Outside (Demo)

Outside Excerpt

Sunlight leaks through my tiny bedroom window, lighting up my face and rousing me from my deep sleep. I roll over onto my side, away from my window in hopes of evading the sunlight to get a couple more minutes of shut-eye, but the effort was useless. Letting out a sigh, I prop myself up on my elbow to check the time on my broken down alarm clock. It blinks, " 4:38 ". I frown a little. The generator must have broken down overnight again. I'm surprised to see that it's still running right now. Most of the time, when the generator breaks down, it refuses to work again until the next day, sputtering and coughing out oil. I suppose Uncle Stan kept his word and finally got around to taking a look at it.

I rub my eyes with the heels of my palms in an attempt to get rid of the drowsiness. The bed-no, the cot-creaks loudly as I sit on the side of it, my feet gently brushing the cold, concrete floor as I searched for my slippers in my half-sleeping state. It seems as if it almost sighs as it is relieved of my weight. I shuffle my chewed up slippers across the ground, stifling a yawn as I swing open my heavy metal door, leaving a trail of fluff from my slippers that used to be blue but is now a murky brown. The warmth of the hallway greets me, although the warmth is quickly lost as I open the door to my sister's room and I am once again enveloped in chilly air. Her room is much darker than mine and she is snoring softly. My window faces the East and hers face the West, so the sun wakes me up first-my alarm clock is only useful for telling time.

Her petite frame is curled up into a ball as her hands rest under her head. Her dirty blonde hair is a tangled mess, falling in front of her pretty doll-like features. I smile to myself, knowing that she would hate being compared to a doll. I lean down until my mouth was above her ear, took a deep breath, and yelled, "KATHERINE!" Said girl shot up, eyes wide, obviously panicking as she looked around for any signs of immediate danger. She turned to glare at me and I tried to control my outburst of laughter.

"Not funny, Ella," she says as she stretches. My name is actually Eloise, but Katherine has been calling me Ella ever since she was a little toddler.

"Come on," I say, nudging her shoulder. "Let's go eat breakfast." I hold back another laugh as her olive green eyes widen and she races to the kitchen. I shake my head as I follow her out.

I find Katherine sitting at the table in the kitchen. The wood is chipped and scratched from the edges, and one of the legs is shorter than the others, but otherwise, I find it a beautiful table, perfect for breakfast. And lunch and dinner, I suppose. I rummage through the freezer we have in the corner, successfully finding the frozen bacon I was looking for. As I place a pan on top of the lit stove and start defrosting the bacon, I see Katherine reaching for the plates out of the corner of my eye. I take out another pan and open one of the few cabinets we have. Inside was a small box that looked worn out; a box of pancake mix. I chuckle at Katherine's excited impression. She hurriedly fishes out the silverware from a drawer and sets it on the table. I bring over platters of bacon and pancakes, placing them in front of Katherine.

"Happy birthday, Katherine," I say. I sit down, watching her eat. And eat. And eat. No matter how much she devoured, Katherine seemed to never gain any weight. She was always short for her age; anyone who saw her would think that's she's two or so years younger than her actual age.

Katherine stops eating and looks at me with her head tilted, a puzzled look on her face. "Why aren't you eating, Ella?" she asks me, but it sounds more like, "Why ar oo eain, Ewa?"

She seems to automatically realize that she should probably swallow first. Doing so, she repeated her question.

"It's okay, you can eat as much as you want first. After all, it's not everyday you turn thirteen." I say, grinning. She frowns, guilt visible in her eyes. Katherine places a pancake and a couple of pieces of bacon on my plate and slides the honey towards me. I remember when we could afford to buy a sweet, sticky, honey-like fluid-some sort of syrup, I think-but now honey is the closest we have. We are one of the few households of the Outside that can still afford such luxuries. We live in Circle Two, further away from those who are forced to live under poverty close to the Barrier of Circle Zero-Circle One, but we do not have access to all the finer things in the world, unlike Circle Three.