She didn't get them but she envied them.

     There was a blissfulness to the ignorant and the inane. They were happy in ways she didn't know how to feel. It wasn't about their looks or their hobbies or even their families. It was only the feeling she envied. Maybe they just faked it like every other glittering detail of their cut-and-paste, makeup-clogged faces to make others delirious with jealousy and convince themselves that they want to be their friends. She envied that, too. It was a bravery she didn't feel capable of replicating, assuming one could even call it "bravery". Perhaps it only comes down to being a good liar.

     Zoe was never a liar, however people made her out to be. Melodramatic, attention-seeking, edgy, emo, whatever words people could conjure was stapled to her forehead and left to bleed. She tried to dismiss it. It didn't matter what they thought or who they were. She didn't matter enough to worry about, even for her. Though, it was hard to ignore every little piercing line like tiny fangs burrowing into her and drinking away what little she had left inside of her. She liked to think herself an empty and unfeeling husk but somehow, she stayed alive and prolonged the suffering. Why did it have to be her? Why couldn't she just be left alone and ignored entirely? Why wasn't she allowed to exist and nothing more?

     10:42pm ZeeBee is online.

     She squinted in the light of her phone as she huddled in bed, safely tented by her comforter as she dimly listened to the sound of her father's late night program blasting deafeningly from the downstairs television as if the man was attempting to share it with the neighbors as well. It would have bothered her more if it didn't feel like a proper distraction for her parents to forget she existed for a while. Being forgotten was preferrable to active scrutiny.

     10:45pm ZeeBee says: i think book 4 is coming out for early access. i heard he was writing it but i cant find if it was finished or not. wish i had money.

     The old forum was always a ghost town, Zoe the sole inhabitant. She wasn't sure why she bothered posting anything to it anymore. At this point, it had more so become a diary for documenting her thoughts. No one was going to read it anyway. Isles of Sanguis wasn't as popular as it used to be years ago, if it ever was to begin with. It had become too dated and convoluted for the fanbase and with sporadic updating, it had lost traction quickly. There was something to it, however, that kept Zoe's interest. Perhaps it was the misunderstood lead or the vampiric creatures or, admittedly, the plentiful raunchy scenes between those two subjects.

     10:53pm ZeeBee says: i wonder if lilys going to fall in love with the dark lord like that. i hope so. i want to see what happens. it would be rly cute.

     10:56pm ZeeBee says: i kinda hate rose. shes a rly annoying character and she reminds me of patricia. all she does is whine about everything and tell people to solve her problems for her and then she ruins everything for them. i hope she dies in the next book. i hope patricia dies too. school would be better off.

     The sound of her door being opened forced her to thrust her phone beneath her pillow, balling herself under the blanket and faking slumber. Her mother walked into the room and peered at her desk, shuffling through Zoe's drawings and plucking one from the stack to abscond with. The door shut again and Zoe lifted her head to glower at the door as if it bore her mother's face. How often would she come to snoop when she wasn't home? Every day was a gamble when it came to her parents, whether they would have a "talk" locked and loaded the moment she stepped through the door about her art, her habits, her personality, her existence. Being alive wasn't good enough. Avoiding crime, drugs, alcohol, teenage mistakes wasn't good enough. She wasn't allowed to feel and yet ridiculed when she failed to. Nothing was good enough. She wasn't good enough.

     A notification from her phone shook her from her thoughts and she initially ignored it, thinking it yet another school reminder, but as she brought the device back to life, she blinked at the message now perched below her own.

     11:02pm Sunbear says: Yeah, Rose is the worst :)