I Hate Snow (Chapter 1)

It is a cold January Morning, dark clouds loom over the city and snow lies gently on the pavement. The morning commute is just waking up, among them are eager children who wake up with a smile and rush towards the windows to gaze upon nature's doing. It snowed throughout their slumber, and if the meteorologists are correct then more snow is soon to come later today.

The community is at awe, and many are stunned that it was able to snow in the first place. It's rare to see snow around these parts, unless you lived in the mountains you'd be lucky to see any sort of frost fall every other year. This particular week, in fact, will be quite a treat for the children, and an inconvenience for any employed adult as it is said to snow this entire week. While it is a bit of a bother for the grown ups, they can't help but marvel at the beauty of it all, and they welcome the change of pace. Well, not everybody.

In a small, cubical room filled with darkness, a familiar buzzing is produced by a small mechanical device; a clock, which seems to have it's fair share of wear and tear. A slam is suddenly heard and the alarm ceases. Silence returns to the cold and dark little room, when suddenly shuffling can be heard, breaking the silence yet still keeping it eerie as groans and mumbling can be heard faintly.

"Goddammit..." a hushed feminine voice says, "why is it so cold?"

Creaking can be heard after her words trail off, followed by the sounds of lazy and heavy footsteps. Suddenly, the curtains are opened, and they shine upon the small apartment building showing it's dingy and cramped glory to all who can see within her window. Fortunately for the young lady, however, is that she lives high above the streets. The sudden shift from darkness to light nearly blinds her, and as the young lady's gaze readjusts to the setting, she sees her once familiar town turn into an unrecognizable winter wonderland. The frost blanketing the streets and the snow covering tall buildings. If it weren't for the few unblemished landmarks she would have thought she had been transported to another world. The snow's brilliant reflection of the sun makes the scenery even more intense, and the young lady, who appears to be around her mid-twenties, is forced to squint at the remarkable set. Yet while it all seems fantastical, the young girl has a frown on her face, the type that one gets after being rudely awoken. After a moment of taking in the scenery, she finally speaks.

"Crap..." she grumbles as she reaches for her blanket and proceeds to mummify herself with it. She let's her body fall on the warm and comfortable bed and she slumbers once again.

This is Abigail Lynn. She's not a terribly special person, but she isn't utterly dull either. She's a good samaritan, one who often recycles, cleans after herself after a meal, and occasionally binges on super sentai shows. Abigail takes the role of a hermit author, and while she was successful earlier in her career, her books have been less than stellar as of late. Many believer her five minutes of fame and left and shall never return, but Abigail knows very well that she's got that still in her, it's just been blocked by the sudden surge of snow storms lately.

A few hours go by, Abigail, still in her mummified state, can be heard snoring. It is a peaceful and deep sleep, the kind of sleep somebody partakes in when they want to forget a long, hard day. In this case, however, Abigail just wishes what she had just seen was all a dream. Snow? Here? It can't be true, can it? Snow has always annoyed Abigail profusely, in fact she more than finds it annoying, she very much loathes any sort of wintry weather; sleet, snow, frost, hail, et cetera, if it leaves any trail of cold then she hates it. She cannot truly explain why she hates it, but it has always irked her, even as a child. Suddenly, she wakes up naturally, her vision is blurry, but she can see that the outside of her window is just as white out as ever. Abigail lets out a loud annoyed groan, as if truly believing what she had seen this morning was just a bad dream.

"Why..." her words muffled as her face is smothered by her pillow, "...why'd it have to snow again?"

Once again, Abigail attempts to sleep some more, almost as if she's attempting to hibernate throughout the entirety of winter. Unfortunately for Abigail, her plan was quickly foiled as soon as her cellphone rings.

"Please, for the love of God, just leave me alone today". Abigail attempts to ignore her colorful ringtone, a ringtone that signifies a once vivacious human being, and for a moment it works as the ringing suddenly stops. She smirks at her small victory, and closes her eyes peacefully. A moment or two passes by when suddenly the phone begins it's whimsical and cheerful ringing again.

"Are you serious?", her tone suddenly shifts from mildly annoyed to extremely irritated. Abigail turns her head towards the boisterous cellphone and gazes at it sharply, as if she want the inanimate object to somehow understand the concept of fear for that one moment so she may scare the phone to death. Coincidentally enough the phone does stop ringing, and she sighs heavily, this time was not a victory, but instead just a bittersweet win. By now, Abigail has been defeated and her soul is crushed. No longer does the idea of slumber bring her joy, it just brings her anxiety over the possibility of the dreaded ringtone returning with a vengeance. She never won the battle, in fact the moment she decided to go back to sleep was the moment she lost.

Finally admitting defeat, she lazily reaches over and grabs her phone. She finds out that, whoever called, left two voice mails. Her eyes lazily adjust to the bright LCD screen and finds familiar numbers accompanied by the contact name "Dumb Idiot, Stupid Idiot". Abigail snickers and wonders who exactly that is; suddenly she remembers, and snickers even more.

"Oh hey, Lucy called." Lucy White is a close friend of Abigail's, one whom she envies and respects. Lucy is a writer herself, but unlike Abigail, she's been successful from the get go. There hasn't been a book that's failed her in terms of review and sales. Lucy is practically a writing prodigy, yet a humble author who doesn't fancy the complimentary names given to her, such as "genius" or "brilliant". Lucy is happy enough to simply share her love in books to the rest of the world. While the general audience believes her to be an incredible writer, Abigail knows that behind all the brilliance is a simple young lady, and often forgets she's a writer at all.

"I wonder what she wants this early in the morning" Abigail slurs her words a bit, it is evident she is still a tad bit drowsy. Abigail checks the messages that Lucy left. After the automated Machine notifies her of the message she puts it on speaker, lays the phone down, and rests her eyes.

"TWO NEW MESSAGES, AND TWENTY-SIX OLD MESSAGES" says the digitized voice, which is then followed by a loud monotone bleep; the bleep suddenly stops, and a firm feminine voice follows.

"Look at the time." Says the voice, almost sounding annoyed. The message ends.

"What...?" Abigail, clearly befuddled by the short message decides to follow the instructions given to her by the voice. Abigail looks around her room, looking for a watch or something that tells time. She sees a bright and blurry red light on the floor, but she can't make out what it says as her vision is still blurry, which is to be expected from a young lady who needs glasses. Feeling around her bedside table, Abigail uses familiar shapes to guide her hands around the mess that she made on the table. Fortunately, nobody knows her "complex system" like she does, and does find her glasses amongst the pile of books, pencils, and balled up pieces of paper. She finally equips her glasses and sees that the current time reads,

"Twelve-oh-five..." she says out loud. After a small moment of silence and a blank stare later, Abigail repeats what she had just said quietly. "...wait."

"By now" the firm voice continues, playing off into the second message. Abigail is caught off guard and jolts a bit from the sudden response; the voice continues, "you would've noticed that it's pretty late, even by your standards of sleeping. Well, I'm only assuming you're still asleep, but come on, we both know that's exactly why you're not answering your phone."

"Couldn't you have just let me sleep for the rest of the day, Luce?" replies Abigail, as if expecting a response for that as well.

"Anyway," Lucy continues "Ray and I are going to have lunch at Redd's, if you'd like to come we would be more than happy to see you." Suddenly, Abigail's stomach begins to rumble, realizing she hasn't had a bite to eat since around seven last night. In fact she never even made breakfast. "We'll be there at around one-thirty. If you're planning to meet up with us, just text or call back. Hope to see you s-" Abigail immediately snatches the phone and quickly responds with a text message.

"I'll be there in about an hour. And just so you know, I wasn't sleeping, I was just..." Abigail reaches for an excuse from the back of her mind. "...doing stuff." Unfortunately, she is a terrible liar.

Struggling to unwrap herself from her mummification, Abigail breaks free and stretches her tired muscles. However, after a brief moment of stretching, she feels the cold blindside her and suddenly finds herself shivering. The brief moment of happiness she experienced is gone as she remembers a very important detail that will she had forgotten when she accepted Lucy's invitation. Abigail turns around and sees the town blanketed in snow, and this time she can see everything thanks to the help of her glasses. The vastness of snow reaches farther than she had initially seen.

The phone catches her off guard again as it buzzes, signifying a text message had been received. See reaches down and grabs the phone off her bed, turns it on and sees that the message is from "Dumb Idiot, Stupid Idiot". Again, she snickers and knows exactly who it's from, then proceeds to check what the message says.

"By the way, it snowed last night." Abigail's smile immediately turned into a frown.

She lets her body fall on top of the warm bed again and murmurs "I hate snow..."