Part One: Bottom of the River
Chapter One
The bells were wailing when the girl washed ashore on the Tiber River.
No one noticed her. How could they? It was a beautiful day in Rome. March, mid-afternoon, a crystalline blue sky filled with rising columns of choking black smoke and the thousands of distant, echoing sirens.
Rough sand ground against her cheek, the waves pushing her gently forward onto land. The girl stirred, eyelids flickering. A sigh left her lips, the soft breath of someone still lost in the sweet twilight of dreams. Then water rushed into her mouth and she choked. Surged upwards, coughing, jarred awake.
The dream ripped away with a cold lurch. The girl shuddered, eyes wide, looking around. Surrounded by water. Seeing land. Seeing safety.
She rolled over onto her stomach and began crawling forward on her elbows — limbs shaking, breath ragged, shivering all over. A warm breeze tossed the short, dripping tendrils of hair.
Had anyone been looking down instead of up, they would've seen a tall, gangly blonde teenager with sickly pale skin, crawling out of the river, half-drowned, having appeared seemingly out of nowhere.
Marshy grass met her fingers, the soft ground giving beneath her weight. By the time the girl had risen to a stand, everything from her knees to her toes were completely covered in mud. Her hands, too, which she wiped on her white shirt, more mud climbing up the sleeves to her elbows. Loose black pants drooped around her hips, clinging to her ankles.
Her feet were completely bare. She was soaking wet.
Before her was a high stone wall — the Tiber river recessed far below street level.
Behind her, on the other side of the river, white tents covered restaurant tables. The smell of food reached all the way across the water. But no one was eating.
A set of narrow steps led to the streets above. The girl, with no where else to go, stumbled up them. She leaned heavily against the wall, her balance uncertain, knees wobbly, her arms held out before her. There was a bridge stretching over the river nearby. It was clogged with vehicles and people.
So many people.
They just stood there, on the sidewalks, on the streets, beneath the trees; gathered in groups, clutching each other, talking, pointing, calling, weeping.
The girl had to weave around them, trying to find help. Her mouth opened but nothing came out. It was then she noticed her own crunching footsteps. She looked down.
A million shards of glass, glittering savagely — scattered across the ground in every direction. The pieces cut into the soles of her feet, leaving bloody traces in her wake.
If she had looked up, she would've seen how every window, of every building, had been blown out.
She tripped on the curb, staggering onto the street. All the cars had stopped, small mopeds left where they stood as the drivers and passengers joined the pedestrians in their mass ensemble. Still, no eyes turned in her direction.
They were all focused towards the sky across the river. Watching something. The girl looked out, her brow furrowing together.
That's when she saw it.
From behind, a man glanced down and gasped. Even if the girl had turned around, she wouldn't see what he had — the two holes in her back, the matching trails of blood running down her shirt.
But the girl didn't.
Her eyes were fixed on the Sistine Chapel. Only the white, gleaming, shattered dome could be seen from here, peeking over the terracotta rooftops.
The black cloud surging from the jagged hole, splitting pristine marble.
And the dozens, dozens of other smoke trails spiraling up over the city.
Rome was on fire.
Heeeyy, so in case some of you may have noticed, this is the same Amelia Fletcher from my marvel fic, but you don't need to read that one to understand this one. Aside from the same oc, pretty much everything else is different. As it should be lol. Also I should add that this is going to be alternate universe, with a lot of canon divergence because of the backstory of one OC, and more or less completely rewriting the character/personality of an archangel or two. Soooo there's that. Have fun!