Chapter 1: Tenth Floor, No Turning Back

Holly Coomes, while tapping her mechanical pencil idly against the side of her spiral bound notebook, looked across the biology classroom at her best friend, Castiel Malone. At that particular moment, Cas (as Holly and practically everyone else called him) was diligently jotting down some last minute notes, as though he was actually going to need them for the next day's final exam. Cas was, Holly reflected, one of those people who made and maintained a perfect GPA without even trying. A lot of people hated him for that, and even more seemed to worship him, but only three people in the entire school seemed immune to whatever charm he was working on people. The first and foremost of these three was Holly. Holly had met Cas the first day of school, in this very biology classroom, and the two had quickly become best friends, learning that they shared opinions on so many different matters that Holly and Cas seemed to be almost one and the same, but just different enough that things were kept interesting. They even looked somewhat similar, since both had dark hair, both had dusky skin, and both were slightly taller than their peers, though that was the extent of their physical similarities. Cas was over six feet tall, with glossy brown hair that was always carefully combed so that his bangs fell untidily into his very tan face. His eyes, a cool green that distracted many of the other girls in his and Holly's classes, always seemed as though they were about to fall closed, and Cas would begin to sleep. Holly, by contrast, was just under six feet tall, had pixie-cut coarse black hair, profuse and extremely noticeable freckles, and warm brown eyes that always seemed to hold a spark of fire in them, especially when something attracted her interest, though that something was seldom school-related. Holly's grades were another thing she held in difference to Cas. While Cas had a perfect GPA, Holly was barely managing to receive passing grades in all of her classes, no matter how hard she studied before a test. School was a daily struggle for her. She was dreading the final exams next week, because she knew that there was no way on earth, barring some sort of glorious miracle, that she'd manage to get above a D on any of them.

The other two people seemingly immune to Cas's glamour, if that was what it could be called, were a pair of twins that had begun attending Holly's school a few weeks after the Christmas holiday had ended. Their names were John and Philippa Gaunt, and they seemed to pop up everywhere, which was an unnerving habit of theirs, one which caused Holly much distress. There was something else strange about the Gaunts that Holly wasn't quite sure what it was. She simply sensed that there was, or had been something that had made John and Philippa extra-special, somehow. After she had gotten past her initial strange intuitions about the Gaunts, Holly became quite good friends with Philippa, and Cas had become close friends with John. However, neither of the Gaunts could ever change Holly's and Cas's mutual status as "best friends." After all, John and Philippa still didn't know about the strange happenings at Holly's and Cas's respective houses.

Cas looked up then, perhaps sensing Holly's gaze upon him, and met her eyes, pausing in his note-taking.

"What's up?" He mouthed across to her. Holly was about to answer him, when the bell rang, signalling the end of the hour. Holly meandered around the other students to wait for Cas in the hallway outside the biology room.

"Is it just me, or do you have absolutely no idea what's going on around us, either?" Holly asked him when he caught up with her.

"Yesterday I found a new crack in my wall, right above my head." Cas told her, not bothering to answer the question. "You?"

"The window in my room got shattered. They're blaming the neighbour kid, but there's no rock or anything to indicate someone threw something at it. Also, the glass broke outwards. And I certainly didn't do anything to it." Holly answered. Suddenly, John was trotting amiably beside Holly.

"Hi," He said by way of greeting them, "How're you guys today?"

"Uh..." Holly began, startled by his sudden appearance. "Fine. And you?"

"Great," John replied affably. "Though it's been rather cold outside for June, don't you think? But that's New York weather for you. Unpredictable sometimes."

"Yes," Cas said, rescuing Holly from having to answer this odd comment. "Yes it is."

"Well, I'm off to art. See you guys at lunch!" John nodded at them and set off towards the art rooms, while Cas and Holly began fighting their way to their English class.

"Just a few more yards, and we ought to be past the galloping hordes." Cas reassured his best friend, somewhat melodramatically. Holly smiled and nodded. Cas always knew how to make her laugh, even if he wasn't trying.

"I'm getting my wisdom teeth out this afternoon," Holly told him. "One less afternoon of boring Spanish and boring Math. You know, I do believe that when my wisdom teeth came in, that's when my weird stuff began to happen."

Cas seemed taken aback by this bit of information. "You never told me that! That's when my weird stuff started happening, too! When my wisdom teeth came in, I mean."

"Really? How very interesting." Holly mused. "Have you got yours out yet?"

"No. I'm getting them out this evening, after school is out."

"Hmm. Well, if I can talk when I come to, I'll call you. If I can't, I guess I'll just text you."

"Fab," Cas grinned. "Man, we're gonna be all hopped up on Vicodin... This'll be awesome!"

"For you, maybe." Holly smiled.

Later that day, Holly's older brother Mark (older by about 8 years, as Mark was 22 and Holly was just barely 15) came to the school and picked Holly up to take her to the hospital, where the operation was to take place. Mark was the one who had to take his little sister to her operation because both Holly's dad and stepmother were working a double shift at their respective workplaces.

"Quit worrying," Mark told her as they were driving downtown to the hospital. Holly ignored him and continued to chew her fingernails, something she did only when she was very nervous. Mark sighed and pushed Holly's hands away from her mouth. "No eating includes no chewing fingernails, kiddo." He scolded. Holly still remained silent and began to chew her lip instead. Mark sighed in defeat. Soon enough, Mark had battled his way through the New York traffic and pulled into the hospital parking lot. "Here we are, Holly. Now, dame la cell phone if you know what's good for you." Holly pouted and handed over her smartPhone, which Mark pocketed.

"I need to call Cas when I'm done." Holly told her brother quietly as they walked into the ground floor of the hospital. Holly looked apprehensively at the elevator. She didn't like elevators, because Holly was claustrophobic. Elevators were small enough spaces for her to be quite scared of, and that was coupled with her somewhat less intense acrophobia. "Take the stairs?" She said hopefully to Mark, who gave a long-suffering sigh.

"You know it's really sad that you can't even go into an elevator because of your claustrophobia." Mark complained as he and Holly began to climb the very extensive stairs. "You can't save us some time, instead you insist on climbing the stairs to the tenth floor!"

"Be glad it isn't the 100th, Mark." Holly shot back wryly.

"Yeah, sure. Anyway, take it from me: you won't be able to talk for awhile after you get your teeth pulled. Your mouth gets all numb from the anesthetic."

"Then I'll just text Cas." Holly mumbled, concentrating on the hand railing.

At last they reached the tenth floor, Mark panting, Holly feeling somewhat better. Climbing a lot of stairs always made Holly feel less nervous about whatever she was about to face, even if it was something as horrible as having her teeth yanked out of her mouth. Other than having her wisdom teeth come in somewhat early, Holly had rather good teeth, nice and naturally even. Perhaps the reason she felt so nervous about the teeth being extracted was because she had a clean dental record until then. No cavities, no fillings, no missing teeth, until now. Her stomach was doing backflips out of sheer nervousness.

Holly waited nervously in the tenth floor waiting room, Mark attempting to make small talk, until Holly's dentist, a rather wizened old Indian man called Dr. Calcifate appeared and called them over. Holly sprang up, dizzy with a mixture of relief that the thing was about to be done with, and trepidation at what was going to happen.

"Hello, Holly, hello, Mark. How are we doing today?" Dr. Calcifate asked them. Mark said something along the lines of:

"Fine, Dr. Calcifate," before Dr. Calcifate led Holly and Mark to a sterile operating room. Minutes later, Holly was drifting off under the influence of the anesthetic.

No going back now.