1 An ocean

Sarah opened her eyes to see a deep crystalline blue around her. It stretched on forever, and progressively got darker the deeper she looked. It seemed as if something was looking back at her from the depths of the darkness. She was floating in it, and she was comfortable. She noticed the dark flickers in the corners of her vision, but opted to ignore it, for the bliss of the still, quiet ocean had enveloped her. It was...calming. As she progressively sank down into the depths,It progressively got darker and darker. She could no longer glimpse the shapes in the corner of her eyes, which she did not mind. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the feeling of peace she got from this ocean. With her eyes closed she failed to see the numerous pair of eyes looking at her, surrounding her.

This silent and peaceful moment was broken by the sound of an alarm. Alerted and surprised, Sarah shot upwards. But she was no longer in a ocean. She was instead in her small bed, surrounded by the walls of her room. The alarm was her alarm clock, which said 5:55. "That dream again huh..." She said as she slid off the bed and turned off the alarm. While she did not mind getting that dream, it was a bit unnerving that it was the same dream she had been getting since last week. Noting that it was a Monday, she groaned and went towards the direction of the bathroom to brush her teeth. Today was her first day at a new school. She had to look good. As she squeezed a bit of toothpaste on the brush, she heard a cacophony of noise and yelling from downstairs.

"Great.....Mom and dad are fighting again. Guess I'm skipping breakfast." she thought to herself as she spit out the water in her mouth. She turned on the water for. bath and waited for it to turn sufficiently hot before stripping and stepping inside. Something about hot water always seemed to perk up her mood. It also drowned out the noise she was hearing from downstairs, which is a plus. After about 5 minutes, she stepped out of the shower and dried herself, before getting dressed l. This new school was apparently very hard to get into. Even harder for her so she had given thought to what she would wear last night. It ended up consisting of a Jeans and black shirt with the words:

Life is stranger than most things

imprinted on it. Not that anyone would see as she had also put on a slightly oversized hoodie. Just enough to hide her actual figure.

She picked up her pre packed bag, and silently went down the stairs.

Her mother was still screaming at her dad about God knows what. "They seemed to be fighting more and more lately" Sarah thought.

She had almost made it out the door before her mother noticed her.

"And where are you going! Think you can sneak out of this house without my knowledge?" Sarah's mother,whose name was Hannah, looked at her with an annoyed face. Hannah was in late twenties but nothing on her face suggested that. She had wrinkles caused from so much yelling that she does. Grey hairs in her head did not help her image.

"And where are you going dressed like a hooligan. I swear your fashion sense is the worse thing out there. Your lucky you got my looks to make up for it." She rambled on before becoming silent.

Noting that it was her turn to speak Sarah said," Mom, I have the new school to go too. Today's the first day." Sarah said quietly.

"so why are you dressed like that? I swear this little hooligan act of yours had better stop be-"

Sarah's dad, Hank, chimed in at this point. Hank was only three years older than Hannah.

Hank is 32, and very well built, evident by the fact of his muscles bulging under his too tight shirt. And he was obviously drunk.

"Weeell maybe she woudnt be a hooligan that you can't control if YOU HAD LET ME RAISE HER MY WAY!" He stammered into saying before starting to yell. This caused Sarah's mother to turn her attention back to the arguement they were having before, Allowing Sarah to slip away outside. Closing the door behind her she began to walk towards the direction of her new school. She made a pitstop to buy some breakfast snacks on her way there, on account of her mom being to busy fighting to cook a decent breakfast.

"How ya doin kid?" Said a gruff man behind the counter of the small store she entered to buy the snack. Noone knew what his real name was so everyone called him Gruff

"same old same old. You know how it is. What about you gruff? How are you doing today." she skillfully replied as she selected her snack. "Nothing much, just my wife tried to play a small prank on me. " Gruff said, noticing her avoidance of answering the question, which in itself gave away an answer but he decided to stay quiet about it.

"Went and told me she was pregnant." he continued as he took the cash for the snack from Sarah.

"Was she?" Sarah asked jokingly.

"She was." Gruff replied.

"...oh." With that being the last sentence, Sarah left the store and continued on the way to the school.