Belle woke with a start. With one hand she rubbed her face while the other felt blindly in the dark for her phone to check the time.
2:47 am.
Great. Every time she had to be up early to be somewhere she had a nightmare that woke her up.
Well this hadn't been a real nightmare per say. Just shapeless figures and darkness and people talking, crying and screaming. Sometimes the figures took on the shape of people, sometimes they just twisted and swirled like black smoke.
Belle yawned and tried to go back to sleep. She had to get up in the morning and head down the shelter. It was her day to do meds, which meant either holding down dogs while she squirted flea medicine into their fur or hiding heart worm pills in cheese to trick them into eating it.
~~
She managed to get a few more hours of sleep, but her dreams were still troubled. Nothing she ever could remember when she awoke, just a feeling of great sadness and sometimes great fear.
Belle got up a few minutes before her alarm and dressed in jean shorts, a red tank top and an oversized white shirt that fell off her shoulder on one side. She left her hair long and loose and, after sticking her phone and wallet in her pocket and snatching a book from the bookshelf, hurried down the stairs to the smell of something delicious in the kitchen.
"[i]Buongiorno Mama[/i]," Bella said as she entered the kitchen and kissed her mother's cheek.
"Good morning my Belle," the small Italian woman said, smiling warmly. "Sit and eat. You are too thin. People will think I do not feed you."
Belle laughed at the usual morning greeting from her adopted mother. "Just a muffin Mama. I have to get to the shelter."
Her mother huffed. "I don't know why you have to right that bus like a gypsy [i]bella mia[i]. It is not safe."
Belle just hugged her while reaching around the grab a muffin. "I've been riding the bus for years Mama and I am always fine."
"Besides if anyone took her they'd bring her back," a gruff voice said.
Belle laughed and hugged her father. "Good morning [i]baba[i]," she said with a warm smile before heading out the door.
As soon as she got a seat on the bus she started to read. Right now she was obsessed with the Divergent series. She had already read all three books and was re-reading the first one for the tenth time before going to see the movie. She didn't notice anyone when she was reading, although people noticed her. Once she had a book in her hands Belle was in her own world. The only reason she didn't miss her stop was that she had ridden this route so many times it was a habit firmly ingrained in her. So much so that when the bus reached her stop she got up and exited the bus, walked along the sidewalk, opened and shut the gate, opened and shut the door and found her desk at the shelter before closing the book.
She reluctantly pushed the world of fiction aside for reality. Which meant getting the meds list and starting her rounds.