"I visited Carol today."

"How was she?"

"She looked tired."

"Did she say anything?"

"No not really…but something strange happened."

"What happened?"

"Well when I looked back to say goodbye it looked like…"

It's late October. People are dressing a lot warmer due to the temperature becoming colder. Houses decorated with scary witches, ghouls and pumpkins carved to show off their scary faces. The brown and orange leaves are falling from the trees while the wind scatters them about. An older woman with blonde hair is looking out of her kitchen window, annoyed with the fact that the yard is now full of leaves. She lets out a heavy sigh, grabs her cup of coffee and makes her way upstairs. She knocks on the first door she comes across and tells the boy inside to wake up. He tiredly replies and she moves down the hall. She arrives to the next door and knocks on it. There's no answer. She opens the door and looks at her daughter noticing that she is sound asleep. The older woman walks over and lightly pushes her daughter to wake her up.

"Piper it's time to wake up!" Piper let's out a groan and turns on her side facing away from her mother. She opens her eyes a little bit to peek at the clock on her night stand. She groans again and finally speaks. "Mom it's five in the morning! School isn't for another two and half hours. What do you want?!" Her mother folded her arms in front of her. "The yard needs to be raked before you go to school!" Pipers eyes shot wide open as she sat up to stare at her mother. "Are you kidding me?!" Disbelief written all over her face.

"Oh don't throw such a fit Piper. The leaves make our yard look tacky and I won't have it." Piper let out a big sigh as she lay back down and threw her pillow over her face trying to pretend her mom wasn't there. "Piper I won't ask you again. Now get up!" With that the older women left Pipers room and headed back downstairs. A couple minutes passed and Piper threw the pillow off her face and rolled out of bed. She went to her closet and grabbed a white long sleeved v neck top and jeans and laid them on the bed. She then grabbed a plain gray t-shirt and a pair of black sweats and put them on. There was a small knock at the door. "Piper?" Piper let out a small sigh and opened the door. "What's up Cal?"

"Mom sent me to make sure you're awake." Piper rolled her eyes of course her mother did. "I'll be right down Cal." Piper heard her brother run back down the stairs as she threw her hair up into a ponytail and put on her shoes. Taking a few breaths to calm herself, she finally made her way downstairs. When she got to the bottom she went into the kitchen where her mom was peering out the window. Her mom turned to face whoever it was that just walked in. "Ah Piper finally you're up! Your brother is already outside starting without you." Pipers mom grabbed the newspaper from the counter and sat down at the table. Before she started to read it she looked back at Piper, who was standing there with irritation on her face. "Piper it's not nice to stare and if you keep making that face it may freeze that way then it won't just be your hair you'll have to worry about." She opened her newspaper and started to read it. Piper shook her head and rolled her eyes while making her way to the front door, still taking deep breaths to try and stay calm. Piper stepped outside her house and noticed Cal had a rake waiting for her on the ground. She walked over to it and grabbed it off the ground along with garbage that was lying underneath it and started raking the leaves.

After a while the kids heard the front door open and close. Looking to see who it was Piper was relieved it was her father and not her mother. "Good morning Piper and Cal!" he said with a smile. Piper gave him a nod and went back to work. Piper usually replied to him with a smile and a 'Good morning Daddy' but not today. He knew something was wrong. He made is way over to her and stood where she was trying to rake. "What?" She asked keeping her eyes on the ground. "What's wrong Piper?" Piper looked up at him "I don't understand why we have to do this now. The yard is just going to get leaves on it again later on in the day." She threw her rake down and grabbed the now half stuffed bag of leaves and started shoving more in it. Her father bent down next to her "It keeps her happy Piper. Happy wife happy life." He replied with a smile. Piper let out a sarcastic laugh knowing full well about his affairs. Her father gave her a kiss on the forehead and got up to leave. He stopped in front of Cal and gave him a pat on the back before heading to his car to drive to work. As Piper watched her father leave something clicked. If he was leaving for work then that meant…

Cal was thinking the same thing. They grabbed the bags, tied them up and put them next to the garbage cans on the road. Piper told Cal to go inside and get ready. He ran off and she grabbed the rakes and put them in the garage before running inside the house. She quickly ascended the stairs and ran into her room noticing she only had 45min to get ready. She grabbed her outfit off her bed and ran into the bathroom to take a quick shower. She loved taking long showers. They made it feel like the weight of the world was lifted from her shoulders, even if it was just for a little bit. However, today she wasn't going to get that pleasure. She was out of the shower within nine minutes, dried off and quickly got dressed. She knew she wouldn't have time to properly dry her hair so she threw it up in a messy bun and ran back to her room. She grabbed her backpack and coat and ran downstairs where she saw Cal and her mother waiting by the door "I see we rushed to get ready." Her mother let out a sigh as she saw Piper coming. "You told us to rake the leaves mother!" Piper snapped. Pipers mother let out a little chuckle "Oh don't be so dramatic. I didn't say you had to stay out there till you were late for school." Cal interjected before anything else was said further on the matter "Well we have to go before we really are late. Bye mom." He gave her a hug and went out the door. Piper grabbed the car keys off the hook and followed Cal out the door, not bothering to say goodbye to her mother. They got into the car and Piper, making sure she squealed the tires before leaving, sped off towards their school.

Piper and Cal made it to school with seven minutes to spare. They both ran to their lockers, grabbed the items they needed for the first couple classes and booked it to first period class. Just as Piper made it to her first class, British Literature, the bell rang meaning if you weren't in your classroom you were considered late. She sat down at her desk, which was in the front of the class, and pulled out the book 'The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' a book her teacher assigned the entire class to read. The teacher walked in the room with a huge smile on her face and shut the door behind her. "Pop Quiz today ladies and gentlemen!" The students let out a moan except Piper. She had already finished the book and was excited with the idea of a quiz. The quiz papers got passed around upside down. "Now you will have twenty minutes to finish from the time I say to start." Piper watched her teacher, impatiently waiting for her to give the okay to start. "You may begin." With that the sound of papers flipping over filled the classroom along with the sound of tapping noises coming from pencils. Piper wrote her name at the top and was about to start on the first question when she realized her vision was becoming blurry. She tried to blink it away and even rubbed her eyes to no avail. Her vision which was blurry was now gone. All she could see was darkness. She closed her eyes and took deep breaths to keep herself calm. After a minute she opened her eyes to see that the darkness was still there staring back at her. She went to stand up only to feel her legs give out from under her and the sound of gasps filling the room. She heard someone say something to her but it was muffled, her hearing was fading as well. She closed her eyes and let the darkness suck her in.

Piper woke up in the nurse's office with a headache and a spinning room. Rubbing her eyes to make the spinning stop, she sat up on the green plastic bed. Piper looked around the nurse's office before sighing and saying to herself "Great a trip to the nurse's office that's just what I needed." To the left of her was a glass window which stretched across the wall, allowing for whoever was on the other side to peer inside. Piper noticed the nurse sitting at his desk filling out paperwork and talking to another colleague of hers. Piper knocked on the window to get his attention and it worked. The nurse walked over and opened the door to the room Piper was staying in, a slight concern written on his face. "Well it's good to see you're finally awake. How are you feeling?" Piper groaned, closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Not too great. I've got quite the headache and the room won't stop spinning." The nurse walked over to his cabinet and pulled out a bottle of Aspirin, took out two pills and handed them to Piper. He then grabbed a small cup, filled it with water and handed it to her. "That's the best I can do unless you want to carry around an ice pack on your head all day." Piper popped the pills in her mouth and flushed them down with the little water she had. "No that's alright I think I can manage." Piper got up only to fall back down on the bed. "Stay here until the end of the period. That should be enough time for the spinning to stop." The nurse opened the door to leave when Piper asked him what period it was. "It's the beginning of first lunch. So fifth period." He walked out and closed the door. Piper was shocked. How could she have been out for half the day? Anger now coming into light. Why didn't they wake me? She thought to herself. Piper didn't care about the room spinning anymore, she was furious. She got up and stormed out of the room slamming the door on the way out. The nurse, who was talking to another student, was startled by this. "Why didn't you wake me up?"

"Ms. Chapman there is no need to be slamming doors and yelling." The nurse stated calmly. "There is when I missed half the day!"

"Look I tried to wake you up. I yelled your name and shook you but you didn't even move. I even tried using smelling salts and nothing. So again Ms. Chapman please calm down."

Ms. Chapman calm down.

Piper felt a pulse of pain in her head. She threw her hand up to her forehead and groaned. "Please go back into the room and lay down. The Aspirin hasn't kicked in yet." Without objecting Piper opened the door to head back to the green plastic bed and laid down on it. Covering her eyes with her arm she tried to stop the tears from coming. Anger had vanished from her and was replaced with fear. Fear that whatever happened to her could happen again. Afraid that her mother would find out and never let it go. She felt so helpless.

The rest of the day went on like normal. Piper went to her classes and didn't have any problems. The bell for her last class had run which was study hall. She walked into the room and sat down at the table she always sat at. She pulled out the little homework she had to do and started working on it. "Thank god for this class!" Polly sighed slamming her books onto the table Piper was at and sat down. "A free period with no real teacher and…" Polly glanced around the room "a lot of cute guys." Piper let out a slight chuckle. "Yeah I guess that's a plus." Polly pulled out a bag of pretzels that she got from lunch and started snacking on them. "I ran into Dayanara this morning after first period. She said you passed out or something like that. You are okay though right?" Piper looked up from her homework noticing Polly was very worried. "I'm fine I promise. I didn't get much sleep since my mom decided to wake us up at five in the morning to rake leaves because 'the yard looked tacky'." Pollys eyes shot wide open. "What?! Who does that?!" Piper shook her head. "Obviously my mother Carol. I just can't wait to be done with high school and onto college far far away from her." Polly slumped back into her chain and popped another pretzel in her mouth. "Your mom is a crazy bitch. She'll do anything to make sure everyone and everything is the best looking. Never settling for second best." Piper let out a sigh "Yeah I know I live with her." There was silence between them as Piper went back to work on her homework. Finally finishing her bag of pretzels, Polly got up to throw the bag out. On her way back she noticed Piper was staring at her with a huge smile on her face. She looked at Piper questioningly. "I just remember George Mendez said his mom is going to be out of town all weekend. He's going to be throwing a Halloween party. We should go!"

"I don't know Pipes. Even if we wanted to go we don't have a costume to wear and there's no way your parents would let you go." Piper contemplated this for a bit. "I mean we could go shopping after school today for our costumes. Then I'll tell my parents I'm staying at your house, they love you." Polly was still skeptical of the idea. "Come on Pol, I need this." Piper gave her the puppy dog eyes and pouty face. "Jesus alright fine just please stop making that face you're freaking me out!" Piper leaped out of her chair excitedly and hugged Polly. They filled the rest of the class period with endless chatter about the coming weekend.

A/N: I know Alex isn't mentioned in this chapter don't worry I didn't forget about her. She will for sure be in the next chapter which brings me to a question for the readers. What costume can you picture Piper and Alex wearing? Also the italic, without giving too much away, is going to be important later on. This is my first fan fic so please let me know what you folks think and I hope you enjoyed the first chapter thus far.