Present Day, Earth

Sleep was once again an elusive concept for Trinity Taylor as she woke up drenched in sweat and short of breath. It took her several minutes before she regained enough composure to know she was back in the land of reality. Away from the place her mind seemed insistence to place her whenever she slept.

She sighed heavily as she flopped back on the bed, wondering if she was qualified to know what was real and imaginary anymore. She was used to her mind being plagued by unpleasant dreams, but this particular one had been consistently terrorizing her since she was a young child. A man and some sort of creature fighting for whatever reasons they had. The fight would continue until an explosion rocked her back to the land of reality.

The first time it happened, she was but a child. Around six years of age if she could remember correctly. It terrified her how vividly she remembered the creature that the man was battling with. Her features shaped like a human, but her very essence was anything but that. But ten years of reliving the same battle in her dreams at night and retelling it to the school counsellor by day made the term 'nightmare' seem normal to her.

A quick glance at the bedside clock had her sighing again as she threw the covers off her body and stood to head for the bathroom. The hour displayed was acceptable for her to prepare for the day ahead. The bathroom mirror revealed just how badly she had slept the previous night. Her raven black hair probably the best indicator of this as it stuck out in every direction it could venture. Her jade eyes were riddled with heavy eye bags that would no doubt earn her a trip to the councillor's office today. The colour of her tawny beige skin seemed lacking in intensity. Most of her peers had advised numerous skin products to remedy this but Trinity neither had the time nor the interest to venture in the world of makeup.

A long shower and a nice combing would eliminate most of these issues she was seeing in the mirror. The real issue she couldn't change was her mindset. Mr Buck, the school counsellor, had given up trying to understand her when she only offered answers to questions she deemed necessary for him to know.

But she had a handle on her sanity. Most of her worries translated to the imaginary world she conjured every night. And that both scared and comforted her in equal measure.

A hot shower and a nice outfit later had Trinity thinking she looked ordinary enough to venture outside her room. Most people in her school steered clear of her. She didn't blame them when she courted the silence that came with being friendless. Sometimes she felt safe in the monologues she had in her own head than real people.

The outside world felt alien to her... like she was operating on a different frequency than everyone in this world. People just didn't get who Trinity Taylor was other than Trinity Taylor. She did absolutely nothing to amend this and that might have been a contributing factor to her situation, but she didn't particularly care about it.

Trinity was downstairs and the clinking of cutlery emanating from the kitchen had her amended the last thought she had. The woman in there knew way too much about her that it was a bit creepy sometimes.

The aroma from the kitchen as Trinity entered was a testament to how extraordinary Melanie Taylor was at cooking. Trinity was competent in the craft that she could serve food children below the age of ten were allowed to eat, but that was only because of the teacher she had. Normally, Melanie's food put Trinity in too much of a good mood to observe anything else in the vicinity but she couldn't ignore the two-tier cake that sat proudly at the centre of the island counter with the words "Happy Birthday, Trinity" written elegantly in blue icing.

"Do you enjoy making my life unbearable, Mom?"

"How mean. And to think I spent the last five hours decorating this cake for you."

It both irked and comforted Trinity on the lengths that her mother went to keep her happy and comfortable. This was a luxury that Trinity had on numerous occasions told her she could live without, but the woman was anything if not adamant on celebrating each passing year of her daughter's life on this earth.

Trinity sat down at the counter and almost immediately, her mother had a sizzling plate of bacon, eggs and toast before her with a glass of orange juice to its side.

"Happy Seventeenth Birthday, baby," the kiss on her forehead had Trinity sigh for the umpteenth time this morning as she began her breakfast, all the while sneaking glances at her mother working in the kitchen.

Melanie was a blueprint of how Trinity would age in this life. They held so many similarities in looks that most people confused them to be sisters when they went out together. It did help that Trinity could now easily match her mother's five-six height without heels. She had her nursing uniform on and Trinity could only assume that the woman was going to be at the hospital all night. That made five days in a row now. Trinity didn't quite understand why her mother would still torture herself with baking a cake instead of getting some rest.

"Another 24-hour shift?"

"What's this? So you actually want to spend some time with your unbearable mother?"

"Well, the food's always grand. That's the only reason I bear with this situation."

Melanie's laugh at her daughter's quip was light and musical. It brought such a warm feeling to Trinity that she couldn't help but laugh along with her. She was always at ease with her mother. All these seventeen years she had known her, there was no one she could comprehend loving to that degree.

"Something smells divine in here."

Well, the gangly teenage boy who entered the kitchen and went straight to the frying pan to steal some bacon was perhaps a good contender.

"As usual, no one can smell food better than Tevin in this house," Trinity commented and had to swat away the boy's hand as he attempted to ruffle her hair that had taken her a considerable amount of time to get combed.

Tevin Taylor was a strange boy who was almost an enigma to Trinity despite them being siblings. With a two year age difference between them, Tevin behaved nothing like the older brother he was to Trinity. He was never serious, a trait that had earned him numerous friends and a mass following of females in school. He was the rare breed of intelligent athleticism that was born once in a generation. He excelled in almost everything he set out to do.

His physique was lean, the body that any athlete would spend hours in the gym toiling to earn. But he rarely played sports. He decided that his mind was the only muscle he needed sharpened, and Trinity knew the football coach at school despised him for that.

"I thought she didn't want a birthday," Tevin directed this to his mother after she successfully got him away from the pans with the promise of never receiving food in her house.

"Last time I checked, I was the adult in this house. And for heaven's sake, Tevin would it kill you to run a comb through that bush on your head you call hair?"

Trinity smiled to herself as her mother and older brother spent another five minutes arguing about whose fault it was that Tevin's hair always looked naturally unkempt no matter how many times Melanie attacked it with a wet comb. It was moments like these that Trinity was glad she was alive and part of this family.

Unfortunately, she had to break apart the two seeing as Melanie would be late for work.

"Oh! Before I forget," Melanie said as she bent down the counter and picked up two small boxes with gift wrappings, "Presents!"

It seemed there would be no escaping this charade until the very last minute. Melanie slid the first gift to her, her face barely concealing her joy. On top of the gift held a note that read 'From Mom and Tevin'. That instinctively had Trinity cast a murderous glare at her brother.

"She made me do it, I swear."

She seriously doubted her brother needed the motivation to annoy her but decided to suck it up and get this party over with. Inside the box lay a simple silver locket. It was beautiful, hinting very subtle at being an expensive piece of jewellery. The locket had a picture to its left side, one of the several thousand that Melanie had forced both her children to take with her.

"Well? What do you think?"

She thought it was too much. They were barely getting by with the mortgage and bills as it was. This was a luxury that she should have her mother return. But there was something about the locket that she loved. Maybe it was the photo, or perhaps the look her mother had as she fastened it around her daughter's neck.

"I love it, Mom. Thanks," Melanie's smile grew even wider as she embraced her daughter on the brink of tears. Sometimes Trinity wondered if the woman ever had a break in all the positivity she oozed from her being.

"Who's this one from?" Tevin asked as he gazed at the other gift and Trinity felt her mother's body stiffen slightly in her embrace. That only meant one thing. And that was a topic that she would not discuss no matter how much she loved her mother.

"No, Mom."

Trinity stood suddenly, disentangling herself from her mother's embrace and heading towards the living room for her bag. She heard her brother in the kitchen try and fail to stop Melanie from perusing the issue further. He had seen some very ugly fights between the two women when the man was the topic of discussion.

"Trinity, wait,"

Not even her mother's pleas could make her accept this gift. Nothing in this world could. She had already erased the sender of that gift from both her heart and her mind. She wanted nothing to do with that memory. A memory of the last day she would ever believe in the man ever again.

"He's still your father, Trinity."

Melanie's words had her pause at the open front door. She knew that. She knew no matter how long she lived, that man's name would forever sill be attached to her. Along with his folly and his betrayal. He was her father only because there was no biological way for her to make that fact null and void.

"If he was then he would still be here."