This is my first story and it is completely original. It's been a while since I wrote this and I just previewed this right before I posted it, so if you have any ideas please tell me. READ ON!!! If you want to that is...

It was the beginning. It was the end. "It" is High School, created by those older than ourselves, and ran by the Populars. It is a 'dog eat dog' place, a jungle. Your social status follows you after your freshman year to the end of your senior year. You have your friends, and you have your foes.

Middle school was supposed to be easy. The only thing the teachers do is prepare you for high school, and the 'Populars' only form their clicks. When you're the outsider looking in you're ignored and forgotten. You prepare yourself, no one helping you, which makes life more difficult. No amount of difficulty would ever be able to prepare you for the challenges that later await you.

In middle school the least known and the most faded was Anna M. Lume. She was invisible to all. Hidden amongst the shadows she desperately hid for shelter. Her mom died in a car accident when Anna was four, and her dad was never home, although the school never knew. The teachers never questioned her behavior; she was a strait B student, so the teachers never thought that they needed to.

......

Cloudy and rainy is the only way to describe the fist day for Dullsburg High Schoolers. The day was so dark that it could pass for night. The only substance that illuminated the sky were the frequent lightning strikes. The rain was poring to the point of flash flooding, but the school board refused to cancel the school day. As usual.

The busses arrived and the students rushed up the school yard and into the school to seek shelter. Once there the students lingered. The freshman whispered and gossiped about how the first year of high school would be, while they waited for the bell signaling to go to homeroom. The other years just chatted with friends, but one kid still lingered in the rain. The student happened to be a freshman and she had no social life. She was soaked from head to toe, and as she slowly made her way up the same path everyone else took, her combat boots squeaking and sloshing as she walked. This was me.

I went slower than anyone would have thought possible in such a rain. The rain was beating intensely on my back, to a rhythm that could be played on a drum. As the warning bell rang I began to pick up the pace, and entered the building. As I entered silence quickly followed. It was one of my many curses. Silence stuck to me, like fangs to vampire. As soon as I began to walk Jessica Sleer, world class prep and enemy blocked my path. I moved. Jessica followed.

"Hello, do I know you? Are you new to the city? I don't recognize you." Jessica inquired in the sneeriest voice imaginable.

"No, I've been here long." I replied, trying to go around Jessica. Jessica blocked her path again. The others stood and watched.

"Then why don't I know you? I know everyone in this city." Jessica made a face so menacing that she could scare a vampire.

"Not many do know me."

"But I know everyone."

"Guess you're incorrect."

"But I'm always right."

"I guess you're wrong." I growled, just wanting to get to her locker, and making an even creepier expression that clearly stated that I was ready to leave.

"Didn't you understand that I am always right?" Jessica scolded.

I tried once again to get past, but Jessica once again blocked my path. I tried going the other way, but Jessica was there. I tried faking a left and went right, but Jessica was there too.

"Please move."

"Why are you going to make me?"

"Sure why not." I remarked pushing through the gate that was Jessica.

Big mistake on my part. Jessica was the type of Popular that has tons of friends and many football players throwing themselves at her. Jessica was high in the food chain, and I was barely known, if known at all. The odds were against me, but I would never claim defeat until out cold.

"You have no right to touch Jessica!" exclaimed an outraged groupie with long, blond hair done up in a bun.

"Well sorrrrry," I remarked sarcastically.

"Say that to-"

"Carla! That is enough. If the girl wants to play we'll play," Jessica intervened.

The bell rang. I sighed, the last thing I needed to do was be late. I quickly made my way to my locker. Once I arrived at homeroom I found out, to my dismay, that I was in the same homeroom as Jessica.

"Miss Lume your tardy," stated the teacher.

I didn't answer; instead I went straight to my seat, which happened to be the unoccupied seat next to Jessica.

.....

After being at school for one day my hands were raw from the scrapes that I had inherited from being tripped by the girls that worshiped Jessica. My pride was shot from where the guys had teased me for "tripping over inanimate objects." The worst day of my life just seemed to get worse as the day progressed. The teachers gave out LOADS of homework. In gym we played dodge-ball. I was picked last, not that it bothered me, but once the game started EVERYONE pelted me, even people on my own team! Heck, they even pelted me when I was out.

The bus ride home was a disaster since kids kept throwing things at the bus driver than blaming it on me. I got suspended from riding the bus AND a letter would be sent to my parent/guardian tomorrow. The weather made the bus driver weary, and in case further weather patterns were to continue the bus driver went to an extreme.

Only the Populars owned their own vehicles, so everyone else relied on the bus for transportation and when that privilege was taken away they had to walk, no matter how far.

When I got home my dad wasn't there. 'Big surprise there,' Anna thought sarcastically, but as I walked further into the house I saw two men there. The first man was short and stubby with white hair. He looked kind, kind of how grandparents do. The second man was tall and broad with dark hair. He looked like a drill serge at a military school.

"Anna, we have tragic news," the second man said sweetly. "Your father died in a car accident this morning."

"It appears that he was drunk," said the first man. He reminded me of Jessica.

"Go collect your things," the second man calmly requested, "You'll be going to live with your grandmother."

And with the quick dismissal, I went to my room and collected my cloths, my CD player with a package of AA-batteries, and a picture frame from when of when I was three and my family was happy. Quickly putting all of my items in an old black leather suit-case, I made sure the picture was wrapped up in an old t-shirt.

I dashed downstairs carrying my large black suit-case, and walked outside where the Social Service men were waiting with their large, black umbrellas. They were standing by a black Dodge Status. The second man opened the back-seat door while the first man climbed in the driver's seat. The second man put my suit-case in the trunk, and closed the door once I was in. Then he walked over to the passenger's side and climbed in.

I watched the houses pass by in the city. The city looked like those everyone has read about: cookie-cutter. They had gone about two miles closer to the school when we came across a house that looked like it had been run-down for years. The grass was un-mowed, the garden was unkempt, the paint was peeling off the side, and the roof looked like it was about to fly off.

"Well, here's the place," said the first man.

You have got to be kidding me. I thought gloomily.