Changing My Dreams to You

Kiya looked up from her notebook when the first ray of sunshine reached her from the glass windows that surrounded the 24/7 grocery store. The clock on the wall indicated that it’s past six in the morning. Suddenly, the door opened and in walked her replacement.

“Good morning Roxanne. You seem a bit too early.” Kiya greeted as she removed her hood to reveal her messy short, black hair which made the fashionable Roxanne make a disapproving frown.

“Boss called last night and informed me that today is your first day of exam for this term. You should have told us Kiya. Education is more important.” Roxanne was already behind Kiya, combing the messy hair.

“I’ve been studying all this time, I’ll be fine.”

“You’re already a senior this school year. Don’t take chances.”

“I know.”

Kiya has three part-time jobs. After school ends, she would get a few hours of sleep and would go straight to the pub where she works as a server then at one in the morning, she’d change shifts with the boss of the grocery store. At weekends, when she gets a call, she’d babysit or tutor. All she’s doing is perfectly understandable for anyone who knows her. Her whole name is Kiya Hyden and her parents are famous around town but not in a good way. Her father is a drunkard and is short-tempered, the jail cell seemingly a second home to him while her mother is known for sleeping around. Although they were not married, the locals still looked down on them for their lifestyle. However, of all the people who live in their large town, their werewolf pack is the ones who treat them as an outcast.

The town is a base for the Northern werewolf pack since it is large enough to hide almost a hundred werewolves within the large population of humans. What also makes the town the perfect base is that it is surrounded by mountains, perfect for werewolves to run free. Kiya and her parents are also werewolves that naturally belonged to the Northern pack but ever since she was a child, she knew that they were an outcast. She could not do anything but understand where they were coming from because afterall, she personally lived with the persons that caused their disdain. She didn’t know how she even survived when she was young but at least they were not that heartless to think of abusing her, the best gift that they gave was their irresponsibility. They left her alone and because of that, Kiya’s mind matured early in order to survive. She learned how to live in the house, learning how to find food and disappear at any given moment. After a while, the local government forced her parents to send her to school and that was when she realized that the world is so big. The idea that she could go somewhere else intrigued her and it made her live.

She started to do odd jobs when she turned ten; she delivered newspapers, walked dogs or cleaned someone’s backyard. The people she worked for would be generous with the money they gave her out of pity and she saved them all, taking care that her parents would never find her stash. Time passed by and she managed to snatch a full scholarship for the only prestigious private high school in their town. Although she was not at a legal age yet, a man named Sam Jacobs, the one who owns the building that the grocery store was located and the grocery store itself, rented her a small apartment just above the grocery store at a cheap price. The local government turned their eyes away at her age of fifteen and on her first part-time job as a waitress at a diner and at the grocery store. Although she knew she was taking advantage of their pity, Kiya didn’t have time to feel guilty about it. When she turned eighteen, she took on her current part-time jobs and left her job at the diner. Her salary for her job at the grocery store goes to her rent while the salaries from the other jobs are saved in her bank account including the allowance she receives from her scholarship. She knew she has already saved a fortune by working all her life but she doesn’t think it’s enough for her to start a new life somewhere.

Unknown to Kiya is her charm to people. Kiya is physically beautiful with her combination of fair skin, green eyes, black hair and well-maintained body due to her jobs but that was not everything that made people decide that she was different from her parents. She doesn’t talk much and always kept to herself however it’s there, the charm that makes people unable to hate her, some sort of kindness that Kiya radiates. However, even though some would like to approach and befriend her, they have the impression that Kiya is not that easy to approach when the truth is that Kiya was too focused on her life to notice anyone else. Also her parents were enough examples to stop her from thinking of meeting people outside work.