Winterfall

A young man, in his early teens, stretched and yawned as he walked down the hallway towards his room. It was getting late-- around 11 o'clock, and lights-out was at ten. Luckily he made it through the dormitory building unoppressed, as it seemed that the nightly watch was either somewhere else or had gone to sleep. The old style architecture and furnishings of Kadic Academy were strangely comforting and soft as he slipped through the dark; it had become his home ever since he began his schooling there. All was quiet, spare for snoring coming from other students' rooms, or perhaps shuffling around as they walked around either avoiding sleep or attempting to cram for a test. Glowing from the golden lamps hanging on the stone walls of the school outside filtered in, creating eerie orbs of light at each window, like strange eyes were watching him, knowing that he had done something wrong. Perhaps he shouldn't have gone to that party; after all, his mother had warned him not to get involved with "those types of people," as she had done in high school. All sorts of things that he could barely remember because of his throbbing headache went on in there, mostly from the loud music and snuck-in booze.

Clarke D'Agnon looked around to make sure no one was watching, inserted his key into the lock on the doorknob, and slowly turned it. It clicked, and he opened the door as quietly as he could. He exhaled a sigh of relief, and then flopped onto his bed, glad that he was a single-room boarder and no one shared it with him. This time, his room was completely dark, and warm, heated by the faithful boiler that thankfully never had any problems. For a moment he stared out his window, looking at the silent grounds that would soon become frothing with activity at next light, and the stars above that twinkled omnipresently, like guardians that had shone brightly on the world for ages. It was all so peaceful. And yet... Clarke was discontented. He didn't exactly feel like going to sleep. He averted his gaze. His eyes landed upon the computer resting on the wooden desk, which provided for every student, but the computer itself had been given as a present from his father. That is, before he died.

It might not be a bad idea to surf the net for a while before laying down, he thought. He got up from his bed, and walked over to it. Sitting down in his chair, he reached towards the button to turn it on... only to discover that it already was. It was quite odd-- he was sure he turned it off long before he left. Oh well. Maybe there was a power outage and it restarted or something. He didn't think much of it. Until... the screen came on.

D o... y o u...

"Wh... what is this?" Clarke looked at the screen through disbelieving eyes. It seemed as though... words were spelling themselves out on the screen. Like some sort of instant messenger, but in code. This had to be some sort of joke-- maybe one of the geeks spread some virus through the school. Maybe that Belpois kid; he was always messing around with his fancy little laptop. But the message continued...

D o... y o u... b e l i e v e...

Now it was getting freaky. Clarke felt his heart rate increase, his breathing become shorter and more rapid. He had to calm himself down, remember, it was only a prank. It's only a stupid prank. Just a silly little joke...

D o... y o u... b e l i e v e... i n ... a n g e l s...?

Angels? he thought. What sort of joke was this? He had been expecting something silly and annoying, like his screen filling with dancing monkeys and his hard drive being wiped or something, but this definitely wasn't what he expected. Of course, then he began to jump to conclusions. Was this some kind of message...from God? Suddenly Clarke began to realize that his room was getting cold. Very cold. Had someone turned off the heat? He shivered a little, and looked around. No more letters appeared on the screen, as if it were waiting for him to respond. But... how should he respond? Should he respond with the truth, which was yes? Or should he see what would happen if he said no? Should he simply turn it off? His mind began to fill with all sorts of questions, but for some reason that he couldn't explain, his hands began to reach for the keyboard. He spelled out the letters, Y, E, S.

Yes.

G o o d...

The screen blanked. Clarke frowned. He had expecting something a little more spectacular than the damn thing just turning off! That was the worst prank virus ever. He was about to just give up and go to bed, when something even stranger began to happen. The monitor began to blink, on and off, and it even gave off electrical discharge. Was it malfunctioning? He backed away from it, fearing an explosion... when suddenly...

b e l i e v e... i n... a n g e l s... t o o...

Clarke's vision was filled with white, and he felt a surge of pain before completely losing consciousness.

Two boys were seated at a table in the cafeteria, both seeming to be waiting anxiously for someone. One of the boys, with gelled blonde hair, vented his frustration by inhaling any available food source nearby, and the other merely fidgeted incessantly.

"Odd," The fidgeting one said, with an edge of annoyance in his voice. "If you keep eating like that, you're going to make yourself sick."

"Don't worry about me, Ulrich. You seem to forget who won the pie-eating contest last year, exactly three and a half pies after everyone else threw up!"

"I swear, you must've had Yolanda numb your stomach that day."

"Nah! I just have high metabolism!"

"High metabolism wouldn't-- ugh, I don't even know why you're joking at a time like this," Ulrich shifted in his seat. They were both quiet. There was a constant dull murmur behind the everyday chit-chat of the Kadic students. Like everyone was whispering under their breath every few minutes. Eyes were shifting back and forth, and there was inherent excitement-- a buzz, like something was going on. Something big. An Asian girl dressed in black from her shoulder-length hair to her stylish boots walked over the table, with such a rush in her step that the food on the tray she was carrying bounced a little. She hastily sat down next to Ulrich.

"Yumi," he said, looking at her with serious eyes. "Did you hear?"

"Yeah, of course I did. I heard that the gates are closed and the police won't even let the media in. The teachers and staff are all really hush-hush too."

"Well, I heard that the security guard got so scared that he quit his job. I think he's moving to Borneo or something," Odd said. They were all whispering, the spirit of rumors and a mysterious scandal overtaking them, just as it had done the rest of the students in the cafeteria. No one was really eating anything, and besides, Rosa, the chef, had been so distracted that she completely forgot what meal she was supposed to be serving that day, and poured gravy on the vegetables, and syrup on the roast beef. It went unnoticed, however, and even Odd didn't seem to mind it that much. The group silenced themselves whenever someone walked past, until finally a boy with glasses in a blue turtleneck, and a red-headed girl in a pink jumper walked over to the table, both as eagerly and hastily as Yumi did. The boy pulled out what appeared to be a newspaper from underneath his tray.

"I picked up a copy of the school newspaper. Milly and Tamiya tried to gather as much information as they could before they got booted out, but they did manage to get a pretty decent article. It's on the front page," he said, flopping it onto the table for everyone to see. The only thing more shocking than the picture showing the wreckage done in one of the dorms in the east wing, was the title:

Angel of Death?

By Milly Solovieff

Photos: Tamiya Diop

Last night, something happened that put all of Kadic into a deep panic, and shocked the city of Paris. One of our own students, Clarke D'Agnon, was found at 7 AM this morning during the routine wake-up call of one Jim Moralés, curled up in the fetal position and rocking back and forth, babbling incoherently about "angels." His room was completely and totally destroyed, in what seemed like a blast radiating from an epicenter where his computer and desk used to be. His bed was crushed, leaving wood splinters everywhere, the walls singed, and electrical sparks coming from exposed wires nearly caused a fire. Clarke himself had suffered severe trauma to his head, and also appeared to have two broken limbs. An ambulance was quickly called to take him to the hospital; however, upon its' arrival, the medics discovered that he was no longer inside the ambulance, and a hole had been torn in the roof. Little is known about the details of this, and information from both Kadic staff and hospital officials is extremely limited. But the question remaining on everyone's lips is simple: was this an act of terror, or perhaps… something… else?

Jeremie let the others finish reading the article before saying anything.

"Well?"

"That's..." Odd began.

"That's what? Impossible? Mega insane?" he inquired. Odd looked at him pensively. Jeremie raised an eyebrow.

"What?"

"Jeremie... we discussed this. You swore you would never, EVER say the words 'mega insane' together in one sentence again!"

"Odd! This is serious!" Jeremie shouted.

"Well... naturally we should assume the worst," Yumi said, taking a drink and then looking at everyone seriously. Aelita cleared her throat and shuffled in her seat, smoothing out her dress.

"If by 'the worst,' you mean XANA," Aelita spoke up for the first time. "Then…. It's possible. He hasn't been active these past three months since he escaped from the supercomputer, but in all likelihood he's been planning some sort of attack."

"That's right," Jeremie added, pushing up his glasses. "The super scan hasn't picked anything up; but then of course it wouldn't—XANA is no longer trapped inside Carthage, so he really has no need to activate any towers."

"So… what do you think we should do?" Ulrich asked, poking his syrup-covered roast beef with a plastic fork.

"Not exactly sure. Wait... watch and see what happens. If it turns out to be what we fear, then we'll have to figure out how to deal with this. If the police start getting too suspicious, there's always the option of reverting back time… thankfully Clarke wasn't killed—you know what would happen then," the blonde genius said. Everyone nodded solemnly, remembering what happened during XANA's first attack. The girl who got killed. They had to cover it up, conjure up a story that she'd jumped into the river. It worked, and because of the return to the past, there were no witnesses. But it certainly was a gruesome event… especially when that mass of gray, dead brain matter appeared on the bridge to the factory. From that point on, they knew how serious it was, and how they had to absolutely make sure that no one lost their lives in the battle against XANA.

"What are you guys whispering about?" A female voice said, breaking their concentration like a needle popping a balloon. The group slightly grimaced as the principal's daughter leaned over their table, smirking. Sissi had actually started to be a lot more genial towards them in the past couple months, and there was a strange kind of respect between the two groups, but her constant meddling certainly remained an annoyance.

"Oh, nothing," Odd said, grinning, and if you knew him well enough, you could see through his eyes that he was coming up with some sort of retort, remark, or joke. "Just about how ugly that dress you wore to—"

Jeremie raised his hand to silence him. The Della Robbia boy gave him an odd look, but he submitted to the pseudo-leader of the group. Sissi herself raised an eyebrow in slight confusion.

"Sissi," he said, looking her in the eye. "Can you…. Can you keep a secret?"

The entire table silenced. Every one of them knew what that meant. Yumi paled.

Before Sissi could even form another word, Yumi was up on her feet. She walked briskly over to Jeremie and grabbed his arm.

"Excuse me, Sissi, but I need to speak to Jeremie in private. Now." Yumi promptly dragged him away from the table, and out the door of the cafeteria. She instantly regarded him with disbelief.

"Are you INSANE?" she asked, slapping him across the face. Soon enough, Ulrich, Odd, and Aelita had joined them.

"Yeah! Unless I'm a total idiot, I'd swear you were just about to tell Sissi about Lyoko," Odd said, in a vicious tone that quite frankly surprised the entire group. He was usually happy-go-lucky; it was rare that they'd seen him this angry before.

"Before you guys totally blow up at me, hear me out," Jeremie said, sighing and holding out his hands. "If the fight against XANA gets as bad as I think it's going to get, then we're going to need all the help we can find. I don't know if you've noticed it, but Sissi has been trying to redeem herself lately. And after all, she has helped us before. She's even the one that Franz Hopper chose to convey his message to us. Sure we have sort of a sour history with her… but who else do you think we could possibly choose?"

"Well, I…" Ulrich said with fire in his eyes, but after a moment, he realized that Jeremie was right. "So we tell Sissi. What then? What if we can't trust her? What if she goes to her father and gets the police involved or something?"

"Exactly. I don't think we can take our chances with this right now, Jeremie," Yumi said, shaking her head, her hair bouncing back and forth. "Especially not with someone—someone like her."

Her nose scrunched a little with that last statement. Aelita placed a hand on her shoulder.

"I know how you feel about Sissi. But… Jeremie and I have discussed this for a while, and… don't you think it would be helpful towards our cause to have someone else on the team? Surely you can put personal differences aside, if it's going to help save the world."

Yumi looked at her. There was sadness, and a little bit of hurt in her eyes. Reluctance.

"I know… but…" Her voice cracked. Ulrich was there, and he consoled her as she leaned into his shoulder.

"Yumi… trust me, I don't want to do this either. But Jeremie and Aelita do have a point. Sissi… deep inside, she really isn't a horrible person. She's done some really mean things to us before, but you just have to learn… to forgive. And let her start over. As part of… part of our group."

Odd slung an arm around Yumi's neck.

"Yeah, he's right. Besides, you know how much I make fun of her. If I can forgive, so can you," He said, deciding to side with the others. He winked. Yumi smiled.

"Thanks…. You know, you guys really are my best friends." They separated, and followed the genius pair back into the cafeteria. It was time to face the girl who had been standing by their table impatiently. Time to face the music.

Alright, that was chapter one. What did you think? I wasn't sure exactly where I was going with having Jeremie think it was time to tell Sissi about Lyoko, but that's what my brain told me to do. oo

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