Of Saints And Fallen Angels, chapter 1

August 21st, 2001

A loud noise cut through the muggy, morning air of the front bedroom, prompting the young woman to roll over from her peaceful slumber, and slap the bellowing alarm clock that had waken her. Grumbling, she sat up and rubbed her eyes before opening them, only to be blinded by the sunlight pouring through her bedroom window. Realizing what day it was, she cursed and stood up to make her bed.

"Sophia? Honey, get up! you need to get ready for school!" The girl's mother rang from downstairs, tending to her own morning rituals.

"Ugh, I really don't want to go...they should give us another extra day," The girl said softly, flopping face first into her neatly made up bed.

After a few moments of savoring the comfort of her bed, Sophia got up, and began rummaging through her closet to find some decent clothes to wear for the first day of her freshman year in high school. Chaldea high, the school she'd heard so much of before. Having dreaded and looked forward to this day for so long, she shrugged that off, and pulled out a nice fitting pair of jeans and her Green Day Warning T-shirt. Side-stepping a ways over, she held them up to herself, looking into the large mirror.

"Oh hell, these will do. I could care less," She muttered at the fact that people liked to make fun of her for liking that band.

She began to take off and discard the sky blue pajama shirt, and the pants she'd worn to bed. Without wasting another moment, she proceeded to pull on the clean clothes picked out for herself. Using her foot, she hooked one of her toes into the shoe string of her new pair of gym shoes that were tied together, and with a few thumps, they rolled across the floor. She then slapped her forehead when she realized she forgot to get a pair of socks. Sophia began to grumble more and dug into her closet to find herself a pair of socks. Just then, an old shoebox fell out of the closet and hit her in the head.

"Ow dude! What the f-" Sophia began to curse at the empty shoe box that had attacked her from the top portion of her closet. "Great...I can already tell what kind of day I'm gonna have."

She rolled her eyes, then pulled on her socks, followed by her shoes and got back up. Reaching up to the upper portion of her closet she replaced the shoe box. She walked back towards the mirror and felt she needed to make sure she looked okay before going downstairs to get her breakfast, which was traditionally known as coffee. She dusted herself off of the excess particles that followed with the empty box.

If there was one thing Sophia hated, it was how she looked, but most of all, her height. She was the shortest in her class at a measly five feet, two inches, and had the feeling she was done growing. She picked up her hairbrush off the dresser next to the mirror and began to straighten out her messy bed head which consisted of shoulder length brown hair. Looking at herself, her emerald gaze reflected back from her mirror. After staring into the mirror for a few moments, Sophia thought she saw something move in the corner. Turning to look, a piece of paper, which happened to be some papers that are mailed to every student during the summer, hit the floor.

"Well what the..." The young girl asked half the question, and approached her nightstand to pick up the piece of paper on the floor. She brushed against something, but looking back, she saw nothing there. She shrugged and made her way downstairs to finish her morning preparations.

* * *

"Sophia Cassidy," The homeroom teacher, Mrs. Richards called out from her roll call, prompting the girl to look up and raise her hand to show she was present from the back row.

Resting her head on her hand again, and slumping down into the chair, Sophia looked around seeing all the familiar faces from middle school. She smiled when she saw all her friends shared homeroom with her, Alexi Parker, Joan Greenwood, and Rei Jaganshi. She began to stare out the window while her homeroom teacher prattled on about lesson plans and the bell schedule. Having been used to these usual ramblings, Sophia paid lacking attention to them and delighted when Mrs. Richards finally finished and sat down at her desk.

The remaining time after the basic initiation was free time for the students to talk amongst themselves quietly.

"Yo chicka, how've ya been?" Alexi turned towards Sophia and began to converse with her after having not seen her for a long time.

"Eh, I've been okay. Boring ass summer though," Sophia whispered back so she wouldn't get caught cursing. "Really dreaded coming back though."

"Oh, you and me both," Rei chimed into the conversation. "I couldn't believe the day was here when I got up. Grr. I hate school," She added, making a face.

Sophia turned to her long time best friend, Joan, seeing she had begun to nod off with her head balanced on her hand, as she had done earlier. She giggled a little, it was typical of Joan to sleep about this time of the day since she always stayed up the whole night. This brought back many memories of sleep overs they'd had at each other's houses, and staying up all night being noisy, sharing artwork, and playing video games. Those seemed a thing of the past once they got into high school.

"Pst! Hey! Joan!" Sophia exclaimed in a high whisper, poking her friend in the arm and startling her.

Joan twitched a little and woke up at the sudden poke, just about slinging her books across the room in the process. Flustered, Joan picked up her books quickly to prevent them from sliding off the desk and act casual as though she weren't asleep. Sophia knew better, Joan could fall asleep anywhere. She never did stop laughing at the incident where Joan fell asleep next to a mosh pit during a concert. However she managed that, was beyond Sophia's comprehension.

"I'm g-good," She stammered a little, wiping the sleep from her eyes.

"Ha ha, you really should start sleeping at night," Rei said gesturing towards Joan.

"Seriously girl. Sometimes you scare me when you get like that. Then there's when you collapse. If that doesn't scare the crap out of me, I don't know what does," Sophia explained, seeing Joan just nod.

"Ah crap...the bell's about to ring," Alexi commented, much to her dismay of not wanting to go to Chemistry first thing in the morning.

Rei peeked over at Alexi's schedule and poked her in the arm. "Lucky! At least you don't have algebra this early!"

"Ouch," Sophia giggled a little, and looked over her schedule again. "Ew. Great. I'm stuck in here for another class."

Joan, wiping her eyes more and putting her glasses on, looked over her schedule to see what she had first. "Physics! Score!"

"Only you would," Sophia giggled and playfully rolled her eyes at Joan.

* * *

The first day of school had gone over rather easily for Sophia and all of her friends, Who had taken off for home by the buses, leaving Sophia to walk it like she always did. She hated riding buses because the middle school students always picked on her and tried to start fights, and then there being the one ocassion a middle school student got up and prevented her from getting off the bus. So she had sworn herself off riding the bus to and from school.

"Wait for me!!!" Joan called out, causing Sophia to turn back and stop walking as she hurried along to catch up.

"Sorry 'bout that," Sophia smiled and stopped walking, allowing her best friend to catch up.

"No, it's fine really," Joan shrugged and began to walk along with her friend.

The two girls kept walking at a brisk pace to avoid taking any longer than thirty minutes to get to Sophia's house. Neither of them bothered to say much for the focus of just getting to the house so that they could rest their tired legs. Every time Sophia walked this rather long distance, her legs felt nearly like jelly by the time she'd get into her house and sit down.

"Wait a sec..." Joan said huffing for hair and stopping. "I need to catch my breath before my asthma acts up on me."

"Oh okay. No problem. Just take whatever time you need. My legs could use a rest," Sophia replied and stood around for a moment, waiting on Joan to get her breathing straightened out.

Sophia stood completely still, watching Joan struggle and beginning to freak out. After a few moments of shock passed, she leapt forward and turned Joan around, rummaging through her backpack for her inhaler. Unable to find it, she panicked and started to have trouble breathing herself, most likely the onset of a panic attack. Sophia was a bit clueless at this point and suddenly was pushed away but some unseen force and within moments, her best friend was breathing properly again.

"Uh, yo, Sophie?" Joan asked, turning back around to a bewildered Sophia. "You look like you've just seen a ghost. What happened?"

"I...have no idea," Sophia manage to babble out dumbfounded. Shaking her head, she felt a hand on her shoulder, but upon turning around, no one was there. "Doesn't somebody mind telling me what is going on?"

The taller of the two girls shrugged, and reached into her pocket, producing the once needed inhaler. "Well where was that when I needed it, huh?"

"Beats the shit out of me. I think I want to just go home and have myself a proper nap or something," Sophia replied, rubbing the bridge of her nose with a relieved sigh.

"Am I allowed to spend the night tonight, do you know?" Joan asked, biting at her fingernails. She disliked the idea of sticking at home, and would have much rather stuck with Sophia.

"Oh, I would think so," Sophia said, nodding lightly. "I just want to go home now..."

"Yeah, let's keep going then, shall we?" Joan chuckled lightly, motioning her arm down the street, the only distance they had to walk to get to Sophia's house.