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"Some people wake up drowsy. Some people wake up energized. I wake up dead." - John Marsden, Tomorrow, When the War Began

Sarah's entire world ceased to exist sometime around two am yesterday, when it disappeared in a flurry of dizzy goodbyes and the sudden drawing of darkness over her eyes. For close to eight hours, she felt nothing, nothing at all, as if she had died. It was close to ten in the morning when she felt it all flooding back in a mess of colours and vague sounds. Seemingly impossible movement gave way to a familiar pounding in her temples. Turning over to her side, Sarah muttered something about mothers and five more minutes. She sat up and immediately regretted it, her eyes still firmly closed. Nothing seemed to be where it was supposed to be, prompting her to scramble around like a fish out of water as she tried to get her bearings. Where was up and where was down again? Finally she opened her eyes, much to her brain's protest, and found herself face to face with her room, everything in order and where it was supposed to be. Books lay on the brown shelves that adorned the wall opposite her bed. Her desk was covered in papers and sheet music, her violin still missing one string that she had forgotten to adjust yesterday. A ceiling fan spun above her head, rattling every time it completed a full circle on account of some broken bearings.

Sarah looked over her bed, seeking any indication of what happened last night. Her memory was like swiss cheese, just a series of vague stills and muffled noises, words like broken fragments in a great darkness. Throwing her legs off the side of the bed, she felt the carpeting beneath her toes. It was a lovely feeling to be awake, they said. Whoever said that should be locked in a dark room and beaten with belts until they didn't have any tears left to cry. Her head pounded like a battering ram against a reinforced door. She was also dreadfully thirst. Something began vibrating on the bed behind her and she flopped on her back, her paws shoving covers and blankets aside in search of this mysterious object. It was her phone probably. Someone from the symphony was calling her, wondering where the fuck she was. Kicking a large white sheet aside, she zeroed in on the source of the buzzing and found herself face to face with her vibrator. What the fuck was that doing out? And then it occurred to her. Right, that's what happened. The fact that she had slept naked should have been the first hint. Putting it away in the drawer next to her bed, she made for the bathroom and looked herself over in the mirror. Her bright red hair looked very matted and dirty. The first thing she did was bend down and drink a copious amount of water all at once. The shower was like a defibrillator to the chest, all her aches slipping away with the warmth.

Once she got out of the shower, she took another long look in the mirror, as many say you should after a night of drinking. Her brown eyes were bloodshot and partially closed. At least her head wasn't hurting anymore. What surprised her was the fact that her once red hair returned to it's natural brown colour. She recalled that she dyed her hair a week or so ago with non-permanent dye. It looked better, she thought, more spontaneous and relaxed. Happy with her new appearance, she combed her hair and descended down the stairs into the living room. Her house was too big for her but still sufficiently decorated, to make it seem as if more people lived in it. Her parents were sufficiently wealthy that she didn't need a roommate. In her personal opinion, she was better off without anyone else moping around her living space during the day. But the silence did get to her at times, hence why her stereo saw a whole lot of action. Considering that she was home alone as always, she didn't even bother putting any clothes on. Arizona was an extremely warm state and as such, clothes were purely personal choice. Her finger skipped across the spines of various CD's. It was mostly classical, with the odd progressive rock album here and there. Chopin seemed a good choice for breakfast. With his Impromptu no. 4 in C sharp playing in the background, she pressed herself some coffee and scrambled some eggs.

Deftly the fingers of the long-dead composer skipped over a series of imaginary keys, the very air she inhaled becoming vibrant and alive when infused with music. Her head bobbed back and forth as she ate, her left paw tapping in time to the rhythm. Softly she hummed to the tune of the piano, memories of her time in the High School choir coming back to her. A long time ago, they told her that she was a promising singer. Those dreams she buried long ago. For a minute after finishing her breakfast, she gazed at her empty plate and felt the extra weight gaze back. Hell, breakfast was her favourite meal of the day. With wide steps, she brought the empty plate down onto the counter and spilled the remaining coffee down the drain. The melody seemed to skip across every object in her house, becoming caught in the angles and valleys of the space, bouncing off the windows and dancing in the morning light. There was a great longing hidden in Chopin's notes and she loved it. Lapsing into a state of hungover thought she fell down on the couch and contemplated the cracks in the ceiling. As Chopin skipped over a few bars that always reminded her of some foregone lover, she thought of North and his charming, painful smile. This took Sarah by complete surprise. She was sure that yesterday's memories were completely gone. Now she had to see for herself if he still had the same effect on her. If he still made her heart skip beats like it did some hours ago. If his forced expression still made her think of how little she had lived. How little pain she had felt compared to him. And how she sometimes wondered if she even deserved to feel down when the lives of others dragged her back into the real world. No, she had to see for herself. This urge to know drove her to get up and put some actual clothes on.

Quickly she grabbed her violin, her sheet music, her laptop, and the charger for said laptop. If she was going to spend the whole day at her neighbours, she might as well get some actual work done. The coyote paused only once, and very briefly, to check herself out in the mirror. Reassured in her appearance, she yanked the door open and fled into the veil of burning daylight.

***

The morning was a lot less pleasant from the outside than it was from the inside. The sun was smack in the middle of the sky, shining down relentlessly, the air hot and stifling. Dust gathered in the small concrete square they called a yard. A pile of old patio furniture reminded Sarah of a bunch of bones. The brown of the wood had faded beyond recognition leaving behind nothing but a white husk. It was a million degrees, even in the shade, and after less than two steps across the terrace Sarah felt sweat descending down the small of her back. As she turned to the door, she saw an inch of the driveway and was surprised to find a small slice of what looked like badly burnt steak front and center. Briefly she wondered if the heat was getting to her. Wasting no time at all, she made for the door on the other side of the balcony. She pushed it open with her elbow and gasped when a cold breeze hit her. They had the air conditioning running at full capacity. The probable object of her affections lounged on the couch in his usual pose, his legs on the coffee table, a can of Cola beside him, and a controller planted firmly in his paws. He wore an 'Epica' shirt and the same blue and yellow cloth trainers he had last night. Nervously he beat away at an enemy on the screen. Sarah could see that he was exceptionally concentrated due to the fact that his tongue stuck out from between his lips. She waved at him awkwardly, and he waved back. Baffled, she stood frozen. How the hell did he manage to notice her from this angle? Sixth sense. Must have been it. For a moment she considered turning around and just leaving. After all, the point of this whole exercise was to see if she did have a crush on the blonde idiot or not But having ventured past the point of no return, Sarah shrugged and approached the dining room door. It was wide open.

Liz and Michael sat on opposite sides of the table, both of them immersed within their work. Liz was hunched over the morning papers with a marker, doing what seemed to be job-hunting. She still wore her pyjamas which consisted of a 'Quadrophenia' shirt, some underwear, and a pair of purple slippers. Her facial expressions switched between annoyed and surprised like a see-saw. Every time she spotted something that interested her, she swiftly engulfed it with the marker and moved on down the page. Michael was also hard at work, a laptop humming in his lap.With a hand on his chin and his eyebrows raised, he scrutinized every sentence that he typed out. It was obvious that he was writing. His clothes corresponded to Sarah's mental image of the perfect writer. Neatly tied tie, freshly ironed shirt, a pair of brown trousers, a cigarette in his beak, and the world's pinkest fluffy slippers on his feet. When you put the two lovers side-by-side in their present state, they looked like a married couple that had spent decades together, and were now at the point where any need for concealment just vanished. The silence was as impenetrable inside as it was outside. The clock's idle ticking was the only sound present in the scene. The coyote decided that it would be best not to bother them since both Liz and Michael looked as if they could do without her. What drew Sarah's attention though, and persuaded her to stay, was the disassembled rifle on the far end of the table, situated in the middle of an unfolded newspaper, springs and metal pieces littering the immediate vicinity. She didn't know that her neighbours owned an actual rifle and was planning to ask a couple of questions. Meekly she sat down at the head of the table and set her laptop in front of her. The air smelled of a mixture of fine cigars and cheap cigarettes. Once she took the whole scene in, she couldn't help but be reminded of sitting down with a bunch of criminals as they planned their next hit. Liz glanced up from her papers.

"Good morning." Liz said and did an immediate double take on account of her neighbour's changed appearance "I don't know how wrecked I was last night but...wasn't your hair red?"

"Its just temporary dye. My hair is naturally brown." Sarah replied, ushering a nod out of Liz "I can't remember much of anything. What happened after our little talk early this morning?"

"You said your goodbyes to everyone at three o'clock and went home. That's the last we saw of you until now." Liz shook the ash from her cigar and smiled warmly at her guest "Don't worry, I informed Michael that we settled everything. What's with the violin?"

"This morning I missed the symphony rehearsal so I figured I'd practice on my own for a little bit... " Sarah began and stopped mid sentence, lifting her violin up so Liz could see the problem "Yeah, I need to install a new string and tune her."

Michael shut his laptop and leaned back, exhaling forcefully. He was finished with the chapter for now and could go back to cleaning his little semi-automatic. As he reached for the disassembled weapon, he saw that they had a visitor.

"Good morning." Michael said dryly "Came over for breakfast?"

"I already ate. Just wanted some company, that's all. Figured I'd see if you chicos were home." the coyote replied and put her ear against her violin, strumming the string with her index finger, unhappy with the idea of her friend's boyfriend assuming that she was a freeloader "Hangovers are a bitch."

"Tell me about it" Liz interjected and moaned "My head feels like a melon that someone smashed with a hammer."

"You and me both, darling. We didn't even...uh..." Michael began and suddenly stopped himself when he saw that Liz was staring daggers at him over the rim of her glasses "Yeah, eat. We didn't even eat yet. That's what I meant."

The snow leopard lowered her gaze as slowly as possible, obviously trying to get her point across. The last thing she needed now was Michael blabbering about their romantic life. Yes, they didn't make love that morning on account of an actual, and very painful headache. They did take a shower together but neither tried anything. North was as cheery as usual and greeted them at the top of his lungs as soon as they descended down the stairs as a way of saying "you make bad decisions and I don't." Liz decided that she's get the self-righteous prick drunk one evening and wake him up with a pair of cymbals. Maybe she'd hire a whole marching band and straight-up kill him. The pounding in the back of her head returned in force and she closed her eyes briefly, just to let it fade. Liz got annoyed at the smallest of things when she was hung over. North's antics that morning only served to agitate her further. For the moment she was sort of happy that she lost her job. Her imagination ran wild as she pictured the humiliation she'd go through showing up to work in her present state. Now she could get shitfaced whenever. She could eat scrambled eggs with whiskey for breakfast every morning. Hell, she could wake up with a healthy chug from her imaginary flask.

Michael cracked his knuckles and wrote a sentence or two into his notebook. Disaster approached from the direction of the living room. It was North with a dusty guitar around his neck. Michael saw him first and immediately covered the sides of his head, fully aware of what the feline zombie had planned. He tried to tap Liz on the shin under the table but she responded with a mouthed "knock it off." The cat rummaged through the fridge, the strings of the guitar tapping against the door, a terrible strumming resonating through the house. It was as if hell itself manifested on Earth. Liz dropped her head onto the table and stuck her fingers in her ears. Sarah just closed her eyes and prayed that a lightning bolt strike her dead where she sat. North entered the kitchen, yanked a chair away from the table, and put his leg onto it. He began singing in an awful, broken voice while his fingers played a melody that reminded Sarah of a dreadful rendition of "Dangerzone." It's not like he sang anything real. He just repeated random words as loudly as he could, words like 'butthole" and 'onions'. This torture continued for a minute or less, but to everyone present it seemed like a lifetime. Upon completing his little solo performance, the cat took a bow forward, yelled "Thank you, you're the worst crowd ever" and left the dining room, laughing like a maniac.

"You have a gun." Liz said with an air of desperation and lifted her head from inside her paper "You could have shot him."

"Seconded." Sarah added, the idea that she could be in love with the idiot suddenly on glass legs.