((A piece of work I've been doing, taking my characters from CoH and making changes to them and their past. I placed it in a different city to Paragon. Why? I don't own Paragon, that's why. And I get a little more freedom with locations and events. Enjoy!))
Golden light, tinted from the sun just rising over the city, streamed through the gap in the curtains, cutting a line through the darkness up to the bed in the center of the room. Boxes lay strewn about, furniture half-constructed, masses of packaging and cardboard piled up on the old, faded blue carpet. A figure lay underneath the covers of the bed, hastily pieced together and covers made during the late hours of the previous day. Colbalt blue hair spread across the pillows, dragging across the fabric as the owner moved, drawing the covers up as the light hit her eyes. Her features were of mixed origin, pale skin touched with Hispanic olive hue and facial features brushed with Mediterranean shape.
Her eyes flickered as a voice called out from downstairs, drawing the covers higher over her face to blot the sound out until, with a flicker, the red LCD display next to her bed changed from 0659 to 0700, teen punk music blaring out of the alarm clocks speakers. With an almost pained moan she sat up, covers falling around her waist as she rubbed at the sleepers in her eyes.
"Hannah!" the voice from downstairs called, "Get up and dressed already, dear."
Swivling, she sat her feet down on the floor, tugging her dark-purple nightshirt down to cover the tops of her legs before calling out in a voice plainly saying she wanted several hours extra rest, "I'm up Mom, I'm up!"
Yawning, Hannah stretched her arms up, arching her back and spreading her fingers as she worked out the kinks from sleeping on a new bed, before bending forwards and touching her toes. Heading over to one of the boxes, 'Han's Clothes' written in black marker across the top, she opened it up and started to pull out her clothes for the day: A white long-sleeved t-shirt; a black shorter sleeved T-shirt with a blue graffiti design, similar to a lightning bolt; a pair of baggy black jeans with chains attached to it; platform combat boots with laces at the front; a short, thigh high black skirt, undergarments and a black leather collar, stainless steel studs jutting out of it. Hanging the clothes over one arm, she looked about the room, checking box after box before finding the right one and getting her make-up and toiletries out. Hands full, she balanced on one leg as she hit the snooze button on the alarm clock with her big toe before slipping out of her room to the bathroom.
More boxes lay piled in the hallway outside rooms, Hannah stepping past each pile carefully before hopping over the box outside the bathroom and going inside. Setting her clothes down on the lid of the toilet, she pushed some more boxes out of the way with her feet before tugging her nightshirt off and starting to get washed. Liberally spraying deodorant on, she pulled her clothes on, clipping the collar around her neck and pulling the skirt up over her jeans, wrapping a length of chain around her waist as a belt. Fluffing her hair out with her fingers, wincing as she caught a few knots, she grabbed her brush and combed out the rest, hair falling equally down either side of her face in a middle parting.
Taking her make-up bag, she lightly applied foundation and face powder, before dipping her fingers in blue eye-shadow and running them across her eyelids, touching them up before taking a sky-blue tube of lipstick and pouting for the mirror, tracing the tip across her lips before grinning, "Han, you look great today." she winked at the mirror, taking a sheet of toilet paper and placing it between her lips to remove the excess.
"Hannah, hurry up, your pancakes are getting cold!" her mother shouted up the stairs. The grin still on her face, she put her things away and dashed out of the bathroom to her room, placing her things on the bed before heading to the banister and sliding down into the hallway.
The downstairs rooms were in much the same state as the upstairs of the house, furniture covers in dust sheets and boxes of possessions stacked against the walls. Drifting into the kitchen, the room was slightly more unpacked, the smell of pancakes, fresh coffee and maple syrup filling the air. Hannah smiled at the long, dark-haired woman sitting at the table with the newspaper, heading over to give her a kiss on the cheek. "Morning Mom." she said, then nodded at the woman with short red hair, sitting down at her place and starting to tuck into a stack of pancakes drenched in maple syrup and a glass of OJ.
The short haired woman looked a little sad, but smiled back."Morning Han, ready for your first day of school?" she asked, biting into a piece of toast. Hannah nodded a little, busy concentrating on breakfast. Her mother looked over at the other woman with a reassuring smile.
"Han, me and Tessa are going out tonight to a restaurant." she told her daughter.
Tessa nodded, "We'll be back at around ten o'clock tonight, Zori's going to leave some money out for you to get take out."
Hannah nodded, swallowing down some pancake. "Mmm, have a nice night an' all." she said, draining her glass of orange juice.
"Aren't you even let that touch the sides?" Zorielle smiled at her daughter, brushing her shoulder length hair behind her ears. Her features were more strongly touched than her daughters, being at least half Spanish, her accent enhancing this perception.
Hannah grinned back at her. "I need to leave early so I can work out how long it'll take me to get to school, then maybe I can have a lie-in." she laughed.
"You know you can call us if anything happens today, right?" Tessa said. Hannah just nodded, she never really spoke much to Tessa, only saying what was required.
Wolfing down the remains of her breakfast, she grabbed her rucksack from besides the kitchen worktop, various badges and patches with band names sewn onto it, before putting the headphones of her MP3 player in her ears. "Off now Mom, have a nice day at work." she smiled, kissing her mom's cheek. After giving Tessa a brief wave, she dashed out of the kitchen and front door, walking down the street.
Tessa sighed, her green eyes straying down to her cup of coffee, gaze drowning under the dark black. Zorielle reached over with her hand, laying it on top of hers. "Want to talk about it, Love?" she asked.
Tessa shrugged, "I don't know, Zori... no matter how hard I try she acts like that, she must really hate me."
"She's a thirteen year old girl, Tess. Her father and I splitting up, and then me coming out to her several months later... I guess she's still trying to get used to the changes."
"Sometimes I think she blames me, I mean the way she looks at me when she's on the phone to Carl... she might think I caused the break up?" Tessa sighed again, taking a sip before sliding her chair closer to her partners, laying her head on her shoulder.
"I hadn't even met you until after the split, I'm sure Han knows that too... let's give it a little more time? I mean, she's had to move away from her friends too." Zori reasoned, then looked at her watch. "Come on, let's get this cleaned up and head to work."
Metallica's 'Ride The Lightning' blared out through Hannah's headphones as she walked through the streets of Vouden City. It wasn't anything like Chicago, where she spent all of her life. It seemed almost unreal. The city was built over and around the lake, a lattice of buildings and roads over the clear-blue waters, kept clean by a strict policy of anti-littering and waste dumping laws. Trees and flower beds lined the city, walls scrubbed clean of graffiti, pavements clean of chewing gum. She hadn't even seen a homeless person on the streets since she'd been there.
Another thing that marvelled her was the citys heroes. Not heroes in the sense of firefighters and policemen, but actual heroes. Superheroes. She'd seen at least three fly through the air as they drove to their new home, one man run by their car at over one hundred miles per hour, and even more on the evening news. Back at her old home, they were masked vigilantes operating at night, hiding from the legitimate authorities. Here, the public openly embraced them, giving them celeberity status. They worked alongside the emergency services, even in them.
Hannah shook the thoughts out of her head, stepping to the side to let a woman with a pram go past. She wasn't even sure why her mom moved here, apart from her 'girlfriend' getting a job at the Vouden Star newspapers. Her nostrils flared as she thought about Tessa. Despite her mom denying it, she was sure Tessa caused the split between her parents, making her dad move out and her getting dragged across the country to a new city with no friends. And then had the cheek to try and act like nothing had happened with her. Hannah was roused from her thoughts again as she looked up. Police cars blockaded the road, sirens blazing and officers, pistols drawn, hiding behind their cars as a crowd was pushed away. "Wonder what's goin' on..." Hannah murmured to herself, ducking past some of the people to work her way to the front.
To Be Continued.
