her cat from home. But Velouria, she was thankful for the noises. The late night gossip in the hallway, the soft mewling of a kitten as it begged it's owner to feed it, the music from a stray stereo or television that was left on in the night.

Despite her love for noise, she hated being around people. There were few people in this world she could tolerate, or even bring herself to befriend. Luckily, Jessica was one of those people.