Okay, first chapter

Chapter One..

The sun shone high in the sky, warming my face with its gentle rays of heat, the waves of the sea lapped playfully at the rocks, splashing their smooth surface and speckling the colour until the rocks looked almost marble.  The sky, a clear topaz blue, the only clouds to see were those harmless fluffy ones in which you found pictures if you only looked close enough. The gulls overhead sang a chorus of sweet music which flowed perfectly with the melody of the water whooshing in, whooshing out. In the distance I could hear dogs barking playfully, and children happily laughing; engrossed in their imaginative games. The soft breeze ruffled my long curly hair; tickled the back of my neck, and whistled its summer song in my ear.  This was my happy place, the place I longed to stay. I loved everything about it, the red coloured rocks shaped so beautifully by the wind and water, the inviting aquamarine blue ocean with worlds of mystery beneath the surface.  The warmth of the yellow sand on the soles of my feet and the unbelievably stunning skyline, where aquamarine meets topaz with perfect harmony.  I loved it all.

Suddenly the kind topaz blue of the sky turned a deep violent shade of midnight, the winds beautiful whistling turned in to a despairing howling, the waves roared like savage animals striking the rocks with immeasurable force, the rock on which I was sat began to crumble underneath me, and then I fell...I fell for what seemed like forever through darkness and isolation. I was certain that I was going to die; there was no possibility of survival for me. This was the end.
And then I woke up.

So I guess it was an end, the end of my dream, the end of my nightmare, but not the end of me. No, I still live on, if you would call my life living anyway. It’s more of an existence, a constant struggle against my despair, my depression. My eyes are blurred, the way they get if you sleep for too long, recently all I do is sleep but yet I’m always exhausted never having any energy to go out and live my life, it all gets used up on fighting the urge to give up.

I rub my eyes to make them focus and look around at the unbearably familiar room that I currently inhabit. My bedroom.  Small and compact, with plain white walls and little exposure to natural light. The whole feeling of this room was one of an institution, a prison. But I don’t stay isolated in this room against my will, no one but my self keeps me incarcerated in this white tomb of a room. I despise this room, hate it with passion, but still I stay for the reason that this is the only place that I feel safe. There’s no one here but myself that can hurt me or tear down the shreds of hope I have left. Occasionally I’ll venture out into the world, when the rooms driving me to insanity or when I have to pretend to my family that I’m okay so as they won’t worry.  But each one of these trips to the real world crushes my confidence and the belief that one day I’ll be better. The last incident was one of the worst; I fell out with one of these family members that I have to pretend to, an argument sparked by something small, tiny, but was left to burn until a fire of hate consumed our relationship. Nothing was left but a cinder. My dear brother was the partner in this crime of arson, I guess he just became bored of my act, bored of my depression, or bored of me. Which one of these possibilities to blame I am unsure, maybe they all played their part in the destruction of our sibling relationship, or maybe they are all completely innocent, and the relationship I thought we had was never really there in the first place. So what has been lost?

Now that I’ve lost one member of my close family it feels like more will follow, like they are my anchor keeping me here, locked to this world and now that one has broken away the others won’t be strong enough to hold me in place, so they’ll just give up and leave me to drown.

“Belle? Are you up yet?”

My mother always calls these exact words, everyday, as soon as she hears movement coming from my room, she’ll call. I groaned and covered myself in my thick duvet, trying to block out the lights and the sounds, desperate to get back to my dream, or my nightmare, take your pick. I always have this dream, of the beach, and the sea, and the cliffs, followed by that disastrous storm, so dark and savage. Never changing. I know that dream beach better than any real place that I have ever seen and I believe that that perfect beach, my beach, exists and all I have to do to get better is just find it. Then everything will be perfect and I’ll be me again, not the shell that I have become. I’m not saying that the storm doesn’t scare me because it does, but in that exhilarating way which pumps adrenaline through your veins, from head to toe. I think that’s why I always wake up at that point in the dream, because my body is just too full of adrenaline that it has no need for sleep anymore. This is the only part of my dream which angers me, as I think that if I could only stay asleep and ride out that storm, I’ll find a clue to where my beach is. Of course I have no idea whether this theory is true, or even if my beach exists, but I have the belief that it does, and that, for now, is enough.  I tried to drift back to sleep for ten minutes or so, but finally gave up knowing that sleep had evaded me for now. Now I had to inhabit the realm of reality until my dream decides to visit me again. This is my nightmare, the time between dreams, when I have to pretend.

I turfed myself out of bed and wrapped my fluffiest dressing gown round me. I stood there for a few minutes, just to get myself ready for leaving my hateful sanctuary. I opened my battered bedroom door; battered from all the times I’ve slammed and kicked it in violent outbursts, only to find my mum stood there with her hand frozen in mid knock. She smiled at me, her beautiful smile which is less teeth and more eyes, and gave me a rather unexpected hug.

“Happy Birthday sweetheart” she mumbled to me through the mounds of bed head which separated my ear from her lips. I was confused; surely it wasn’t my birthday just yet? Didn’t I only just calculate that I had a week left? I know that days do tend to merge together with me, but surely I would be conscious of how close my birthday was getting. Then I thought back, counting the days as I backtracked, and mum was right. Today was my 16th birthday.