Headache

Jasmine woke up an hour before her alarm clock as the dream wasn't exactly pleasant, nor was it too terribly disturbing, but it did leave her with a headache.

Ever since she had turned in the short story for English class that was focused on Azazel from her dreams, she had felt like he betrayed her initial, positive judgement of him. He was supposed to be the hero in her dreams, right?

Yet, what she was really confused about was how she seemed to have slowly become emotionally invested in the angel dreams. More pointedly, she was empathizing with the black-winged angel, Levana, who has just been kidnapped.

Her dreams seemed to be more from an omniscient point of view, so she didn't get completely caught in the emotions that Levana had, and it let her to understand the identities of the kidnappers. However, ignorance is bliss and it made her both anguish for Levana's situation and disgusted with Azazel as well as herself for believing him to be some force of good.

As she thought more on this, she couldn't help but to grow even more upset as Levana had been like herself prior to the night Lucifer killed the spy. They had admired him and praised him in their minds for saving Levana's life.

Their view only started to question that judgement after the night with Lucifer, but it hadn't completely collapsed for Jasmine until now. Regardless, the omniscient point of view left Jasmine in the know and still left Levana in the dark with only some small clues.

Sitting up in bed, Jasmine massaged her forehead with the tips of her fingers for a few seconds before repositioning them to do the same at the temples. The headache seemed to be getting worse.

Giving up on rubbing her temples, she glanced over at the red glow of the alarm clock and read the time, then started getting up to put on a housecoat to head to where her family stored their over the counter medicine. She figured some aspirin or the like would be needed to curb the headache before she continued with getting showered and ready for school.

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While Jasmine ate breakfast, packed her backpack, and arrived at school in time for her morning classes. Life continued in the world of angels that Jasmine had been dreaming of.

In the morning after the successful kidnapping, Belial and Azazel both had to make an appearance in their predictable places. Belial had to be in the vicinity of the Virtues and play the part of looking in on his patient from the prior evening's incident, Samael. While Azazel had to put on the act of not knowing where Levana was and report to Uriel's office to inquire about it.

Naturally, when Uriel had gotten back home later that night, he had found that Levana was missing and was fretting over the disappearance. In his anxiety, he had searched his quarters as well as the surrounding area, but missed clues.

Azazel was able to confirm that he did a good enough of a job to mask his and his accomplice's movements so they wouldn't be immediately found out. It was doubly confirmed when Uriel rushed to dispatch him to search for Levana too.

Continuing the play, he put in a half-assed effort of commanding the other angels of death to search the academy, fully knowing they would find nothing there. While he separated from them and made his way back to the hideout she was being held at.

Belial had arrived earlier than him and had just finished administering another dose of the hallucinogen along with a neurotoxin. It would be able to further interfere with her ability to rouse any power to attack, defend or heal.

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The school days were organized where there would be four class periods in the morning half of the day, then there was an hour for lunch which would be followed by the afternoon class periods that numbered three.

So, a typical school day lasted a little over eight and a half hours as there were five-minute breaks between each class period. When you figure in that it can take half an hour to an hour to get to the school by bus in the morning and roughly the same time for students to get ready for school, it wasn't too surprising that the aspirin's effect wore out for Jasmine towards the end of her second class period.

The headache came back with a vengeance and near the start of the third period, she had asked for a pass to see the school nurse because of it. Her teacher for that period acquiesced to the request and she was granted the signed hall pass to visit the school clinic.

When the nurse saw Jasmine and listened to her describe the symptoms, she retrieved some medication that was more effective for battling headaches. Jasmine took the pills and a cup of water to wash them down with. There in the clinic, she downed them before heading back to her class.

It was enough to get through the third period, but the headache was just dulled, not remedied. Still though, she pushed herself to suppress the pain as best she could when it started to spike again in the middle of her fourth period.

Grimacing with pain, Jasmine's plight was picked up on by Liliana. Who didn't know what exactly was going on but had learned of the headache when Jasmine had left for the school clinic the period before.

She leaned over towards Jasmine's desk while the teacher's back was to them and whispered, "Are you alright? Is it not getting better?"

Even if it was a whisper, it somehow made the pain intensify. This headache was turning into something more akin to a migraine with heightened sensitivity to sound, light and smells. So, every spoken word, regardless of who was speaking and what volume they spoke with, was grating on Jasmine's mind!

Holding her head, she shook her head in a non-verbal answer.

Taking advantage of another moment where the teacher had turned to write on the board, Liliana softly inquired, "Do you need to visit the clinic again?"

Jasmine wasn't exactly clearheaded at this point, so she didn't answer immediately, but finally gave a small nod as going to the clinic, would at least get her out of the classroom. The teacher's voice was enough of a stimulus to make her head split with pain.

Picking up on the cue that Jasmine was having difficulties in communicating, Liliana raised her hand to get the teacher's attention and asked for their permission to take Jasmine to see the nurse.