My Fallen Angel (COMPLETE)

MFA prologue*

Prologue* 

2006 

My name: Alexandria Night, but I prefer to be called Zandy. I'm thirteen years old and am attending the School for Creative and Performing Arts in Cincinnati, Ohio. I have lived in Cincinnati for all my life, and, up until three years ago, I had been comfortable with the people around me. I even had friends. 

My father died when I was ten, leaving me with my mother, who is never home, my older brother, who left for college last year, and my two younger siblings, who were eight at the time. That was the lowest point in my life and my friends started to drift away, leaving me with myself and my thoughts. I was still liked well enough that people I knew talked to me and asked me to sit with them at lunch, but I no longer had lengthy conversations with people like I used to. And when my brother left, everything just came crashing down. 

Everything about me seemed to grow darker and more solemn. I traded my bright pink frilly shirts and jean skirts for black band tees and dark wash jeans. People I thought were my friends before my father's death ridiculed me and called me names. They told me they were only friends with me because my mom was a rich clothing designer and I would never have any real friends. I drew further and further into myself every time someone called me a bad name or messed with me. 

At this point in my life, my mother's career was really taking off and she would fly all over the world, leaving me and my little brother and sister with our grandmother. Grammy, as I liked to call her, always helped me with people at school. She'd tell me that it was okay to be different from the other kids, and that I didn't need them to feel complete with my life. She helped me rid of my frustration and anger with everything by taking me horseback riding and letting me use her art studio that my grandpa had built for her back when they first got married. Grammy was my rock, I could always go to her when I had a problem or if I needed some release. She was my everything. 

Finally, we come to this point, approximately one year after my brother had left for college. I was sitting in the eighth grade locker corridor, my red spiral-bound notebook in my black clad lap. It was opened to a fresh page and I was drawing a picture, of what, I'm not quite sure, but I'd know when I was done. 

Everything was silent; the rest of the eighth graders were at lunch, talking to one another and having fun. I checked my Batman watch for the time: 12:23. Lunch lasted for another twenty minutes. So, I stopped drawing and flipped my notebook closed, standing up and taking the few steps to my ugly blue locker. I twisted in my combination and pulled it open, shoving my notebook inside. 

I looked at myself in the mirror-like metal of the inside of my locker, seeing the girl who stared back at me. 

Jet black, shoulder length hair framed a pale, thin face. Thick bangs covered my whole forehead and swept down, just above my right eye. My eyes were their natural brown today since I didn't decide on putting in the colored contacts this morning. The ring of black eyeliner covered both my upper and lower eyelids, and there was a thin application of mascara on my eyelashes, making them stand out even more. My lips were normal, just slightly uneven in thickness, but hardly noticeable. But the two piercings in my bottom lip were. Aside from my snakebites, I had a zigzag industrial rod through my left ear, double piercings on each, and a small obsidian stone in my nose. 

I stepped back a bit to look at the rest of myself. The purple camisole I was wearing peaked through the lowest part of my black t-shirt. My dark wash jeans were slightly tighter than what everyone else was wearing now. And on my feet, I wore plain black Converse. Both my wrists were covered in black plastic bracelets and on my left wrist, I sported my Batman watch. Around my neck was a plain black, thin, round, leather choker and a string of black beads that hung a bit lower. Simple, but my style.