Volume I Chapter 1

"Hey!!! Wake up, Nes!"

So loud...

With a flutter of my eyelash, I squinted my eyes open and saw a stinging ray of light directed through my right eye. I felt my pupils narrow, and I frowned. The heat of the light that had seeped through my eyes was irking me to be jolt awake and do what the loud mouth was saying, unto which I refuse to do. Frowning as the light was still there, I groaned inwardly at the thought of facing the one who's the cause of my interrupted nap.

"Fuckin' wake up already." I heard a mumble with am upturned, highly amused, giggle which made me pause my murderous thoughts on the person who destroyed my sleep.

Laughing. But why? I felt my spine grow cold as I reach my bearings sooner than the speed of light. I remember something. I know whose voice this annoying tone belongs to and if she's giggling like a little kid, I might be in major trouble.

Forcing myself awake, I blinked my drowsiness away and quickly lifted a hand to reach in the direction of the annoying light. It moved away as quickly as my hand reached it, seeming to know that I was going for it first. I snickered at the movement of my annoyance.

"Ah, ah, ah! Not the phone, bitch. Remember, I have the right to wake you up by any means I deemed to be necessary. You've even sworn your word for it." Hearing that annoying honey laced tone of her voice made me fully frown myself awake. What she said made sense, yet didn't at the same time for she couldn't be talking about me. She's surely not referring the same Vanessa Pearson that everyone knows about. I roamed my blurry eyes open at my surroundings. I was in a classroom with walls painted with white, the ceilings receiving the same coat. Green and black plastic chairs that occupied students were surrounding the whole classroom in different angles. To the right was the ever familiar one pane doors coated with the same green and black color scheme.

The students in the room where all clambered among themselves, whispering gossips among the others. Some of them were, like me, sleeping on an armchair or two, while the others were playing on their phones, shouting about going mid lane. Jill, the name of the annoying girl next to me, was dressed in a white long sleeved and jeans. Her shirt screamed off garbles of splotching words and ink as she carefully took a hold of a marker on her other hand to hide it from view.

A marker! Shit! Don't tell me this-

Before finishing that thought, my hands moved sooner than I liked it to be and in my face was a mirror that screamed off ugly and uglier. Laid in the reflection was a large and long eyebrow that covered my two eyes, and lots of spirals from the forehead down to both of my cheeks, forming a much messier face than I had imagined.

"FUCK!" I stood and screamed at the mirror. Everyone turned and saw the mess made on my face. And as you've probably guessed, they laughed hard. It was a boisterous kind of laughter and I felt my ears go hot for the first time. I turned to narrow my eyes to Jill, who I can see, was trying to hold her laughter but failing quite miserably at it.

"AHAHAHAHA! Your face was just-AHAHAHA!" The thoughts of murdering her came back like the rush of a tide as I gripped my handheld mirror tightly. And with a surge of strengthening shame I swung my right arm, that was holding the mirror, downwards the perpetrator's head.

Bonk!

"AHAHA-Ow! Ow! No! Stop! Not the hair, Nes! Not the hair!" With two or three hits at her head and arm, I threw my mirror at my opened bag to use both hands to mess with her large head full of childish hair clips. There she cried mercy as I gave a hiss of words, fix it, right unto her cold ears.

"Okay! Okay!" She said and dragged me across the room with each of our bags in tow. We trudge through the white halls, running away from students intermingling with each other. I kept my head down and covered my face with the little use of my bag at hand. My vision, blocked at the moment's notice made me run into someone and fall into my butt on the way. I cursed at Jill in my head, muttering the words of a useless guide and I glance at the direction of the obstacle I had bumped through.

There, laid on the same position as I was on the cold floor, was a girl with long black hair and brown eyes glittering like the sunlight. She looked at me with a frown and I heard the laughter echoing in the halls. They were pointing fingers at my face and I felt my ears tingle with hotness. I didn't feel much of the shame now, but I did feel great dread creeping into my bones.

"Sorry." I muttered an apology in her ears as I passed by, clambering to get my bearings and cover my face as I run away from the scene, bag forgotten. The conflicting shame and dread were a fuel that never did ran out as I reached the nearest bathroom that I could find.

By the time that I had shut myself alone in the bathroom, the bell had already rung. I didn't have anything with me and I was a shaking mess. Great. What a great way to start your senior year, Vanessa. I contemplated and contemplated on what was I going to do to get back on track. I tried dabbing water into my face, scrubbing them so hard that I felt a sharp pain on my cheekbones when I accidentally scrubbed it off with my fingernails. It didn't come off because the pen used was the ones that were permanent, figures. I pat the pockets of my jeans, reaching out for my phone hiding in its crevices. Nothing but a small wallet.

Sigh.

I can't stay in this place nor I could just leave. The little shred of dignity I had left makes me stand here rooted at the spot. To think that all of this happened because I took a nap and made Jill wake me up- Oh how could I forgot?! That bitch was leading me to the bathroom so where was she now?!

"Fuck! If I really get my hands on her I'll-" "You'll kill me? Yes darling, I know. Here, let's fix that mess of a face of yours." The door to the bathroom opened, and out came Jill wearing her backpack full of rolls of paper with a plastic bag on her hand. She set them down by the sink and cupped my face with both hands.

I glared at her with relief as she handed me the plastic to hold and look at the items she had bought from the nearby store. An alcohol, some tissue rolls, and cream. With closed eyes, Jill dabbed my face with tissue soaked of alcohol and gossiped about rumors that she had heard when she left me and went to the bookstore.

"Darling, you know that pansy girl, Chloe something, from the other section yeah? I heard that she finally broke up with another one of her selective boyfriends today. That girl can't seem to keep the boys in her pants on check, because I heard that he put up a storm of fury when they broke up in front of the new flirt she was eyeing on. Sheesh, talk about teenage hormones gone wrong. Oh, and I heard that the replacement was someone from our class! Can you believe that? Like ew! The boys in our class still probably has cooties! Like not literally but you do get the point right-"

"Well for your information, there has been a study about girls with a higher possibility of having 'cooties' than men. Because if the word where to be defined as something that one may possess, most likely a disease-to-be, then yes, women are more susceptible on carrying it more than men do. Especially when it's just how we genetically are even if we do wash our hands daily. So, the one you should be planting such adverb for is probably the girl in the story."

"Yada, yada, yada. I swear that sometimes I feel like I'm walking with a human Wikipedia." I rolled my eyes open at her reply and gave her a teasing smile. "Yes, and I, sometimes feel like I'm walking with shittin' Dora the scavenger all the time."

"Touché" She then flipped me around to face the mirror and applied the cream she had bought on her own face. For a second, I thought that the cream was for me but I remembered that I don't even apply lotion on my skin. I gave my reflection a stare down, the skin was as red as my mom's red floral shirt that she had sworn she would wear to the Bahamas if she'd get a chance to. It made me look like a fresh ripe tomato, and I felt my right cheekbones as a now evident scratch had settled in its place.

"Let's go." I muttered as I yanked Jill who had finished applying the cream, and was now looking through the stalls for any items she could stock in her giant explorer bag. The hoarding habits of my childhood friend never did go away, neither did my habit of sleeping in free time either.

"You know I heard that the Clementine's had been axed this year."

"The Clementine's? Are you sure?"

"Pretty doubtful right? But I've heard that they've been scattered throughout other sections because of some disagreement with their parents and adviser." The Clementine's was a name dubbed into the students occupying the Lima room across from us. It was a room full of competition, people who liked to pit themselves against who's better than the other-well that's the abridged version of it. In more appropriate terms, Lima's Clementine students are a group of students that are tasked to do well in sports, academics and other things that would promote the school's being. In other words, its where the cream of the crop resided.

"I guess spreading them to different sections would be fair." I mutter as I think of the advantages of having someone in class who finally knows what they're doing in a paper defense. I shudder thinking of past scenarios where I needed to put up with my dependent thesis mates all year, having to defend and practically revise the paper by myself was no fun.

"Guess so, I just hope we don't get the stuck-up ones like Jonathan. Ugh." We arrived at the front of our room, peeking to see Mrs. Callaghan waiting behind the door for us to go in.

"And where have you two gone in this hour?" I took a glance around the room to see them all snickering at us-me with amused expressions. I felt my ears wiggle as I shifted my attention to our five-year adviser standing there with her arms crossed.

Uh oh.

"Joyce, darling! Good to see you." Jill spread her arms in a hugging motion as she walked towards our teacher with brisk movement. Joyce shifted her gaze at me, ignoring the affectionate attempts and diversion of my best friend right in front of us. "We had a bathroom problem." I whispered lowly, trying to not let the other individuals in the room to hear yet my voice seems to echo around the walls as I hear snorts of covered laughter vibrate everywhere.

"A bathroom problem, yes, quite a problem indeed right Ms. Stanford." She uttered with a chill as though she knew of what happened on the earlier events. I felt myself grow cold with the thought of it already being spread across the school, but warm for the strictest teacher to stick up for me.

"Yes, dar-" "Since you've finished with such problems you may take your seat at the front Ms. Pearson, while Ms. Stanford and I need to talk." I grunted an assurance at her words and sat on the front with my bag miraculously already settling on it. I felt my brows crease at it being in the right place at the right time and checked if there was anything stolen on it. Seeing that my phone was still there, I heaved a sigh of relief and mentally noted to find the angelic person responsible on returning my bag.

"Had enough scrubbing doodles on your face, Pearson?"

"Harhar, Steven. At least I didn't scrub other people's shit when I was seen drunk on the girl's bathroom at night, last year." He laughed and rapt his fingers through the plastic armchair. Last year's drunk spectacle rang through everyone's minds as they all laugh remembering Ms. Martha's face when she stormed a fit in our class' after-school party.

Everyone's attention finally shifted from me as they chatted with each other with topics other than my hallway running failure, in which I mouthed Steven a small thanks for the diversion. A few minutes later, Mrs. Callaghan and Jill finally entered the room. There she had no choice but to seat at the back where, Steven's other friends were located.

"All right, since everyone's finally present in this room let me introduce your new classmates for you in your senior year. Charlie's Spawn of Devils welcomes two new demons from the row of the sea, please stand up and introduce yourself." Two females stood on each side of the room. One, I noticed that I had unfortunately met moments ago, and the other was a new face I haven't seen throughout my six years of schooling in Lutec.

"Lady from the right first."

"Thank you. Uhm I didn't know that I was joining a cult and not a section of students." Everyone chuckled at her words, intrigued and amused about the words of the new blood in our ranks.

"Don't worry darling, it's still the Charlie section that your joining in. Everyone just calls us the spawns of the devil because of how rowdy we are in the entire school population. Can't really say they're wrong but Charlie's Angels isn't usually a fit for us, right guys?" Jill rang out, informing the new face about our six-year student history in this classroom. Everyone gave shouts of agreement, both out of the need to and realization of the truth. Even if we were dubbed as the opposite of the usual Charlie's Angels, we never really did care about our reputation of being the rambunctious of the whole bunch. Not when everyone's ties with each other were practically thicker than combined fermented blood and wine, if there were any of them.

So, you could say that everyone in the room, including myself, was practically a family made up of runaway rejects of the society.

"Well, that's good to know then. A pleasant morning to every devil in the classroom. I'm Nicole Salvatore from Class Jemimah of Anchor Academy. Ironic, I know. I transferred in this class hoping to have a good time, and I think I would get that good time seeing everyone in here welcoming me with such warm smiles." Nicole was a brunette that had her hair shaved by the left. A long asymmetrical hairstyle that I think only few people could rock wearing it. She was dressed in a cotton white jacket, black jeans, and a pair of red converse shoes that complements her left ear piercings a lot.

She looked like a rock star, except maybe that she really did rocked her look. I glanced at the boys looking at her with intense expressions. I chuckle to myself when I heard a little wolf whistle at the back of my head.

Boys. Well, I can't blame them.

"I see, you may take your seat Ms. Salvatore. We are glad to have you into our ranks." Mrs. Callaghan had to restrain a giggle at the words she uttered with a smile. "Next please." A girl at my front seat stood up. She wore a blue-green flannel shirt, ripped jeans, and a white low-cut pair of shoes. I couldn't see her face, nor her expression, but the way that her body language speaks to me was that she was confident. A lot confident, actually.

"I'm sure everyone knows who I am by now, but for the sake of the transfer student I'll introduce myself. My name's Andy Collins, a student from the Lima section. I believe that you call us students of Clementine, and as you've probably heard, the same section got axed because of parent-teacher complications. I just hope that, that won't happen again for this time round. Nice meeting you all, Charlie's spawn of devils." She turned and face each of us as she surely spoke her introductory words. Everyone felt the trance of respect, flowing out of her words and right into our minds. It was hypnotizing, that I was sure that I would fall asleep yet was kept refreshingly awake from it. Strange. Are all Clementine's students this... charming? Focus sapping? I couldn't really find the words to identify her, but I do know that she was just that great.

I noticed something that I think I'm the only one that would care about. Andy Collins, the girl in front of me didn't seem to react when our eyes met for the slightest moment. Did she recognize me at all? The girl who ran into her so hard and looked so silly with the doodles on her face? I think not. But why? Surely, she would at least give me a hint? But I couldn't really find anything off about her body language other than she was quite confident with herself. I was then left pondering as everyone proceeded to give her applause for such a strong sounding introduction, like a feat unachievable by mere students of Lutec Campus.

I didn't give her a clap; not like I refuse to but I couldn't do so when I was recalling the moments of her introducing herself with a slight frown on her face. Did she recognize me but disregarded it quickly? Why was it that I always see her frown when she looks at everything? By the end of this thought and still no answers, I had stored it in the back of my mind as I decided to concentrate for the first lesson of the day. If she chose to not address the hallway issue then I wouldn't mention it also. Although I feel that by now bits of dislike had been planted on her, I just need to not make a mess for myself anymore and apologize whenever I can.