Riding the Morning Subway

"Ispiria!"

The voice cuts through your sleep but carries a dreamlike quality; you ignore it at first. You were having such a sweet dream, although it's already fading from your mind...

"Ispiria, wake up! You're late!"

This time the words cut deeper and are answered by a jolt of surprise. Your bright green eyes snap open, not really seeing, and in a confused reflexive daze your left hand shoots out, slapping against your phone on the nightstand as though to silence the alarm that hadn't rung. A moment later the familiar older male voice calls again.

"I didn't hear your alarm go off, did you forget to set it?"

You sit up quickly in bed, bleary and disoriented - the blanket falls from you as you come upright, leaving your healthily developed chest uncovered. A verbal noise of surprise from the doorway and your father is gone, leaving you alone in the room to panic your way through the usual routine of dressing for school. Surrounding you is the debris of a disorganized teenager's daily life; piles of clothes, empty makeup kits, unfinished or forgotten homework, posters that fell from the wall and never found themselves a new place to hang. Somewhere, there has to be something you can wear today, but time is burning...