Angels Blade

Chapter 1

How many weeks had it been since I first felt the presence following me. On my way to school it would creep around the street corners and while at home it would skulk outside my window, surveying the exterior of my house. The first time I caught sight of it I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. A small body with pitch black fur and piercing red eyes stared back at me from the corner. This spider like monster was the size of a large cat with eight hairy black legs and a fuzzy black body. As terrifying as the spider monster appeared I quickly realized that I felt no fear towards the thing, especially when I found out I was the only one that could see it.
WHile walking to school I watched in the reflection of my phone as my spider stalker darted in between the legs of a stationary female classmate. The girl brushed at her legs having felt the spiders fur rub up against her but saw nothing as she straightened herself back up to talk to her friend. I put away my phone and glanced over my shoulder at the thing. Our eyes met and the spider began to quiver and shake almost in fear before scurrying away at top speed to hide behind some nearby trash cans. I chuckled to myself at the monsters reaction, earning some quizzical looks from the teens walking near me. I glared at them and they looked away, quickening their pace as to create some distance between us. What did I care if they thought me nuts? What did I care if they found me creepy? Which I was, by the way.
Upon reaching the school gates the spider ran to hide in some bushes near the entrance where I was sure it would remain waiting for me until the end of the day. It didn't bother me that I had gained a follower. In fact, I found the small thing almost cute in its shy reactions. It was like being followed by a timid stray cat.

"Today class I have brought us a little game to play to help refresh our mind and train our senses." My teacher chimed as I sat down at my desk near the front of the room. My teacher was a young lady in her mid thirties with flowing brown hair and big brown bambi eyes which she kept hidden behind thick rimmed glasses. She was cheerful by nature but had a strange habit of talking down to us like we were kids which I greatly disliked. I believed myself to be just as capable as any adult. I had been living alone for years after my father took a job overseas and was therefore used to taking care of myself.
My teacher hummed a merry tune as she pulled out several chess boards and placed them on desks around the room.
"Play amongst yourselves. Winner stays seated while loser moves to another table."
She placed a board on my desk and the boy sitting in front of me looked at me with dismay, obviously not happy with his choice in opponent, before turning his chair to face me. I was not a well liked individual within my school and I credited half of that to my cold personality and the other half to my unique features. I was short and slim for a girl my age, I was a sophmore in highschool but gave the appearance that I was closer to fourteen than sixteen. I had a roundish face with big eyes and small lips. My eyes were a deep gray with speckles of robin egg blue and my bleach blonde hair was kept short above my shoulders, a slight bang hanging over my right eye. Unlike my female classmates who dolled up with makeup and cute outfits I kept my face plain and my wardrobe was similar to that of an adolescent boy, oversized gray jackets, baggy jeans, and black t-shirts. I was kinda goth but more like a half assed kind who didn't want to bother keeping up the appearance. I had a bad attitude and a twisted personality and therefore lacked friends and social standing. Not that I cared. I didn't need friends.
I was quickly dragged away from my thoughts as my teachers voice chimed above me.
"Winner~!" She said. Had I lost that quickly? I looked across the table at the dejected male sitting in front of me and then looked down at the board. I had won. But how? I wasn't even paying attention. I didn't even realize that we had started playing.
"Have you played this before?" The boy asked as he reset the chess pieces and stood up so someone else could take his seat.
"Never." I answered as the boy walked away and another girl sat down in his place. She moved forward her pawn and I followed by pushing forward my own. I wasn't sure what I was doing but allowed my hands to move freely, completely detached from my brain.
"Winner~!" The teacher called out again. The girl in front of me pouted grumpily as she stood up and pulled herself away from the seat.
"You're really good at this." She said.
"Beginners luck." I said.
The day continued on and by the time the hour was up I had played eight games and won all of them.
"Checkmate." I said as I took  my opponent's king and held it between my fingers. The woman sitting across from me, my own teacher, looked at me in surprise.
"You're very good." She said as she picked up and put away the pieces. A barely visible blush of embarrassment was flushed across her cheeks.
"Thanks." I said, trying not to sound over confident. Winning felt great but I was trying my hardest not to let the joy of competition get to my head. The teacher put away the boards and the class continued as usual for the next few hours. At half past one we were moving classes and I got bored and decided to ditch. Leaving school early was no easy task as we had hall monitors and teacher guards standing ready at the closed school gates. Luckily for me I had my own secret way out. As we were moving to our next class and snuck down the back hall and into the women's bathroom. I locked myself in the last stall and popped open the small window. I pulled my bag over my shoulder and crawled out of the small opening. We were on the second floor so i had to quickly latch on to the drain pipe and shimmy my way down to the bottom. Once out of the building all I had to do was climb up a tall tree and jump over the fence onto the sidewalk with ease. The streets were mostly empty at this time of day except for small groups of civilians who thumbed around more populated areas near the park. Looking down the empty streets I debated whether  should go see Maddy but then looked at my watch, 1:30, he was probably already in the middle of his afternoon nap and I didnt want to disturb him so I opted out of a trip to the southside of town and instead turned right to head back home. I stopped at an intersection as I caught sight of my spider stalker scurrying around the corner. He had not yet caught sight of me. Slowly I tiptoed along the brick wall to the corner where I got down on the sidewalk on my hands and knees and quickly crawled around the street bend. There was a small yelp as I came face to face with the spider monster, our face mere inches apart. Without hesitation, I quickly reached out to grab it but it scurried back out of my reach. I watched from the floor as it crawled up the side of the brick wall and disappeared into someones backyard. I puffed up my cheeks annoyed at my failure and got up off the floor. Tiny rocks and pebbles were stuck to the skin of my palm and my left arm itched terribly. It had been itching all day and as much as I tried to ignore it I found the sensation overwhelming as I couldn't help but scratch at it.
As I walked down the street I continued to scratch at my sore left arm. Off to my right I could hear the sounds of children laughing as they played in the parks. There parents sat on park benches watching in silence, a few lonely mothers chatting about otherwise meaningless gossip or complaining about their busy schedules. The green grass and glistening fountain offered a pleasant view for the coffee shop across the street. It was almost two and yet the small store was packed with patrons sitting at tables and sipping delicately at white mugs nearly overflowing with the addictive dark liquid. I continued to scratch at my arm as I felt the skin heat up and become irritated. I stopped next to the park and pulled up my jacket sleeve to inspect the infected area. As expected the skin was pink and inflamed from all my scratching but as I looked at I noticed something else. Dull gray lines cascaded across my forearm were faintly visible under the skin. I scratched at them with my thumb and the lines darkened and became more defined creating intricate characters across my arm. I licked my finger and tried to rub one of the marks off but they were imbedded in my skin like a tattoo. As I rubbed my thumb over one of the characters I was startled to see it move underneath my skin. I removed my hand in fright and the character began to glow faintly. I stared at it in awe when an earsplitting scream resonated from across the street. I looked over to the cafe on my left just in time to see a coffee cup fall off of an outdoor table and shatter on the concrete floor. The woman at the table screamed again as a bright red liquid was sprayed against her legs. Several other customers at the cafe stood up from their tables in shook as they gestured and called for the staff to come help. My interest piqued, I inched closer to the chaos and peered into the cups on the nearest table. Cups that should've been filled with hot coffee were instead filled to the brim with a dark red substance. As the confused employees tried to calm the frantic customers, some of who were gagging and coughing after having ingested the strange liquid, I heard more screams to my right. The screams of young children. I ran over to the park and stood in awe at the sight before me. The small park fountain which usually bubble with crystal clear water now gurgled up the same sticky re liquid. Children playing in the fountain ran to their parents in fear, their short bottoms and dresses dripping red. Out of the frantic eyes of the park patrons I crept to the side of the fountain and dipped my hand in bringing a cup full of the liquid to my face. The liquid was warm in my hands and smelt sickenly of iron. I let the liquid fall back into the fountain as I wiped the remains off on my pant legs. There was no doubt in my mind, the liquid in the fountain was blood.