Chapter One: Day

People on the road were staring now. Our hysterical laughter echoed up the street, probably disturbing birds and lizards and rabbits down by the valley reservoir.

"Can you imagine –" a peal of giggles punctuated Sam's sentence – "having to wear that thing to school?"

"Getting that thing to school would be a trick by itself," I added, striving to control myself. It didn't work.

Our hysteric amusement went on, even as we reached the gate of Sam's complex. Perhaps it had been the strangely intense afternoon heat that had influenced our craziness, or maybe it was just our way of letting loose after six hours of sophomore schooling. Neither of us were currently sane enough to tell. Or care.

November in Orange County was a time of year in which students' attitudes were stuck in a state of flux: on the one hand, we were entering the middle of the school year. On the other, Christmas was coming, and Christmas meant winter break. For me, the break meant two weeks of Sam's constant company; but it also meant cold weather. I hated cold, and with a passion.

There's a good reason for that, of course, and it's one Sam was well aware of. However, she was also the only one aware of it, besides myself, and I intended to keep it that way. It was our little secret. Okay, it was a big secret, but you could say it was just bigger on the inside – it all depended on how you looked at it.

Firstly, I was an orphan. No parents to speak of, not even a birth certificate. I had literally been found as a baby in a basket on the doorstep of an orphanage, nothing to my name except a necklace and, well, my name -- on a card labelled Christina Shipht.

But that wasn't the secret. There was more to it than that.

More than I would ever imagine.


Yeah it's short. I can't help splitting it.

The rest will come when the Muse deigns appropriate. X-X