Hey, I'm baaaaack! :)

I must apologize, because I honestly didn't mean for it to take this long. It seriously doesn't help that I'm a ridiculous perfectionist. :(

But I finally finished the second chapter, so I hope everyone enjoys it! XD

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Sam let out a long, raucous hiss as her mother pushed aside the curtains to her window, letting bright, joyous beams of sunshine fall upon her bed and flow into her room, blinding her eyes with its accursed golden light. 

And this is why I'm a goth...and definitely not a morning person. Sam groaned in her brain.

Reaching under her head, Sam grabbed her pillow and slammed it into her face as she attempted to keep the bright happiness of the new day from reaching her. She failed of course.

"Sweetie, rise and shine, it's a wonderful morning! Time to get up and greet the day~" Her mother sang, smiling wide.

"N-no...five...five more minutesss..." Sam mumbled in her groggy, muffled voice, already hating the day if she had to wake up to it in this particular way. Why would she greet the day if she wanted to turn it black and bring the moon and the stars back?

"Oh, but, sweetie! Don't forget, it's your first day of high school today! Aren't you the least bit excited?" Her mother asked, turning to pick up a bright pink paisley dress with green and white striped tights along with it. "And, look! I already bought you this lovely outfit for your first day! Isn't it darling?"

Sam lifted a small corner of her sun protector to get a good look at the monstrosity her mother held in her hands. She sat up and stared at her mother with a monotone expression.

"It looks like a rainbow and happy feelings threw up on it." She stated like it was obvious, deadpanning.

"Now, Sammy-kins, I picked this out because it'll make you look like a pretty flower! Our little flower." Her mother responded with a small smile, her voice growing slightly sentimental as Sam simply rolled her eyes and feigned a gag.

"Mom, I am not wearing that to school."

"Why not?"

"Because I want to be myself for my first day of high school, and that eye sore is the complete opposite of me."

Giving up with her pillow, Sam struggled out of her warm and cozy sheets with an inaudible mumble of complaint, fighting with them to get up, before standing and walking to the far side of her room where she knew her closet was located. She rummaged through her dresser and tugged out a black, green-crosshatched skirt, a black, purple highlighted sports tee, a pair of purple tights, and black combat boots.

Turning around she flashed them towards her mother, in which she responded with a deep, disapproving frown.

"You really want to wear that depressing outfit? What about a pretty sky blue? Or perhaps a gorgeous bright yellow? Don't you want people to know how happy you are?"

"Not really, no."

"Well, you're going to scare everyone away with a dark and moody outfit like that. You must want to make friends."

Sam responded back with a shrug of her shoulders. She had kinda given up all hopes of a friend the instant they had moved here.

"Alright, but if you are going to wear that, then I get to style your hair today." Pamela said with a stern look directed towards her daughter.

Sam's eyes widened. Her mother wanted to style her hair. Her mother wanted to style her hair! That was practically a death sentence! It was the end of her world as she knew it!

Nononononononono! Never! I'm keeping my ponytail!

Sam slowly backed away, retreating into her private bathroom in a vain attempt to escape.

"And where do you think you're going?"

"Um...I, uh, need to use the bathroom?" She answered with uncertainty before slamming the bathroom door closed and locking it. She put her back to the door and slid down it to the tiled floor with a sigh of relief. She had made it to sanctuary. Then she instantly jolted upright with fright when she heard her mother's voice on the other side of her door.

"I'm assuming that means you're going to be wearing that dreadful outfit today, so I'll go get my curling irons!" her cheerful squeaky voice radiated through the wood as the click of her heels fading away announced her excited exit.

When Sam was certain she was gone, she sighed once more from a mixture of relief and dread. She may have escaped the evil clutches of unnaturally curly hair this time, but it wouldn't last for long. The instant she stepped outside her bathroom door and went downstairs, she would be assaulted with hair accessories and hot irons. Oh, the cruelty that is hairdressing.

Pushing herself up from the floor with a gloomy disposition, she got ready for the long day ahead of her. She found that the adrenaline from before was wearing off and she began to feel the effects of being a night owl all over again. Yawning, she pulled off her nightgown and wrestled her clothes on, eyes still slightly bleary with sleep. She walked over to the sink and scrubbed her face with soap and rinsed it off, drying thoroughly with a fluffy black towel. She lazily brushed her teeth and then brushed her short hair with her purple hairbrush, watching her sluggish movements in the mirror. Gathering an amount of her hair at the top of her head, she nabbed a green hair tie and wound it around tightly a couple of times until she had her successful results. Looking over the small ponytail of raven black hair at the top of her head, she turned and put on a small amount of goth makeup. Hardly any, really. Her parents wouldn't allow anything more than mascara and lipstick unless it was 'actual' makeup. Completing her routine, Sam turned and faced the door, squaring her shoulders.

Did she really have to go out there? Perhaps she could just live in her bathroom for the next hundred years or so. It couldn't be that bad, right?

No, Sam. She argued with herself. If you do that, you'll be dead.

Rolling her eyes tiredly, seeing no way to counter the inevitable, Sam used a quick burst of energy to open the door and tense her body, squeezing her eyes as tightly shut as she could. She waited for a few moments in that position until nothing happened. Curious, Sam risked a peek, cracking one fuchsia eye open to glance around. Nothing. No fussing mom with curling irons of doom.

Sam visibly relaxed and got to work, quickly calculating a form of counter attack in her mind, or, well, more like a form of counter maneuver. Snagging her already made backpack(she left the home-made lunch her parents prepared; she wanted to eat food from the cafeteria like every other kid with normal, non-obsessive parents) from the corner of her room next to her desk, and then walked over to her window. Moving the ebony purple curtains back further still, she expertly opened her window without a creak and looked down at the yard below. With a small smirk playing on her lips, she rushed over to her bed and pulled out her creation. It took a moment to pull all of it out, but she managed. Looking it over, she smiled at the long rope made from ridiculously brightly colored clothes; who said she didn't have a good use for all the clothes her mother bought and she never wore?

She tied one end of the rope to the leg post of her bed and dragged it to the open window, clambering through it to the outside world quietly, not wanting to alert her parents to what exactly it was she was doing. The black-haired teen calmly scaled down the rope, using a window sill here or a balcony there for stability. Reaching the bottom, she beamed with triumph, dusting her hands off. She rounded on her feet and turned to the street to begin her short five minute walk to school. Until...she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Oh, no. You're not getting out of this that easily," Pamela said, dragging Sam unwillingly back towards the house despite her protests.
"Mom, I need to go to school now!" Sam continued to protest halfheartedly, knowing already who was the victor of this battle.

"Don't worry, dear. It will only take a minute, and if I really must, I'll leave the ponytail in." Sam's mother answered, walking in with a brooding Sam in tow.

The cheery redhead lead the ebony haired teen into the kitchen where a collection of spray bottles and hair ribbons were laid out on the table. Sam eyed the display in front of her with a growing discomfort.

"Come on Sammy-kins, sit here." her mother said with a smile as she dragged her daughter to a seat at the table.

It was that moment that Sam's savior arrived in the room.

"What are you doing to my poor grandchild?" Ida Manson asked as she rolled into the room slowly on her scooter, giving a pitying look to her distressed granddaughter.

"I'm curling Sam's hair today," Pamela said with a large smile as she prevented her daughter's attempt to slink away and escape.

"My, that's a cruel and unusual punishment right there! Leave the poor child alone if she doesn't want anyone to mess with her style." Sam's grandmother said disapprovingly with a frown.

"It's not cruel. I just want to do something nice with her hair today," Pamela said with slight frown.

"Well, it's certainly cruel to my grandchild," Ida retaliated, folding her arms and sticking her head in the air.

"Fine," the redhead finally gave in with a huff, "But I'm at least going to put a pretty bow in."

Moving forward, the put-out mother reached the table and grabbed one of the bows, fixing it in her daughter's hair before she could properly protest.

"There!" she exclaimed happily, taking a step back to get a proper look at her daughter.

"Oh, you look absolutely darling!" Pamela gushed joyously. "As pretty as a princess!"

Sam glared at the ground and growled slightly. She was not a princess.

"Okay, I really have to go now! Thank you, grandma! Bye!" Sam burst out in a rush, quickly heading for the door to escape.

"Wait, Sammy!" her dad called from his place by the stove, his eyes glancing at her before turning back to the morning paper in his hands. "I made pancakes for your big day! It wouldn't do to have you go hungry on your first day."

He grabbed a plate from a nearby counter and handed it to her with a beaming smile.

Sam groaned. At this rate, she was going to be super late to school.

"Fine." she grumbled, taking the plate of pancakes from her father and taking a seat at the table, preferably far away from the hair product explosion. With a sigh, she glanced at her plate to see a perfect stack of fluffy pancakes sitting in the middle, just begging to be devoured. It was only when her stomach gave a loud complaining grumble that Sam realized just how hungry she was. Shooting her father a grateful look, she drizzled syrup all over the soft breakfast cakes and dug into them eagerly. She ate as fast she could, doing her best to not be late to school.

"Well, I really have to go now!" She hurriedly said, picking her backpack up and slinging it across her shoulders as she swept up from her seat. "Bye! See you when I get out of school(more like escape it)!" She yelled over her shoulder, rushing out the door quickly before anyone could protest.

"Okay! Have a good day! And we are going to talk about the blanket rope when you get home!" her mother called out as the door closed behind the goth teen.

Once she was out the door, she sighed and felt her head with a tentative hand. Thankfully, her mother hadn't messed with her small ponytail, but she definitely had a bow in and...what was wrong with it? Wait...sequins? Really?! A freaking hot pink, sequin-drenched bow?!

Sam growled under her breath as she paused quickly to tear it out of her straight locks and shove it deep into her backpack's front pocket. She was not wearing pink. Ever. She could manage to survive a day with a small bow, but not big, sparkly bows. Never pink bows. She would sooner die than let anyone see her wearing such a wretched thing.

Once the foul thing was removed, the goth teen looked at her surroundings. She was on the sidewalk outside of her house. Pinpointing her location compared to where the school was, Sam concluded it would be faster to take the right path.

Almost as soon as the thought reached her mind, she regretted it. There was no way she could do it, the place gave her such chills. Checking her phone she found that it was 7:15. Sam groaned. She needed to be in her first period by 7:30. There was no other choice; she had to take the shortcut.

She had to walk past the broken down house, or the 'dead' house, as she had been referring to it. After the moment she had seen it, the first words to come to her mind were 'broken' and 'dead,' so she began calling it the dead house and it had stuck. Her parents didn't mind the old thing and told her she was being silly and irrational.

But she didn't feel the same way.

Steeling herself for what she was about to do, she raced along the sidewalk. She ran as fast as she could until she sprinted right past the forsaken building. Once she was safely past it, she slowed down with a sigh of relief and wiped sweat from her brow with an arm. Walking forward, she continued to speed walk to school, unaware of the eyes watching her slowly fading form as she turned the corner.

The eyes moved, stepping out from the shadows across the street from the 'haunted' house, and more moved to join it as they gathered on the pavement, snickering. The shadows were revealed to be a blonde, not-particularly-bright jock and his pack of bullying comrades. They looked once more at the spot where the new girl had run past the house, fear on her face and obviously shivering for all to see. All of them laughed more at how frightened she had been.

"Did you see the look on her face?"

"Oh my gosh, she looked scared enough to jump out of her own skin!"

"Was she really frightened of this dumb, old building?"

"Nothing's happened here for years-"

"What about it freaked her out?"

The blonde jock, apparently the leader of the rag-tag group, shushed them all, silencing their mocking conversation.

"Come on," he said, motioning with his hand to follow him as he made his way on the same route Sam had left on. "Let's go to school and have a little bit of fun."

The boys all followed him, wicked grins wide on each of their faces.

This was going to be fun indeed. 

'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'

Yay! Second chapter posted! XD

I hope you all liked it!

The next one should be finished much sooner, if things go according to plan.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful day/night!!!!

~Doodleroo1234