Chapter 1: Just Another Day

Alexis groans as her alarm continues to blare its siren, making a return to dreamland impossible. She turns it off and groggily glances at the time. A newfound energy seems to fill her after she sees what time it is.

 

"Ah s**t! I'm gonna be late!"

 

She leaps out of her bed and races for her closet; practically ripping out the dark green polo shirt and khakis she needed for work. She rapidly puts her outfit on and rapidly brushes her long black hair as she speeds to the bathroom, bumping into her sister on the way.

 

"Hey, watch it, Ali!" Veronica yells to her older sister as she slams the bathroom door to finish preparing. Veronica, severely annoyed at the lack of an apology, turns and stomps downstairs.

 

Alexis hurries down the stairs after getting all of her stuff around and practically runs into the kitchen. She finds her father, Arthur, cooking breakfast and the rest family sitting at the table. Veronica looks up from her plate and glares at Alexis, but she ignores it.

 

"Hey sweetheart," Arthur smiles when he notices his eldest. "Would you like some breakfast?"

"Sorry, can't. Gotta go. Gonna be late. Bye," Alexis rapidly replies. She quickly grabs a piece of toast and rushes out the door, running down the street in order to make it to work on time.

#

 

Alexis sighs as she lifts up another jar of pickles and places it on the middle of the shelf before adjusting her Baremann's nametag. "Why the heck are these things so freakin' uncomfortable? They shouldn't be, they're just freakin' name-tags!"

 

"That would be because Mrs. Baremann likes to torture the workers, remember?" came a blunt reply. She looks up at Kyle, who is stacking items on the top shelf across the aisle. Alexis groans in reply.

 

"Trust me, that's painfully obvious. Heck, if I didn't need the money, I would've quit within a week." They hear a laugh coming from down the aisle.

 

"Ah, now it can't be that bad." Alexis and Kyle look down the aisle to see an elderly man walking down the aisle with a jovial smile on his face, shopping basket in hand. Kyle rolls his eyes.

 

"You don't know the half of it, Joe. I swear the Baremann's a harpy or something. She fired Kim last week 'supposedly' because of customer complaints, but we all know that the customers loved her! I hear the real reason she was fired was because she was questioning her policies." He shakes his head then smiles. "Joke was on her though. Kim told me that she had already found another job and was going to quit within the week anyway. Ha!"

 

"Still," Alexis contemplates," I guess she's not absolutely horrible. I mean, the canned food drive last year was her idea. She has a good heart in her. Just buried deep inside her." Alexis sighs. "Very, very deep." Joe, apparently finding her thoughts hilarious, laughs uproariously.

 

"You really do try to see the good in everyone, don't you?"

 

"Eh," she shrugs her shoulders, “helps with the boredom." She glances over at Kyle and smirks. "Speaking of boredom, how did you do on that final?" He drops his face in hands and groans.

 

"Well, I passed, but barely." Alexis just shakes her head places her hands on her hips.

 

"Do you think really think you're gonna get very far if your just barely pass all your classes." Kyle mimics her movement as he retorts.

 

"Look who's talking, Miss I-Don't-Know-What-I-Wanna-Be. I mean, you're gonna be a senior in high school next year and you still don't know what you want to do with your life!"

 

"I know what I'm gonna do with my life!"

 

"Oh really?" Kyle raises an eyebrow.

 

"Yeah, I'm gonna be live an awesome life full of new experiences! I'm going to be an expert in my field and nothing will be able to bring me down," Alexis replies, full of passion.

 

"And just what is this field you're gonna be an expert in, pray-tell?" With the same level of passion, she answers him:

 

"I have absolutely no idea!"

 

Kyle facepalms, mumbling as Alexis and Joe laugh at his look of sheer disbelief. Joe walks up to Alexis and places a hand kindly on her shoulder.

 

"Now, now, you've still got a year of high school to figure that out. And probably another year in college if you just take the general education courses." Alexis smiles and thanks him. "No problem. Now I best get going and you two should get back to work before that 'harpy' finds you." Kyle and Alexis jump and look around before hurriedly returning to shelving products as Joe walks away laughing. Before he leaves, he turns back to Alexis and smiles cryptically.

 

"And Alexis, don't ever lose that bright personality of yours. I have a feeling you may need it."

#

 

Alexis walked into the house and sighs as she plops down on a chair in the living room, not planning on moving from that spot for at least a good hour. It seemed like only a minutes had passed when her father calls out to the house.

 

"Family meeting in the kitchen!"

 

She groans as gets up trudges to the kitchen, wondering what happened this time. As she enters the kitchen she notices that her father had a wide smile on his face, looking much happier than he had in a while. He looks so happy that Alexis can't help but let a small smile creep onto her face. Her mother, Tanya, walks into the room followed by her little brother Zach, both with questioning looks on their faces. Finally, Veronica stomps in, shooting Alexis a glare while muttering to herself.

 

"This better be important. I was talking to my friend." Arthur glances over at his middle child, wide smile on his face. Whatever it was, it had him in a wonderful mood.

"Don't worry sweetheart, this is big." He turns to the rest of the family. " Now, you all know that things haven't been so great money wise for the past couple of years. However, I just talked to someone in with a rather large company; they want me to come in to discuss a possible partnership. If everything goes well, then things should be like they were before; possibly even better!"

 

At this news everyone's moods changed, none more so than Veronica. Her sour mood melted away and she could barely contain her excitement at the idea that they were going to have money again. She's bouncing on the balls of her feet, eyes practically shining as she asks her father a question.

 

"So when are you going to go and meet these people?"

 

"I'll be leaving in a few days and I'll probably be gone for a week. Hopefully I can impress them and they'll be willing to go through with the partnership. I have a good feeling about this! I just know this will work. And I'll probably have a nice amount to bring back with me and I can get everyone some nice things on my way back."

 

At this statement, Veronica starts ecstatically listing off the various things she want, including some things that were rather expensive, somewhat flustering her happy father. Alexis shakes her head and sighs at the fourteen-year-olds reaction. She smiles as she leans back against the counter, watching as her mother and the seven-year-old start interjecting with their desires. Zach was jumping around in excitement. Truth be told, she was excited herself. Things were starting to look up for them again.

 

As she watched her family, she let her mind wander to her dreams. They had been rather odd lately, the one last night being the oddest of them all. Who were those people? Why was she running? What was in her hand? And what in the world was with all the roses? That seemed to be the only running theme between all of her strange dreams: they all seemed to feature roses of various sizes, colors, and life stages, from buds to fully bloomed blossoms. Heck, all these weird dreams seemed to start after a rather simple one of a beautiful, bright red rose slowly blooming. What in the world could it all mean...?

 

"Lexa...Lexa...ALEXIS!"

 

Her father calling her name startles Alexis and brings her back into reality. She finds her family staring at her. She rubs the back of her head sheepishly.

 

"Sorry. I kinda went off into my own little world for a little bit. What did you say Daddy?"

 

Tanya sighs at this while Veronica rolls her eyes. Zach laughs a little, finding his sister's absent-mindedness funny. Arthur simply smiles at his daughter and repeats his question.

"I asked you if there was anything you wanted me to get you." Alexis thought about this for a little bit. She couldn't think of anything she particularly needed and there wasn't anything she really wanted, at least at the moment. Then again...

 

"Well, I wouldn't mind a red rose. It doesn't even have to be a real one." Her sister gives her a weird look.

 

"Why the heck do you want a rose, of all things?" Alexis shrugs her shoulders in reply.

 

"Don't really know, just want one." Veronica rolls her eyes at her sister's oddness while Arthur hugs his eldest lightly.

 

"I'll try my best to get that for you Lexa. I promise."

Author's Note

Very rough first draft.

Reviews

[DarkCrono15]

This is a good first chapter! You introduce your characters well and very colorfully paint (with words of course) their family dynamics. As a former grocery store employee I appreciated the section about the three friends complaining about their boss...we've all been there!

I didn't read anything about this book before I jumped in and read it but I feel like its the start of a Vampire piece haha. I do think there will probably be something shady with the job that Arthur has, but again...we'll see!

I'm afraid I don't have any constructive criticism at the moment, its all good so far!

[Shadow]

Thank you so much for the kind reviews!

I'm afraid that I may have put too much characterization into the characters other than Alexis, though.

Again, thank you for the review!

PS: I'm afraid there are no vampires whatsoever in this story. Though it was inspired by an old fairy tale.