"For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways"
~ Psalm 91:11
1996
There's something so brutally poetic about a dead girl surrounded by destruction and chaos. Angela Hernandez was a source of destruction and chaos before karma caught up with her. She was surrounded by the thrill of it all; she used the destruction for her personal gain, chaos was her friend, and it kissed her on the lips each time she went to bed.
But this time, destruction and chaos have betrayed her; this time, she's the one drowning in her own demise and antagonism, not the girl she called fat down the hall, or the boy she called a loser for eating alone at the cafeteria or the woman she called weak because her husband cheated on her with another woman.
So much for feminism, blame the woman for her husband cheating.
But Angela never saw herself as a feminist, did she liked being a young girl who ruled her school? Yes, but she didn't want anyone else to rule over her; she wanted to be the only one on that throne, and no one dared to fight her for it, or they would be killed by her father.
It's not like her father was a murderer or anything. There was a rumour going around that her father was a part of the mafia, and it wasn't some random racist who thinks that Mexicans or people of colour can't be rich without being involved in some kind of criminal activity, but it was Angela who spread the rumour.
St Bernard's is an elite school in New York filled with super-rich white kids with powerful parents. Her dad was rich and powerful, but he didn't stand a chance, so she decided why not create a lie that would make her feared the most.
And so the rumour spread, and the students and the teachers were scared to cross her. If they crossed her, then she'd get revenge by herself, and if they crossed her, her father might deal with them and their family for hurting his little girl.
They didn't want to cross a line they couldn't finish.
So, yes, Angela has been the queen of the school since Freshman year, hated by most, adored and loved by some. But most of all, hated by all.
How she got into the car accident she's in now, is safe to say it was also her fault.
She played a very expensive prank on one of her classmates just because she was fat, and it ended up killing her.
Patricia Johnson, aka Fatty Patty to Angela disturbed Angela's soul simply because she was fat. So she decided to teach her a lesson.
Get one of her handsome,e popular friends to pretend to like Patricia, invite her to the school's pool at night and then prank her. Because Patricia wasn't used to getting male attention, she agreed, and she went to school at night expecting a nice time with a nice, handsome, popular boy, only to be met with a prank instead.
Angela and her friends dressed up as masked killers to scare Patricia. Patricia did get scared, which is a valid reaction when one sees masked killers with knives headed your way.
In the process of trying to run away from them, she falls into the pool and struggles to get out. Angela and her friends obviously didn't care that she was drowning; they removed their masks and laughed and laughed and laughed. They got Fatty Patty so good.
"That's what you get for being so fat, bitch!" Angela spits out, which is what she loves to do. Spitting out venom toward people, blackmailing people, threatening them and making them feel small. It makes her feel good. So, of course, pranking someone who isn't deemed as society's expectation of beautiful would be funny and good to her.
It wasn't funny anymore when she stopped moving, and the water was quiet. A boy dived headfirst into the water, bringing her out. And when he started to perform CPR on her, the kids' faces dropped, and they became scared as hell. And when the guy who saved her announced she didn't have a pulse. They began to panic.
They had killed a girl, and they were going to get in trouble for it; they were going to jail for it. And Angela already had plans to throw her back in the water and run away so a janitor would see her.
That's the thing about her brain, it always comes up with a diabolical plan.
But before she could even bring the plan out of her heart-shaped lips, police officers arrived on time and told them to put their hands in the air and get on the ground.
It was obvious that someone tipped them off. But who?
Angela's boyfriend, Keith whom she had been in an off and on relationship. Or her best friend Nicole, whom Angela had always thought was jealous of her.
She didn't know; all she knew was that she and her friends were in deep trouble.
Patricia's parents ended up not pressing charges, although they were scarred, they didn't want to ruin the kids' lives for the dumb mistakes they made.
But they were still punished, one punished more than the others.
While others were suspended, Angela was expelled.
Turned out her friends told the principal that it was all Angela's idea, even though Angela told them to tell the principal they all came up with it. They threw her under the bus, and they were never going to have her back after this one. This one involved manslaughter, and they didn't want to be seen as killers.
So they got two weeks' suspension while Angela got expelled entirely, and her father did not like it.
He decided it would be a good idea to send Angela to a Catholic boarding school to mend her behaviour. Angela protested, but her dad obviously did not care.
"You have brought shame to this family! No entiendes," her father yelled, full of rage. Her mother just stayed quiet, and she had been quiet since she learned about what her daughter had done and what she had been doing to others.
Angela had no choice, she was going to a catholic boarding school, and that was final.
Which leads us to the moment of the accident. Angela's father, Mr Federico Hernandez, decided to take his daughter to the boarding school; no chauffeur was taking her this time. It was she and her parents as she endured hours of shouting and scolding.
Angela talks back at her parents, her mother, Mrs Violetta Hernandez, argues with her daughter. Now everyone's arguing in the car.
"I know you've always wanted a son and not a daughter." Angela cries.
"What are you talking about?"
"I overheard you and Mom while you were arguing again. I still don't understand why you two don't just get a divorce, you obviously don't love each other anymore!" she says, trying to wipe the tears off her eyes.
"What my mother and I discuss or do is none of your business!"
"Yes, maybe you should have focused on your books instead of going about to terrorise your classmates."
"But it is my business! Maybe I'm the way I am because of you two."
"Do no spin this on us! You were the one who decided to"
BOOM!
A truck hits their car and it goes spinning over and over, glass cutting their skin, head and body hitting the headboard.
Pain, both emotional and physical.
The car hits the ground and is severely damaged.
Angela crawls out of the car, but she feels weak, she feels pain all over her body, and she's beginning to lose the feeling in her legs.
There's no mirror in sight to see how damaged her face and body are. There's blood everywhere, the whole place smells like smoke, and her lips taste like iron.
"Mo…Mom, Dad," she says quietly. But they don't answer back. They're both dead.
She feels herself giving out her last breath.
And when she does, all the memories begin to resurface.
Her being brought into this world, her life as a child, back when her parents loved each other. The girl was before she became rotten.
Shopping with her friends, kissing her boyfriend Keith for the first time, loving Keith, hating him and loving him again.
Terrorising people and killing Patricia.
She watches the burning car, her dead parents and her dead body. For her to see her dead body means she is truly dead. She's gone.
The ambulance is here, but there's no one to save; everyone's dead.
"They're all dead." One of the paramedics says in disappointment.
Of course they are, who would survive such a crash?
"Poor girl." A female paramedic says while looking at Angela's body. "She was so young."
"I didn't mean to, I didn't mean to, they came out of nowhere!" The truck driver who hit them cries. He feels hurt by all this.
"It's okay, it wasn't your fault." The paramedics take him to the ambulance to attend to his injuries and take him to the hospital.
Angela watches as the firefighters get rid of the fire, and they cover her parents' dead bodies. They're about to cover Angela. But then something catches Angela's eye.
A white light, no golden falling from the sky. What could it be? She's the only one who can see it; the others can't. Which means it must be something supernatural. Something only ghosts can see.
Angela watches the golden halo fall straight into her body, and the next thing she knows, she's no longer standing looking at her body; she's back in her physical body and the pain she felt before comes back. Her eyes are open, and she's looking at the paramedics who are about to cover her up.
"Wait! She's alive!" they yell.
"What? How is that poss-ssible?" The paramedic stops in shock when he sees Angela's eyes wide open. She is alive, and Angela also doesn't know why or how.
But she knows it has something to do with that halo that fell from the sky.