The Celeste Crimson Chronicals

[Bernkastel]

To let you guys further get an idea of my created charater Celeste Crimson, I wrote a collection of chapters detailing her life, and maybe, by reading this, you guys can get an idea of what Celeste is really all about and better understand her as you read my shows, after all, Celeste is the brightest shinning star in UWWF.

Chapter 1
Celeste’s early life​

This story is about a girl, a girl who overcomes unspeakable tragedies, a life threatening illness, and a multitude of other obstacles to become one of the top female freestyle fighters in the world. Celeste was born in 1975 in Sacramento, to Kenneth and Mikayla Crimson. Her father, who was born in California in 1949, was just starting his career has an architect. Her mother, who was born in Moscow, Russia in 1948, had recently started college to earn a degree in Russian communications. Mikayla had been seriously injured a few years back while fighting in a tournament in China. One of her lungs had collapsed and her throat partially closed. This was partially due to a lung condition that Mikayla was born with. She had to get reconstruction surgery on her lungs and was sidelined from the tournament. She decided to settle down and start a family of her own after finding out her twin sister had moved to the States as well as her brother. Plus her mother had died making it that much difficult. When Mikayla was young, she didn’t want kids, nor did she want to get married. She just wanted to focus on her fighting career.
She had first met her husband on a cruise through the Balkans. Kenneth had booked the trip as a way to relax after being released from a 5 year jail sentence. He had temporarily moved to Russia because he had gotten a job offer to help design a cathedral in Moscow. He and Mikayla found each other interesting, and she found herself falling for him despite herself. There was a bit of a language barrier between them, but Mikayla already spoke a little English. She had been taking classes to learn the language since she eventually wanted to move to America anyway. Kenneth and Mikayla got married in 1970, 5 years before Celeste was born. In 1978 Mikayla participated in a tournament held in Tibet called the Devil’s Gauntlet, an all masters and grandmasters tournament. It was one of the most prestigious tournaments held in the world. 200 of the best men and women of all different fighting styles came here to fight every year. Mikayla had won her division in the tournament 3 times in the past ten years and was looking to add a 4th to her resume. She recently had suffered from heath problems that were deteriorating her lungs and heart. Also added problems due to asthma caused her to surrender the Russian Women’s Jujitsu Freestyle Championship and she was sidelined for the remainder of the year. She had formed a tumor on her lungs and let it go unnoticed for months. She collapsed in the semifinals of the week long tournament and was airlifted to a hospital in Beijing. She underwent surgery to remove the tumor; then she spent the remainder of that year recovering. She later moved, with her husband, to the US to Sacramento, California. Celeste was born later the next year in July. As a youngster Celeste was into everything, she always seemed to get hurt, but always managed to get back up. She was also very quiet, especially in the years when most toddlers are co-dependant on their parents. It never really occurred to Mikayla or Kenneth that their daughter might have disease that might ultimately take away her ability to feel pain, as they thought none the wiser and they let Celeste do whatever she pleased, even enrolling her into a junior martial arts program when she was 3. Celeste used to love watching her mother fight in tournaments on black and white videos, stating that she wanted to be a fighter just like her mother.

After her brother Chris was born in 1978, Celeste and her family moved to a small private community called Evansville located about an hour and 10 minutes from Sacramento. Her mother didn’t notice anything weird about her until she was 4. Celeste was at the park with her mother and baby brother. She was on the swing set being pushed by her mother when her mother had to tend to her brother who started to cry. Celeste protested but only swung higher and higher. “Look what I can do mommy,” she yelled. She was intending to jump out of the swing at the height of her jump. “Not so high, honey,” complained her mom. Since it was a busy playground she didn’t want Celeste to hurt any of the other kids. Mikayla had finished calming down Chris and was putting him back in his stroller when she heard a child scream behind her. She turned around just in time to see another child run across Celeste’s path just before she jumped. She yelled in surprise as she half jumped out of the swing, her momentum flipping her upside down and landing her on her head. Mikayla rushed over to her daughter half expecting her to be crying out in pain, but to her surprise, Celeste just got up and smiled at her.
Upon examining her, Mikayla found Celeste’s wrists to be a little bruised but nothing serious. Upon further examination the next day she found that her wrists had swollen up and the bruise had gone a brown to a deep blue. After talking to her husband her mother found a sitter for her son and took Celeste to the emergency room. After an hour of wait the doctor had some surprising news as he stood outside Celeste’s room with her mom. “Looking at the x-rays it’s apparent that your daughter has broken her wrist.” “Excuse me?” asked Mikayla after a moment. “How can that be?” “Do you have a problem with this?” asked the doctor. “N- No” stammered Mikayla. “I just don’t see how it could work.” “Well the x-rays clearly point to a break” the doctor explained as he pointed to the photos. “Do you remember how this happened?” he asked her. “Yea she fell off a swing set in the park.” “And how long ago was this?” “That’s the problem, it was two days ago.” “Hmm, that does seem a little weird” “And she didn’t complain at all? He asked. “No” “Huh, well I going to look her over just in case” he said has he entered the small hospital room. Celeste was sitting on the bed reading a children’s book. “Celeste”, her mother got her attention. “The doctor wants to ask you a few questions, is that okay?” “Sure”, said her daughter and flashed him a smile. Mikayla looked on has the doctor asked her if she remembered what had happened and if she felt any pain. Celeste politely answered the questions and answered “No” went asked if anything was wrong by both the doctor and her mother.

Mikayla remembered all of the broken bones she endured as a fighter. From broken arms and fingers, and hands to feet, ankles, and legs to collarbones to broken ribs and even a broken neck. Every single one of the injuries hurt like hell and it was worse to recuperate and heal. It was a big deal to suffer any kind of break or sprain, especially in her line of work, but yet her daughter just sits here and treats this as Childs play. Mikayla watched as the doctor applied a red cast of Celeste’s choosing. This is insane, thought Mikayla. There’s no way that she can’t feel anything. Either that or she just tough, really tough, and she’s only 4! She thought about the first time she saw her daughter as she stared into her hazel colored eyes after the doctor laid her in her arms after she was born. I knew she was going to be different in some way or some how, but this is ridiculous. “There you go” the doctor said when he was done. “Now you have to wear this for 6 weeks before I can take it off, ok.” “Ok” Celeste responded. Mikayla asked her daughter to wait in here while she talked to the doctor again. “So is everything fine with her.” “Yes as far as I can see she is fine, but Mrs. Crimson just for the record your daughter has been the only child I have ever treated in my entire career that hasn’t in some sort of pain. She acted like she felt totally nothing and didn’t even respond even when I squeezed the break. And I don’t think it was a display of self control. Some adults can’t deal with the pain from a break.” “I agree” responded Mikayla” Celeste opened the door and asked her mother if they could go. “Almost sweetie” “I encourage you to have her see a doctor for a full physical, but to me she seems fine. “Alright Celeste, lets go.”
Over the next week Mikayla started to see more examples that just confirmed that something was wrong. After two days from getting her arm bandaged, Celeste cut her finger with a pair of scissors then, to Mikayla’s horror, she stuck her hand under the hot water faucet; both times she neither cried nor complained. The second incident left both her parents puzzled. She had gotten a pair of roller skates for her birthday. She had been bugging her father for a while to go out with her a watch her skate. Celeste’s father left to answer a phone call and told her mother to watch her. That was before Celeste decided to practice her new tactic of stopping by hitting the car. Her scream brought both of them to her aid. When she got up and started to skate again her parents were puzzled. She only skated a few feet before falling on her butt, she continued to get back up and fall until her mother went back inside and her father stayed and watched her skate some more.
That night Kenneth and Mikayla decided that Celeste must see a pediatrician. On that following Monday, Mikayla explained her daughter’s plight. The pediatrician said that Celeste obviously had something wrong but he couldn’t classify it. Otherwise she was perfectly healthy. The pediatrician forwarded Mikayla to a specialist in Salt Lake City, Utah. After the necessary preparations, Celeste left with her mother for the trip to Utah. Once there the specialist, by the name of George Winston, immediately saw concern with Celeste. “I want to keep her overnight just to make sure that we be accurate on all the tests. I promise she will be taken care of.” “Whatever you think is necessary. Because Dr. Winston I saw my daughter walk around with a broken wrist for two days and not cry or complain once.” Mikayla stated. “Now do you think that’s normal at all?” “No I don’t, that’s why my team and I want to examine your daughter, Mrs. Crimson, to find out if there is anything seriously wrong with Celeste.” So Celeste stayed the night and the doctors ran their tests while her mother stayed in a hotel not far from the clinic.
The next morning Mikayla came back to receive some somber news from the doctor. “It’s been suggested that she has a rare neuropathy disease that prevents her from feeling pain. “Jesus” said Mikayla. “So you mean she’ll be completely impervious to pain?” “Yes, that’s correct, but we have to classify her condition before we can properly treat it.” “You mean there’s no cure for this thing that she has?” It depends” “Is it fatal?” asked Mikayla sounding desperate. “Again it just depends. There are certain classifications of the disease that are not curable and there are some that are. Though only the fatal ones are treatable.” “What.” “To be blunt Mrs. Crimson, 1 in 10,000,000 people born in the world will get a form of this disease and I’ll be honest, there is a chance that your daughter could have a life threatening illness.” “Oh my god” Mikayla cried. “It’s extremely important that you and your husband and later on your daughter to know the importance of this.” “If it was fatal you did say it was treatable” “yes” “so what are the odds that Celeste has one that wasn’t fatal.” “Again I’m not sure; we’ll have to keep Celeste another night to run more tests. After that you can take her home.” So Mikayla left and came back the next morning to get Celeste. Dr. Winston told Mikayla to be aware of her daughter and the things that she could to herself and not even know it. He also said that it could be several weeks before he and his team could find anything but if she noticed anything new she should call him right away.

She filled Kenneth in about the situation with Celeste. “That’s crazy. So she could cut her arm off and not feel a thing?” “That’s right” said his wife. “That also means that we have to be twice as careful around her.” “You mean I have to be twice as careful because you’re never here.” “Yea,” laughed Kenneth. “I don’t think you should worry about this too much, I’m sure things will work themselves out. But did you ever talk to that doctor about the medical expenses of such a disease? I’m sure we’ll go broke just paying for one year’s worth.” “Don’t worry, in a few years I’ll have my degree and then I’ll be able to bring some money home as well” his wife put in. “That’s true.”
The following Thursday Celeste came into her parents room complaining about throwing up all the sudden on her floor. She said it just happened, “I didn’t feel anything then I just threw up.” Her mother said she felt extremely hot and when she took her temperature it read 104 degrees. Mikayla then gave her some aspirin and tucked her back into bed. She asked her if she was scared about possibly having to start meds for this illness. Celeste stated she liked not being able to feel any pain because it made her special; it set her apart from everyone else. Mikayla told her she needed to be careful, especially with the martial arts program she was signed up with. If she got hurt again then no one would know about it. Celeste said that she would be more careful. “That’s my girl” as Mikayla kissed her and went back to bed. Celeste’s began to get better over the weekend thanks to the antibiotics that her mother went out and bought for her. Mikayla got a call from the doctors in Utah saying that they were close to classifying Celeste’s case; they just needed her birth records.

It wasn’t until that Monday afternoon that Celeste came to her mother complaining about throwing up again. This time she didn’t give an answer when her mother asked her what was wrong. Instead she puked blood all over her mother and then passed out on the floor. Her mother rushed her to the hospital, while calling her husband to rush home and watch Chris. Celeste ended up staying at the primary children’s center at the Sacramento hospital where she lay unconscious for nearly a week before waking up. Mikayla immediately called the doctors in Utah when she got home.
When she finally awoke she found her father sitting beside her. “What’s up sport?” he asked her as he got up to give her a hug. “Hey Mika, she’s awake” Celeste’s mother came in with a smile on her face as she hugged her. “I missed you” her mother said. Then Mikayla turned back as her husband was talking to a nurse. She turned back to her daughter and started to stroke her light blonde hair. “I love you” she told her daughter as see looked into her daughters eyes. All of the sudden Mikayla’s entire grin turned into a frown then to fear as she gasped in horror, unable to speak. “Kenneth, get in here and look at this!” “What” he asked as she stood, pointing at Celeste’s face. “What’s wrong mommy?” asks Celeste, who’s confused as her mother cringes at the sight of her. “Honey y-your-your” “Holy S**t her eyes are two different colors!” yells her father. He runs into the hallway and grabs the doctor and shows Celeste to him “Look at that! No way in hell am I paying for this shit, Hell No! This has to be some malpracticed hospital conspiracy!” As he’s trying to argue with the doctor that his daughter couldn’t have passed out with one eye and wake up with two, Mikayla ran down the hall to the receptionist. She borrowed the phone and dialed the number to the clinic in Utah. “Hello, can I help you” the receptionist asked. “Yes Dr. Winston’s office please” “hold one moment, please”……. “Hello” “Dr. Winston, hi this is Mikayla Crimson. I’m calling on behalf of my daughter. “Yes I see did you see some side effects?” she explained to him the whole ordeal of Celeste passing out, being unconscious, then waking up and having “one blue eye and one brown eye.” Winston told her that heterochromia was often caused by HSAN. “I am concerned about her passing out though; I just want to triple check my research and I’ll get back with you later. In the meantime just try and keep your daughter safe and happy,” replied the doctor. “Will do” responded Mikayla.

Later late that night she got an urgent call from Dr. Winston. “It would seem that Celeste is fortunate enough not to have a life threatening form of this disease, however, without medication, it seems that your daughters nerves are slowly deteriorating. It seems that going the research again I found that that the disease is treatable, allowing your daughter to feel natural pain, and allow the natural growth of her nervous system. As long as she keeps up with her medication she at no risk. But it is important that she take her meds, because if she were to slack, then further deterioration of her nerves and that could potentially put her at risk for more diseases. I need you to bring Celeste back to the clinic so she can receive the medication we prepared for her. The medication will make her better and I promise I will explain the whole thing when you bring her. I also strongly advise that both you and your husband come with her.” “Alright, thank you so much Dr. Winston.”
Later that month, Kenneth and Mikayla brought Celeste back to the Clinic. As she received her medication via an IV, Winston filled her parents in on what was going on. “The disease that Celeste has, the doctor explained, was treatable through medication. This medication would help her to feel the pain that she can’t normally feel without it, like a normal person. She has to take this once a day he told them so you guys help her with it until she can do it herself.” “So what’s this disease called,” asked Kenneth.” It’s called HSAN for short or Hereditary Sensory Autonomic Neuropathy if you want to get technical. This form of HSAN, while not deadly can cause considerable damage to the nervous system if left unchecked. Another common form of the disease is ASAN which stands for Automatic Sensory Autonomic Neuropathy which isn’t curable but it won’t kill you.” “What about the eye thing, will it go away?” “I’m afraid not, that’s something she’s going to have to live with for the rest of her life.” “Damn well I guess someone might find her attractive in the future.” “Kenneth, that’s a terrible thing to say.” said Mikayla. “Yea but I’m just sayin. God please don’t let there be anything wrong with the boy.” Mikayla made a face, “how much is this going to cost us?” “Do you have insurance?” “Yes, why?” “Your insurance will cover it, so don’t worry about it.” “That’s good to know,” said Kenneth. The nurses returned with Celeste who looked extremely uncomfortable. “It’s natural the first time you take the meds. In her case I give you props Mikayla for catching this so quick. If it had gone on for a few more weeks then she could have developed permanent damage to her .” “Thank you so much for everything Dr.” “No problem, just have take the meds twice a day and she’ll be fine.”
Celeste struggled for the rest of the year getting the hang of taking the meds. And as she grew older there was a new obstacle she faced. Ridicule; for being different from everyone else. She was considered a freak and an outcast and no one wanted to be around her. She quickly started to grow bitter and quickly wished the people around her would stop. Her mother was not aware of the verbal beatings her daughter endured everyday and the thoughts that crossed her mind. She didn’t think it was odd that Celeste was putting her martial arts training before everything, even flunking out of several classes. Mikayla didn’t think it weird that Celeste had her first black belt at age 10 or that she was attempting to self teach herself advanced Jujitsu. Mikayla was enjoying her new career even though she knew she wouldn’t see her kids as much, as both were growing up quickly. It wasn’t until she got that first report from school saying that Celeste beat down two boys then tied them to a fence, afterwards she hung them both out for public display. Indeed what was sudden change in her family. How did her daughter grow so bitter and how did her son grow up so fast? Now he’s is out playing football, getting hurt and doing things that boys do. And now she can feel her blood boiling as she finds that her son’s room is still a mess and upon inspection of her daughter’s room she finds the secret trashcan were her daughter has been putting all her unused needles and pouring her medication down the drain. “D**n it Celeste, now there’s going to be hell to pay.”

end chapter one​

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[Bernkastel]

Chapter 2
Psychotic Break

“You got some nerve you f*****g freak!” Shelly yelled at Celeste after she and the rest of the Moore Middle School cheerleaders cornered her and her best friend on a Friday afternoon, just outside the mall. Shelly Durante was not only the queen bee of her squad but also the most powerful girl in her school, who ruled with an iron fist alongside her friends. Celeste had been targeted by this group since the day she had arrived. Shelly, who saw Celeste as an immediate threat, had tried to do everything to crack her. She verbally berated her, and berated her family. She called her father prison trash and her mother a communist. Celeste reacted by threatening to kill her if she ever said anything like that to her again. Shelly then went to the principal and had Celeste suspended.
Since no one had ever dared to stand up to Shelly, let alone threaten to kill her, she decided to have a little fun with her as she ruined what was left of her pathetic life. Once Celeste came back, Shelly had the whole school turn against her as Shelly spread nasty rumors and even tricked Celeste into releasing her anger on a few unfortunate souls. “This”, Shelly had said “would show people who she really was.” Shelly already knew how Celeste acted. She knew that Celeste had a black belt and that she used martial arts to seriously hurt people for her own pleasure. She also knew that Celeste had been kicked out of two schools prior to coming here and she been arrested for assault. Shelly had seen Celeste’s power and wanted it for herself. She wanted to use Celeste as an attack dog to sic on other kids when they disobeyed her.
Shelly personally went to Celeste and apologized for her past actions and offered her a position of power. Celeste declined saying “why should I lower myself to your standards, I have my own life.” “You’re making a mistake if you think you can just walk out on me, Celeste.” “Yea and what makes you think I won’t kill you where you stand?’ “Because I know you don’t want to go back to juvee.” Shelly replied. Test me and I might just prove you wrong.” “Don’t you get it, I own this school, and I control the teachers and students. Without my family there would be no school. I make the rules and if you walk out I swear I’ll make your life a living hell you dumbshit freaky eyed bitc…” she’s choked on her words as Celeste held her by the throat before she can finish. Celeste holds her by the throat then suddenly twists her arm and flips her onto her back. Celeste then pulls her right arm up while pushing down on her throat with her shoe while Shelly struggles in vain to free herself. ‘You mean nothing to me you fucking ****. If you get in my way you’ll die like the rest of them” Celeste said grimly.
From that moment on Shelly did everything to make Celeste’s life a living hell. She did everything from threatening her to embarrassing her in public, to calling her names to physically hurting her family and the friends she did have. Celeste finally drew the line when her best friend Pricilla called her house crying and told her that Dylan and Morgan Masters, two football players from her school, cornered her and one of Celeste’s other friends outside the movie theatre that afternoon and threatened to hurt them if she and the other girl didn’t give them information on what Celeste was going to do that week. Priscilla refused so Morgan grabbed her and threw her to the ground while Dylan grabbed Celeste’s other friend. Morgan asked Pricilla to comply again and when she told him nothing he punched her hard in the face, breaking her nose. She tells Celeste that while Dylan had restrained her friend and was busy tying her to a light post nearby.
Celeste could feel her anger rising as she thought if Shelly would send two powerhouses like the Masters brothers. Pricilla went on to say that Morgan had confessed a lot of weird stuff to her and as he professed his love to her he asked her why such a beautiful girl had never hooked up with a group as powerful as Shelly’s. He told her that in a more perfect world they would be together but the world isn’t perfect. He tells her that Morgan told her that “Shelly doesn’t like them converging with the enemy but that’s not going to stop me from having my fun with you.” Pricilla manages to choke out the next sentence as she told how Morgan told her not to scream has he started to pull her pants down. Pricilla cries as she told Celeste how she bit his hand as an attempt to get away only to get roughed up a bit more. As Morgan begins to force himself on her, his brother came running up and told him that Michele had gotten away and had ran to get help so they split. “And the bastard just left you there?’ Celeste asked her. “Until Michele came back for me, yes. Celeste, at this point I don’t care if you killed everyone in that school I would plead your case.” “Did you talk to your dad?” asked Celeste? “No I called you because I knew you’d want to help.” “Anything for a friend Pricilla; I’ll make sure to break every bone in that that fat piece of s**t’s body before I ever let him touch you or anyone else again” Celeste tells her, thoroughly pissed. “Just as long as I can see it happen” said Pricilla. Celeste knew that the conflict between her and Shelly Durante had gone on way to long enough. “I hate the school too, if I had my way I’d have it bulldozed.”


Celeste’s home life wasn’t much better either. Her relationship with her mother had worsened over the years due to lack of communication and due to the fact that her mother was never home. Celeste and her mother constantly argued about everything. Mikayla did not like all the fights that Celeste got into and every time she would get into trouble Mikayla would lecture her on controlling her temper and how fighters use their abilities as a last resort and every time Celeste would ignore her. Celeste kept referring to her life in general as a fucked up shit factory, and so many times had she complained about her life to her parents. She complained how horrible her school was, how mean some of the other kids were, the teachers won’t do anything to help her and the principal won’t give her the time or place. Mikayla knew about the problems at the school because she had asked the school to do something about the problems and every time the school just turned her away and she plus she and her husband couldn’t afford to send Celeste to a private school what with the expensive medication she was taking.
Mikayla always worried for her daughter because she was always getting kicked out of school for getting into fights and at home they never got along. Celeste always saw Mikayla as the enemy perhaps because she was the one who always told her no. Celeste hated authority of any kind and she hated being told she was wrong. Ever since she had hit puberty she had been more prone to violence then she ever was. Mikayla and Kenneth both knew there was something wrong with their daughter when they got the calls from school telling them that Celeste had gotten into another fight. Mikayla remembers many times sitting with Celeste and her teachers and the principal arguing over the new mess that Celeste had made. Kenneth suggested public school after she had gotten expelled from two private schools. Mikayla didn’t want to send her to public school but they had no other choice, plus Moore Middle was notoriously known for violence and drugs. She knew that Celeste would be like a ticking time bomb, ready to explode at the first sign of hostility.
Mikayla was also worried about Celeste grades and every time they talked about them she would explode. Soon after Celeste had earned her first black belt, Mikayla had earned the rank of Rokudan, or Master, in Jujitsu. Besides from being a rokudan, Mikayla was also a Russian national Sambo champion. She had been teaching Celeste jujitsu since she was 3, but she opted to begin training Celeste in Sambo as well. Mikayla had taught students before, but choosing to train her daughter was clearly her biggest challenge. Most good students would obey their masters and wouldn’t ask questions, but not Celeste. Celeste made it a bad habit of taking the anger she had on life out on her mother, either by verbally abusing her, never listening to her and using the moves and techniques her mother taught her to hurt other people. Several times Celeste tried to attack her mother, either by jumping her from behind or by lunging at her throat, not caring if she would kill her or not; and every time Mikayla would have to restrain her until she was calm or threaten to ground her or even call the cops if she was that out of control. Mikayla refused to enter her into any tournaments, knowing that it would be a bloodbath waiting to happen. That and because of Celeste’s behavior at school, her grades, and the rampage she goes on when she fights is inhuman. Its like a tiger lusting after the blood of its fallen prey, Celeste knows no pain even though she can feel it. There would be no way in hell that Mikayla would ever allow Celeste anywhere near a tournament mat, a least not until she could figure out the temper that her daughter could never seem to control. Mikayla never seemed to get answers out of her daughter.
She knew her daughter had had trouble in school and begin to wonder if their was more to her negative attitude that she let on. Celeste had struggled in school both mentally and physically for years now and Mikayla and Kenneth never could find suitable treatment for her. Some of the meds she would take would react violently with the meds she had to take for her HSAN. The doctors tried different combinations to get her meds corrected but Celeste always acted the same way. Mikayla always wondered if her daughter could be bi-polar but she never really considered it. Maybe it was because since she herself had the disease she never put two and two together. Though Celeste had the basic teenage drama going on in her life she always managed to maximize it. She had gone though a bought of depression that took her several months to recover from. She would go from sad to angry to happy to sad back to angry that it made her mom wonder aloud if she really was Bi- polar. After the repeated incidents that happened at Moore, Mikayla decided that it was time to have her tested. Maybe if she was bi- polar, thought Mikayla, the doctors could finally put her on medication that will help her get her life back on track. Mikayla had taken Celeste to a specialist in Sacramento that would run some tests on her.
The tests were simple, the instructor showed her ink photos and asked her what see saw, she had to answer a few questions about herself and her family. They also took several blood samples to test with. She got along with the instructors there and answered their questions honestly. Usually she got along okay with physiatrists that asked her about herself. Lastly she had to answer two lengthy questionnaires with many questions that took her most of the day. Her mother had left her and had gone to pick up her brother from school and take him to basketball practice. Chris was one of the few people, besides Celeste’s dad, to escape her wrath. Probably because for the first time Chris had outgrown his sister and could now out power her or at least out smart her when they did fight. They both went to Moore Middle and they both hated it. Mikayla knew that it probably wasn’t the best school for them but she and her husband couldn’t afford to send both Celeste and Chris to private schools, especially since Celeste kept getting kicked out of all the schools she was sent to.
Mikayla knew that Celeste was close to being kicked out of Moore because of all the notices that the school sent Mikayla and Kenneth about her behavior. Celeste had become such a handful at home that Mikayla had to temporally terminate Celeste’s sambo lessons because she was out of control and she was failing classes so Mikayla had stopped the lessons until Celeste restrained herself and brought her grades up. The only person that could really get Celeste to listen was her dad. And for some reason Celeste usually listened, which provoked heated arguments between Mikayla and Kenneth about parenting Celeste. The doctor had said that Celeste had done well and it appeared that she was indeed bi- polar but it seemed that she had also experienced a psychotic break more than once, escorted by hallucinations and extreme paranoia. The doctor gave her a diagnosing of Bipolar Schizo Affective Disorder, he said that usually bi-polar schizo afflictive disorder skips a generation, but was is possible to be genetic. He then gave her some suitable medication for her that wouldn’t disrupt her HSAN meds. He told Mikayla to bring Celeste back if there were any problems. And since Mikayla was bi- polar maybe she could help her daughter better understand what was going on, if she didn’t know already. Mikayla prayed silently for her daughter that night and she thought, to herself, all the times that she had neglected Celeste for not reading her signs more carefully. Both she and Kenneth had been so caught up with work that it gave them little time as a family. And besides the time she spent training Celeste. She knew how it felt to feel like your different from everybody and no one cares about you. She should have been a better parent and read her daughter’s signs more carefully. “But wasn’t it obvious?” She asked herself.
She had seen first hand her daughter get humiliated by a group of kids that pointed and laughed at her as she picked Celeste up from school. She could see them gawking at her and making faces at her. She wanted to hurt the little bastards for doing it but she pretended like she didn’t notice and got into the car and drove away, forcing herself not to look at the hurt expression on her daughters face. She knew that Celeste didn’t have very many friends and she thanked god that Celeste had a friend like Pricilla that didn’t care if Celeste had a defect or not. She had heard what had happened to her from Celeste after she came storming downstairs and told her what had happened. “That’s horrible! Did she talk to her father or the police?” “No” Celeste said “She called me.” “What do you expect to do about it?” Mikayla asked. “Well tomorrow if a teacher calls home and tells you that I have permanently disfigured two football players and a half a dozen cheerleaders and the police have shut down the school and sent me to a triple lockdown don’t be surprised.” “What! Don’t you even think about hurting someone again, you know you’re really close to being expelled?” “Good, it’s not like I like the school, if I had it my way I’d burn the f****r to the ground.” “Celeste, you can’t say things like that, saying things like that will get you killed!” “Yeah right” “It will! Look, you could have all the black belts in the world and that won’t help you if some points a gun to your head. “Easy just take the gun outta their hand, no big deal.” “Yeah you try that Celeste and see what happens; you’d have to have special training to know how to handle a gun. Special training that takes time to master and I don’t think you’d have the patience. I just don’t want you walking around thinking your god. Realize that there’s always someone above you, in this case it would be the police, don’t worry about it, and let them handle it.” “How can I mom? Shelly will just win in the end.” “Shelly. Shelly Durante? Was she behind this?” “Yeah, she and her gang.” “Then I’ll call the school and notify them.” “You don’t get it, Mom, Shelly is the school, since her dad funds more than half of the school, Shelly does whatever she wants and gets away with it, its bulls**t!” “I’m sure that the police-“ “again, mom, her dad is one of the most powerful men in the state, I’m sure if they get sued or if something happens I’m sure he’ll bail them all out.” “Even if that’s true I don’t want you to take matters into your own hands, please.” Mikayla pleaded with her daughter has she ponders the last thought. “Fine, but if any of the kids get in my way I’m going to take them out.” “Whatever you do Celeste, remember that we have to go back to the doctors for a blood test, so don’t do anything crazy alright.” “Fine” Celeste answers smugly.


As Kenneth dropped Chris and Celeste off at the bus stop the next morning he made sure that Celeste understood that she stood stay out of whatever was going on at the school and to leave it to the police. He apologized to Celeste for her having to go there but since she keeps getting kicked out of every school they send her to and plus their money was tight. But next year for high school, he promises her she can go to whatever school she wants. “Fine Daddy,” “Just remember to use your brain and keep working on your assignments.” He tells Chris that he’ll be in later that evening to see his basketball game. Then he drives away leaving the two on the curb waiting for the bus. Chris is one of the few people that isn’t intimidated by his big sister. Even though he’s in 6th grade he’s still bigger than Celeste though she’s already 5’7.
Chris is already as taller than his mother and is the biggest kid in his class. He had the chance to take up martial arts but instead took up basketball. He has made it his goal to one day make it to the NBA to try and outdo his sister since it’s her goal to be the best fighter in the world. Many different arguments have spawned between the two on this subject, perhaps too many to count. Chris is a very calm individual who is slow to anger but quick to defend himself. He hasn’t been in many fights because of the sole reason that his psycho sister might come and beat down that individual for beating him down. But that won’t ever happen, one because Celeste doesn’t care and Chris has talked his way out of just as many fights that Celeste has fought. He also knows what sets Celeste off, what makes her angry, what makes her sad; he’s the only other person that can talk her down besides her father. But he’s not stupid; he knows where her boundaries are. He’s been the only person to repeatedly cross her boundaries without getting flak. He finds it funny that she would get angry over nothing and very few times does she do anything to stop him. She can’t yell over him, and her comebacks aren’t as quick and harsh as his. If he wants something of hers, he takes it, unless it’s something important. He can successfully annoy her without being seriously hurt and most days he’s makes it a goal to annoy the hell out of her any way he can to get her fired up. He knows it puts her in a bad mood for school, but he doesn’t care. That’s what he normally does but not today, he found out about what happened to Pricilla and why the school probably won’t help her. “Shelly’s a b***h, she thinks she so special because daddy owns the school.” said Celeste. “I agree,” Said Chris “her brother’s no saint either. Hey I’m sorry to hear what happened to your friend, that’s f****d up that they won’t do anything about it.” “Said Chris. “I know” Celeste said meekly. “What are you going to about it?” “I don’t know, but god help the people that piss me off today.” “What do you think will happen if they expel you, dad’s going to be pissed; I think he’ll kill you for real.” “I don’t care what would you do, that place is a s**thole, and it’s impossible to be expelled. Its like Shelly is willing me to stay and suffer.” “So what are to do?” Chris asked her again. “I don’t know, but I guess we’ll find out when I get there.” “I guess, well here’s the bus so I guess you can ponder your crappy life there.” “Bout time, it’s late.”


School went ok, for a Monday. Things were reasonable and Celeste went the entire day without getting into a single fight, which surprised her. At the doctors she found that her lithium levels were normal as well. The rest of her week went normal until Wednesday during PE Shelly and the rest of her little gang showed up to wreck her day. She called Pricilla a ****e for what had happened and it took all the strength Celeste had to keep from strangling her. Instead she backed off trying to hold on to what her mother and father had told her about fighting. Shelly explained that no matter what she did she did she couldn’t leave. “So you don’t care if I do this?” she said has she kicked Shelly square in the face as hard as she could, causing her nose to break. “Oh you rotten bitch, you’ll pay dearly Celeste!” screamed Shelly as her nose gushed blood all over the floor. The next day as she was coming out of the girl’s locker room she was greeted again by Shelly and her cronies this time they were escorted by Dylan and Morgan Masters. After being formally introduced to them Shelly gave Celeste another offer to join her gang. Not only did Celeste decline but she made fun of the mask that Shelly had to wear to keep her nose in place. Shelly scrunched up her face in rage. “Fine Celeste, have it your way.” She said has she and the squad left her to face the Masters alone. As a wide grin forms on her face she states “I only wish that Pricilla could be hear to see this” as Morgan lunged for her on her right.
She caught his arm and as quick as lightning struck him in the head with her elbow then she kneed him in the gut and flipped him over her shoulder. She caught Dylan, who was a great deal larger than she was, with two left crosses and an uppercut before throwing the big kid against the wall headfirst. As Morgan got up again she knocked him down again with a front kick. She backed up into Dylan who tried to grab her. She hit Dylan in the throat with a punch then hit a roundhouse kick into a sweep knocking him down. She stopped as Morgan grabbed her from behind and tried to choke her. She simply flipped him over then kicked Dylan in the stomach as he tried to get up. She readied herself and kicked Dylan in the head, knocking him out. She blocked a punch from Morgan then kicked him right in the family jewels. As Morgan doubled over Celeste got on top of him and locked on an armbar, which knocked him unconscious., as he passed out from the pain.
She left the two in the locker room as she went to the principle to try and settle the feud once and for all. When she reached Principal Howard she found the door open and let herself in. “yes, what do you need “ the principal asked Celeste when she saw her. “I want to be expelled” said Celeste. “Expelled, for what?” “For what, well let’s start with the fact that I just beat down two guys” “You did, what’s your name?” “Celeste Crimson” “oh yes I read your file I’m told that you can’t leave and your contract is pretty much set in stone” “What” “that’s correct, there’s not much I can do” “that’s bulls**t, now tell me how I can get expelled!” “Watch your tone young lady” “you know right now I don’t really give a shit what you tell me unless it how to get out of this fucking school. Because if I have to go one more day with Shelly Durante I’m going to kill her and everyone else that gets in my way” Celeste states. “Is that a threat?” asks Mrs. Howard. “Why yes and if you want a front row seat to the carnage you are welcome to join” said Celeste. “Am I expelled yet?” “No if anything you’ve just prolonged your probation” “then maybe I’m not trying hard enough.” Celeste said as she reached over and grabbed the principal by the collar. “Now you will tell me how to get expelled or else” “or else what” asked the principle defiantly? “I’ll kill all the students and the staff, then blow up the school, how’s that?” “Not good enough” “F**k you” “well that’s at least another week of detention. Now you should be going back to class now Celeste. It’s not like you’d ever make something of yourself and maybe Shelly could teach you some manners, you really need them.” Celeste felt her blood boil over and before she could stop herself she had tossed the principal on the ground and had applied a viscous ankle lock. She kept threatening to break her ankle unless she expels her. After about 20 seconds she finally got the old woman to agree to expel her that afternoon. And not being one to be f****d with Celeste mercifully snapped the woman’s ankle and left with her howling in pain.
Celeste parents had nearly killed her when they found out what she had done and put her on house arrest until they got a phone call saying that Celeste would not be being expelled. With that in place Celeste snuck out to go to the mall with Pricilla. They were having so much fun they temporary forgot about life. Celeste did like the effects of her meds. The HSAN was a defect designed to take pain away and the meds brought it back, even the pain you didn’t want. The bipolar brought in a heap of emotional baggage that at times hit Celeste harder than the worst physical pain. These new meds helped take that pain away, help her manage herself and her emotions. She really only fought when she needed to instead of looking for fights. It felt good to be free and spending time with good friends made it that much better.
She was enjoying her vacation from life when it was rudely interrupted by Shelly Durante and company. “Do you feel proud of yourself, Celeste, attacking a defenseless, old woman and torturing her?” “Of course, but not as proud as I will be once I send you home to daddy in a pine box.” “Cute, my offer stills stands, Celeste, but now both you and Pricilla can join and live like queens or you can take the alternative.” “Which is” Celeste asks as Shelly points to two cars and out step the Masters with 4 big high schoolers all armed with baseball bats and chains. “The alternative is you can die” said Shelly flatly. “I’m disappointed in you Shelly; I thought that you would have brought more people to play with me.” teased Celeste. “Oh I think this will be plenty because even you will fall to the numbers gain.” “And how do you know that, these guys don’t look so tough” “I just know, so I guess you guys are declining my offer” said Shelly. “I guess, how bout you Pricilla?” asks Celeste. Pricilla gives Shelly the finger as she pledges her allegiance to Celeste. “Any last words?” “I have some” said Pricilla “I heard it was your birthday a few days ago, right Shelly” “that’s correct, why did you get me something?” “I did” “oh that’s so sweet, though you won’t be around to give it to me.” “Oh that’s ok, I have it right here.” “Really, can I have it?” “Sure” Pricilla says as she reaches into her jacket pocket. “Happy Birthday B***h!” Pricilla yells as she pulls out a long range taser and shoots Shelly with it. She drops like a rock and Celeste along with everyone else jumps back has Shelly convulses on the ground. Pricilla gets out her cell phone and calls her father who is a cop. “He gave me this taser after the molestation incident to make sure stuff like this didn’t happen again.” Celeste just looks at her friend and smiles as the Masters and the older boys leave. “Daddy should be here in a second so the rest of you should clear out. Sure enough in few moments they heard the sound of a fast approaching siren as a police car stopped in front of them. Pricilla looks on as her dad, Sergeant Mathews steps out the car, just relieved that the girls were safe. He called an ambulance for Shelly, who recovered and was busy plotting her next move against Celeste.
Only there wouldn’t be a next time. Celeste and Pricilla talked for the one of the last times in a while. Mikayla had punished Celeste not only for the fights she had but for supping herself up for them by dumping a weeks worth of HSAN meds. She put Celeste on house arrest for the weekend and since it was their parent’s anniversary they were going to go out and leave Celeste home alone. Her brother was also gone to a concert. Though no one expected what was to happen. A gas leak that was supposed to be fixed broke and ignited the furnace which burned the house down with Celeste still in it. She survived and fully recovered but she was in the hospital for the rest of the school year and couldn’t make anything up. Her aunt Jasmine had not only invited them to stay with her family while they found a new house but, being the best defense lawyer in the state of California, she severed all ties that she or Chris had every had with Moore Middle School. Celeste’s parents thought that moving would be beneficial to the family, so they built a house in the same district where her uncle Dave and his family live. Celeste ended up going to the same school as her cousins Emory and Isabella. They were a nice change from her cousins Jaime and Ava, who were annoying as hell. And their older sister was no fun at all. And it wasn’t until Emory’s older sister Annabelle took them to a shooting range that Celeste finally realized that guns scared the shit out of her.

End Chapter 2

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[Bernkastel]

Chapter 3
Hellfire and Brimstone

“So you guys are going to be gone for the night, right?” Celeste asked her father. “Yes we’ll be out to about eleven. Do have all your homework done?” He asked her. “That’s a big no”, stated her mother with a smirk on her face. “What!” “How do you know I don’t have it done?” “Call it Mother’s intuition.” “Well your mother’s intuition sucks!” Celeste fired back. “Hey don’t start you two”, her father interjected. “She started it”, Celeste said. “So you’re egging it on, now stop it!” “fine” “Oh and if your brother calls I want you to tell him that we are not going to be picking him up so just tell him to stay with a friend”, her mother said. “And try and go to bed early a reasonable hour, your always watching that damn TV even more than your brother, alright? “Sure mom, whatever”. “Fine, not that I could stop you anyway.” “You have all the numbers in case of an emergency, right”, asked her dad” “Yep”, Celeste said annoyed. “And you know what to do in case-,” “Yep” “and don’t forget to feed the-““ok dad I know what to do I’ll be fine, you guys enjoy your evening, alright?”
“Fine were leaving, goodbye sweetie”, they start for the door “bye dad bye mom” as they turned and started walking, her mother turned around and said “Celeste, don’t forget to take your medication.” Celeste fought the urge to say no but that would only cause them to argue. Instead she nodded and said ok and planned to flush the pills instead. She hated taking medication and she had several things to complain about. For starters both she and her mother were both Bi Polar and manic depressive although Celeste was extremely short tempered, but so was her mother. Celeste wandered over and sat down on the couch then flipped on the television. As she sat watching the TV, she looked at her hand and sighed. The medication she needed to take was for the other problem she had.
She had been diagnosed with a rare nerve disorder called HSAN which makes her impervious to pain unless she takes medication. The disease had also changed the color of her right eye to sky blue and left her left eye the light amber color that it always was. She thought that this was cool; other kids thought she was a freak. When this happened she would then proceed to introduce that kid’s face to the pavement. Afterwards she would put them in a tortuous maneuver or would break their hands or fingers. She was usually suspended for violence that she usually didn’t start. She stated in the past that “these kids should be more courteous of my feelings”. She remembered her mother being appalled and telling her that a fighter doesn’t use their skills and knowledge for violence. Celeste always would contradict her by saying “you always did.” That would cause them to argue until one of them cracked, usually her mother. It always pissed Celeste off when she was told that she would never be as good as a fighter as her mother. Whatever legacy she did build would only be a mere shadow of her mother’s and she didn’t want that. She wanted her name to be chanted for once instead of her mother’s. Now the little respect that she had for her mother and her legacy was quickly disintegrating.
She flipped the TV off and went to the kitchen and laid out food for the dogs. “Ok its 7:00” she said. She decided that it would be a good idea to take her meds after all. She had gotten new meds for her Bipolar disorder, these meds were to help her control her violent outbursts. The med she didn’t want to take was her HSAN med because it involved a needle. She hated needles. She pulled out a big white pill then a yellow and her new med. “Take one before bed. Ok easy enough” she read. She gathered all 3 pills and swallowed them with water. EEECH she thought that new one taste horrible. Then she pulled her sleeve up and rubbed her arm with rubbing alcohol. She prepared the needle but before she injected she just stared at that clear liquid and suddenly squirted the contents down the sink. If she has a problem with it then let her deal with it. Celeste thought. Besides these needles are trash, she thought as she flicked the needle in the trash. Afterwards she decided to go to her room and study.
She called her friend Priscilla and asked her for the answer to a math problem. “I don’t know any of this crap”. “How am I going to pass 8th grade without the fundamental elements of Math?” Celeste asked sarcastically. “Just add another ‘gym’ class, trade it for math, no one needs it.” Pricilla said. “Yea I wish I could, ‘gym’s’ fun, better than this.” Pricilla asked, “How do manage Celeste, I mean not during school, but afterwards? I know your doing that martial arts stuff, but that’s insane to study it for 6- 7 hours a day. I mean hell; your mother got it approved with Coach Denise so that you could do it during gym.” “Then Coach Denise got it set up so that you have gym instead of music.” “Yea I hate music; Mrs. Maxwell’s such a loser.” “Although I know my mom would get pissed if I dropped math.” Celeste said. “Sometimes I just don’t understand her, I mean I know she means well.” Pricilla interrupted, “yeah didn’t she offer to train you.” Celeste pondered on this for a second. “Yeah she did.” “Sometimes I think that she goes overboard contending with my wellbeing.”
“Like how?” her friend asked. Celeste said,” Like with my disease and the complications that arise for a fighter.” “I’m still lost; you mean that if you get angry enough you can’t control it?” “No it’s not the bi polar disorder, it’s the nerve disease, just think about being a professional athlete of any sport and not feel any pain, not anything at all.” Pricilla responded, “Oh yeah, I personally would think it was a dream come true; especially for Lacrosse and basketball.” “Yeah but my mom doesn’t like it.” Celeste replied. “She keeps telling me how dangerous it would be and the risks I would be taken.” Celeste explained. “It’s my parent’s anniversary tonight and my brother went to a concert so I have the house to myself.” “Sounds like fun,” Pricilla said. “Hardly, you know me and my mom got into another argument about it, though. I tried to get her to see my side and she won’t do it. She keeps telling me to take the meds. “I told her to get some decent goddamn needles, one of those suckers broke off in my arm and I had it removed!” Celeste said laughing. “She told me that if I even thought about fighting like that then I might as well burn in hell. Because that’s what’s going to happen.” “She actually told you that?” Pricilla asked. She responded “Yea that, plus some other stuff, I told her that I do burn then I’m going to take her with me.”
Pricilla stated “well you can do what you want but I don’t want you getting hurt.” “When do I ever get hurt?” Celeste stated. “You got hurt fighting Dylan and Morgan.” “I kicked their a***s, and you missed it.” Celeste retorted. Pricilla laughs, “Yea, I thought that what you did to Principal Howard was a bit too much,” Celeste laughs, “Yea, but she was asking for it.” “Yea, and after all that they still wouldn’t let you leave.” “I know, it’s a crazy world we live in.” “Hey Celeste I gotta go, thanks for everything you did” Pricilla says. “Yea, anytime” Celeste says. “Yea and now that you have the house alone don’t do anything crazy.” “Not going to happen.” Celeste says. “See you Monday Pricilla.” “See you Celeste.” “Bye.” Celeste put the phone down and sighed. She decided to give math a rest and do it tomorrow. Celeste had refused the HSAN meds for nearly 5 days now and she could feel the effects wearing off as she began to lose feeling. She quickly poked and prodded herself to sure she couldn’t feel anything. She punched herself, nothing. Since it was 8:30 she decided to doze of for a little before her parents got back. If mom found out what she did she would kill her, not like she would feel that either. She started to turn out her light when she just reached over and unscrewed the 75watt bulb without feeling anything. Her fingers were just a little red. Celeste thought she was so smart, that she had it all figured all. Then she heard dogs barking outside. Crap! She didn’t let the dogs back in. oh well, they’ll be fine, and she truly had it made. Sleep for couple hours, meet parents and brother. All would be well; but all she wanted was to sleep. So she did.
Celeste thought that her plan of discarding her HSAN meds had been a bright idea to. The way she got rid of her meds behind her mom’s back. Celeste knew the dangers in this disease that over a period of time it renders the rest of the senses useless. From there it could cripple your muscles and bones and internal organs. This disease would eventually kill you and you not feel any pain. Of course this would take months. Celeste knew this and yet she still did it. She thought it was ingenious, but what if she had listened to her mother? Then maybe she could smell the propane gas leaking and spreading throughout the house. Maybe then she could have run away as quickly as she could from the house. Or maybe just maybe she would have remembered to put out those candles downstairs. Maybe.


Celeste had the strangest dream. She dreamt she was being chased by a wall of fire. She ran and ran from this fire, but the flames kept coming and no matter what she did to stop them they just kept coming. Celeste ran into a building hoping to elude the flames for only a second. The building went up in an instant leaving her trapped inside. She fell through the floor when the building collapsed. She fell through the darkness and into a light abyss, surrounded by fire. In the middle was a figure cloaked in darkness. The figure revealed herself as a young woman. Celeste was speechless. The figure pointed behind her to a huge mat outlined by fire. The figure then got onto the mat and beckoned Celeste to enter. Because of the fire, Celeste was scared. She entered anyway and immediately heard her mother’s voice reaming her for not being harmed by the fire. Celeste bent low as the flames came in around her and threatened to consume her. She cried out for help at the figure. The flames disappeared only to be replaced by chants for her mother.
This angered Celeste and she lashed out at the figure. The figure turned around and stopped her revealing her total self. Celeste looked as she recognized the unmistakable attire that her mother always wore. She saw her Russian features outlined by her youth. She saw the tattoos that her mother had, and the long jet black hair that her mother had; a contradiction to the bright blonde hair that Celeste had. She saw the full awesomeness of her in her prime. Something she could only see in photos and black and white videos. Some thing she wanted to beat, to breathe, and secretly wanted to lay waste by her hand. Now this figure beckoned Celeste to challenge her. Could she beat her mother in her prime? No probably not, she was just a kid; a kid full of rage and hate for this woman; a woman who wants the best for her daughter. She’s a woman who only sounds hypercritical because she didn’t want Celeste to go down the same path of loneliness and despair that she did.
It’s because they are so alike that they always get into fights, but Celeste can’t see that, not yet. Celeste stares at the figure, for a second, and then punches her square in the face. Celeste laughs then gives her the finger. Celeste tries for a roundhouse kick but the figure catches Celeste and flips her over. In half a second the figure is on her and has her by the throat. The figure stares at Celeste and says “my child, you talk so foolishly. You never plan out anything. You see something that could give you and edge and you foolishly use it. You talk about being the best. You talk about beating me. You want to send me to hell? Well you can’t send someone to hell until you experience it first hand.” Then the figure disappears as Celeste yells “wait!” and then the walls of flame move in around her, engulfing her. She screams as the fire is burning her body to ashes. In the back of her mind, an alarm is going off. The alarm is soft at first then gets louder and louder. “OWW” Celeste groans as she reaches for the alarm clock by her bed. Then the alarm gets louder and louder. She starts to cough and choke. It doesn’t register at first but she slowly comes to and thinks no it can’t be. She slowly opened her eyes and screamed as loudly as she could and pressed herself up against the wall, clawing at it trying to get away. When she opened her eyes she saw that her bedroom was on fire!


“OH S**T!” Celeste screamed as the flames filled her room. She ran out of her room and into the hall where she fell to the floor and stared crawling toward the stairs. She stood up and looked down over the railing and to her dismay the entire left side of the house was gone as she looked toward the basement. “The godd**n furnace must have blown!” She raced to the phone but the lines were out. Most of the electricity was gone and except for a couple of lights she was almost in complete darkness, except for the fire; that ever growing fire that had now set the grand stair case in the middle of her three story home ablaze. She ran to her father’s office, knowing that her father had packing boxes there. She retrieved the two biggest ones and went around to her family’s rooms packing up the box as quickly as she could.
She put her father’s papers and work into the box before she went to her brother’s room. Once there she grabbed her brother’s N64 and Sega system plus a few games and magazines and books and threw them into the box. She nabbed his CD’s of his shelf before the fire could get to them. She quickly moved to her room leaving her brother’s room to burn. She panicked when she entered her room. The fire had but all eaten her flooring just leaving enough for her to get though. She tossed as much stuff as she could and as fast as she could. She desperately wanted save more of her stuff and she whimpered as she saw the fire consume her books, her stuffed animals, her posters, her medicines. “F**k.” She said, knowing that her mom would now truly kill her.
She ran to her parent’s room, trying to avoid the smoke as she went. She quickly gathered as much as she could and when she was satisfied she made her way back to her dad’s study, inhaling a big puff of smoke that sent her into a coughing spree but yet she trudged on. Had Celeste known that the fire department never got the call then maybe she wouldn’t have even bothered with the stuff. The alarm that woke her was the burglary alarm not the smoke detector. When the blast first went off in the furnace room the first thing the fire took out was the internal electricity knocking out the phones, half the lights, and the smoke detectors. The burglary alarm went off when the fire set the front door on fire.
Celeste is looking at this and is now debating how to get herself out. Downstairs is pretty much gone and the upstairs isn’t looking much better. Celeste picked up the box and fought her way downstairs. Once there she put the box by the window then preceded to get the door open. Since the door was basically a wall of flame touching it simply out of the question. Or was it? Celeste slowly reached out her right hand and jiggled the red hot door knob. “Nothing”, she said aloud. The doorknob was welded together; it would have to come down another way. Celeste heard a pop and shielded her eyes and face as the big light above her exploded in a shower of sparks. She took a breath but immediately began to hear a distinct crackling sound and as she stared up in horror she barely had time to sidestep her mother’s antique Russian chandelier as it crashed to the side of her. OK! She thought. That door has to come undone.
Celeste, always one for doing things the hard way; reared back and struck the burning door in a mad attempt to free herself. Two more hits and she managed to shatter the glass and crack the door down the middle. She looked at her hands, both were burned and charred and she was positive that her right hand was broken; but she felt nothing. “Screw this!” she said aloud as she turned around and kicked the door as hard as she could. The door heaved. She kicked it again and again until the door finally came off with a spinning roundhouse. She grabbed the box and set it on the stone deck next to the swimming pool; Celeste Crimson had escaped from Hell.
She took this opportunity to look at the house. The house was completely submersed in flames. She thought to herself that the fire hadn’t even gotten to the underground propane tank that her father uses to heat the swimming pool. “That’s going to be pretty”, she said. All of the sudden her cell phone started to ring. She pats her pockets and pulls it out and answers it. It’s her neighbor calling to tell her that he saw the fire and called the police. She told him she wondered why the fire department wasn’t already there. He said he called the suburban department but he also notified the Sacramento department because he didn’t think that the Shelby department could handle it. Celeste told him she was fine and so were the dogs, but to notify her parents because she had a low battery and was afraid that she couldn’t get through. “Of course” he replied “just stay away from the fire and keep yourself safe, aright?” “Ok” Celeste replied. “Thanks for your help.” “Yea, no problem” the neighbor replied.
After Celeste had hung up she went over to see what see managed to save. A couple of books, CD’s, her favorite stuffed animal that hadn’t been touched by the fire, some of her mothers books and photos. “Where’s the belt?” “And the videos” Celeste asked. She began to grow nervous after she checked and checked for her mother’s legacy but couldn’t find. No don’t tell me I left it in there! She wailed to herself. “OH MY DEAR LORD IT’S STILL IN THERE” she shouted. Celeste broke out into a dead bolt as she headed back into Hell for the one thing that she loathed, she despised, she wanted to burn. But deep inside she knew she couldn’t let it burn, not after all the hard work her mother had done. Plus she knew she got a since of pride being the daughter of arguably one of the best fighters in the world. She couldn’t kill her mother’s legacy no matter how badly she wanted to.
She ran into the living room, covering her mouth with her shirt. She stopped and stared at the wooden staircase; it was completely covered in flames. Celeste grabbed a cushion from the couch without thinking and fought her way upstairs. Once upstairs, she had to fight her way to her parent’s room, passing hers everything was gone. There was a wide gap where the ceiling began to fall away that she had to jump. She broke down the door and immediately located the boxes containing her mother’s legacy. The smoke was so thick in this area that it caused her to gag. There was no way to get the boxes downstairs but there was a window beside her, encased in flames. Celeste broke it without thinking and as she pulled her hand back to look at her burnt, bleeding hand, she knew that it was broken for sure. She immediately started to pick up the boxes and toss them out the window. The contents were under heavy packaging and landed in the bushes without harm. She tossed 3 other boxes, each time feeling the bones in her hand shift side to side and cracking in retaliation. Of course she felt nothing, she didn’t event feel the smoke burning her lungs, but she knew it was there.
When the last box dropped, she made her way back downstairs; beating and clawing her way through the smoke to get to the stairs. She had the stairs in view when the floor started to collapse from out from under her. She jumped over to the other side just in time. I’ve got to get out of here Celeste thought. She had to duck as pieces of the attic begin to collapse on top of her. She stopped at the stairs; the stairs were beginning to fall apart. She looked over the railing, stopping because the railing was on fire. She paused for a second seeing the ceiling crack and fall on top of her. She ran forward and swung over the burning rail and dangles over the side. See could see the flames burning her flesh and see could smell it; the rancid odor making her sick. Celeste held herself there thinking crap what do I do now? The cracking sound of the wood beneath her weight answered her question. “OH F**K! OH F**K! OH F**K! NO! NO! NOOO!” She wailed as she lost her grip and fell to the burning ground below with a sickening thud.
Celeste knew right away that she had broken her ankle and possibly her ribs because her breaths were coming in short, shallow breaths and she could taste blood in her mouth. She tried to stand, failed, and then she tried again successfully. She limped her way to the door, trying to get out of the house. The smoke was making her cough blood uncontrollably. About halfway to the door she had to stop. She collapsed to her knees and started to cough uncontrollably. “This really is hell”, she stammered through coughs. Celeste was at least grateful that she couldn’t feel the pain of any of her injuries. It’s going to hurt like a b**h when they remedicate you. Hell, maybe they won’t once you’re in the hospital, seeing you get out this alive. Concentrate she tells herself, you can do this, you can do this, just a few more steps, just a few more-BOOOM! An earsplitting explosion blinds Celeste and sends her flying across the room, crashing onto a burning television set. Celeste just lays there for a few moments, trying to grasp what has just happened.
After what seems like eternity she finally stirs. The fire must have gotten the propane tank she thought. Celeste drops herself to the ground and starts to crawl toward the open door and away from the smoldering big screen. The smoke is making her dizzy and she finds it hard to concentrate. She brushes up against the smoldering cushions that were once her cushions. She tries desperately to reach that door, reaching out as if to grab an imaginary hand. She screams as she looks down in terror and sees that her pant leg has caught fire. She struggles to put the fire out, while watching the ceilings start to fall around her. She groans and tries to get around the flaming piles of flying rubble and insulation. She cringes as several pieces of rubble fall around her. Then a big piece of flaming insulation falls on top of her setting her jacket and pants on fire. Celeste struggles to free herself while putting herself out to no avail. Rolling around to stop the fire only made it worse. She continues to crawl toward the door while trying to put herself out. She gets the flames out but finds she can barely move. A huge piece of burning rubble crashed down blocking her exit and trapping her between two walls of flame.
Celeste took one last deep breath and thought if this was the end; if this was really it, her entire life. Life had been nothing special really, sure she had accomplished more than most kids had at age 14 but she always wanted more. She wanted not only be better than everybody but to better than her diseases as well. She overcame all of her challenges, now it would take her own private hell to stop her. She looked down and watched as her pants caught fire, but instead of trying to put it out, she watched it burn her. She took in the sight, the smell, found she was at peace. My Hell has beaten me so why fight? It’s easier to give up right? Who’s going to save me now? The smoke was causing Celeste to loss conscious quickly but Celeste didn’t care. She was making her peace with her family, her friends, god, and herself.
Celeste struggled to remain awake but the overwhelming scent of burnt flesh and smoke quickly knocked her unconscious. Before she slept, Celeste took one last look at herself, her body, severely burned from the waist down. She looked at her private hell and smiled now finally remembering the dream and how s**t works itself out, Celeste smiled at the thought. As she laid her head down the last thing she thought was that she could have sworn she could have heard the sound of quickly approaching sirens, cutting the night. ‘Bout time those f*****s got here she thought as Celeste Crimson lost consciousness. Celeste’s left sleeve caught fire again once she was asleep. Celeste was consumed by her own private hell for 45 minutes until the firefighters brought her out at 11:30 with her parents and her brother present. She was Lightflighted to the children’s hospital in Sacramento where she spent eight weeks unconscious before waking up.


Celeste didn’t know where she was or what had happened. When she woke up she tried to scream, tried to get away from the invisible arms that held her down. She stopped screaming when she looked down and saw the mask on her face and the IV’s in her arms. Her right arm was bandaged and rest in a sling, she cringed at the sight of her left arm, which was badly burned. She groaned when she tried to move, they must have medicated her she thought. It did take a genius to figure that one out, to her pain equaled medication and she must’ve have take a large dose. “Ahh”, she whimpered, “it hurts so much!” If her torso was this bad she didn’t want to think how bad her legs were. Her lower torso was hidden by the blanket and she didn’t dare take it off. She merely poked herself to see if her legs were still intact.
Her nurse walked in at that moment and dropped the stack of papers she was carrying. “You’re awake?” she stammered, as she bent to pick them up. “Yea” Celeste said, “I’m really hungry, is there any food around here?” “Y-Yes I’ll go get you something, what would you like?” The nurse asked; looking at Celeste dumbfounded. “Anything, Celeste replied, it doesn’t matter.” The nurse told her she would be back in a second. “Are my parents around?” Celeste asked. “Um no”, the nurse said. “Really” replied Celeste. “Why, did you need them?” No, I just thought they would’ve been here.” “No, but I’m sure they will be overjoyed to hear your finally awake.” What?, Celeste thought. “Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go inform the doctor that you’re awake.” How long was I out? Celeste thought; I’m so confused. Soon her doctor came in and brought her up to speed. “Eight weeks”, d**n, she thought “Yes and none of us expected you to be alive right now, not me or your parents, you are a true medical miracle.” “So what’s going to happen to me now?” She asked pointing at her burns. “Your parents have already paid for the proper surgeries; you should be back to normal in no time.” “Yea, back to normal”, Celeste said sarcastically.
Her parents arrived later that evening; her mom almost tackled her off the bed when she hugged. “Oh Celeste thank God your alive!” she cried out. “AHH, Mom you’re choking me!” Celeste protested. “I’m just glad you’re alive”, her father said. “We thought you were dead.” Her mother said. “I feel fine” said Celeste. “You’re not mad at me, for flushing my meds?” Celeste turns to her mother. “No, I’m just glad you’re alive.” “Why didn’t you get out of the house?” her father asked. “I did only I went back in-“her mother cut her off mid sentence “Why, Why would you go back in?” “I- I went back in, Celeste stuttered, to save your legacy. The legacy you had as a fighter. I just couldn’t see it burn, I couldn’t.”
Her mother starts to speak but Celeste cuts her off, “I didn’t want you to be mad at me that I left something so important to you behind to burn.” “So that’s why you went back, you did this knowing you’d probably die.” commented her father. Celeste nods then she starts to cry saying, “I just wanted to make you happy.” Her mother looks dumbfounded for a moment then replies, “Celeste I’m just grateful you’re alive. Now that legacy is important to me, but not more important than you. If I had to choose between the two of you, I’d choose you in a heartbeat Celeste, you are my daughter, you are my greatest legacy, you understand.” Celeste nods and stops crying.” Her dad adds that when they first saw the firefighters carry her out they both fell to the ground and wept. There’s not much you can do in that situation but pray her mother had said. I prayed for you everyday, knowing that you were going to make it.
She told Celeste that she thought it was her fault and she stated that she had cursed her daughter when she told her to burn in and found herself in her own personal hell once she found out that her daughter actually did burn alive. “Chris sends his apologies, her father said. “He was just as shocked as we were.” “He’s also grateful that you saved his CD’s and Nintendo.” said her father making Celeste laugh.” Her father also told her that the insurance had paid for the house and they were starting to build a house in a different area only if she didn’t mind moving.
Her mother told her that her aunt had taken them in for the time being. That made Celeste grin. Her aunt Jasmine was her mother’s identical twin sister. Even though they looked alike didn’t mean they had similar personalities. Jasmine was obviously the joker of the family; she was usually pulling some mean prank on her Celeste’s mother that usually had Celeste laughing to tears. Celeste spent nearly 6 months in the hospital. She underwent a total of 6 skin graphs, where doctors harvested flesh from the back of her legs, her buttocks, her torso, and even the bottom of her feet to replace what the fire had burned away.
After her last surgery, she had to stay additional three weeks for the surgery to heal itself. Upon her release her mother came and got her and took her to her aunt’s house. “Welcome home sweetie”, her aunt welcomed her to her huge 5 bedroom house with open arms. She glared intently at her cousins Jaime and Ava, both of whom she despised. Celeste still had to take it easy and she had a cream that the doctors gave her for the purplish patches of skin that didn’t quite heel right; one on her left arm and one on her right leg. That night as Celeste slept peacefully in her new room, surrounded by family she loved, she had a dream. It was a familiar dream, a dream where she was running through a city, being chased by a wall of fire.

end chapter 3

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[Bernkastel]

Chapter 4
High School

It’s been 4 years since Celeste has moved with her family to Houston, Texas. After her family got settled down, her parents sent Celeste and Chris to a local public school for a few years then transferred them to Black Valley High School, the biggest high school in her county. Mikayla and Kenneth had become more self conscious about how they raise their children after the fire that almost took Celeste’s life. Though Celeste had come out alive, she hadn’t escaped totally unscarred. She had received severe burns on her lower body and lower torso. Even after multiple surgeries, Celeste sill had some patches of blotched skin on her legs and left forearm. Celeste became sensitive about this but she began to get tattoos to cover the blotches. She purchased the first set when she was 15, one on her leg and two on her left arm, much to her parent’s disapproval. But they let her keep them because they would cover up what her daughter referred to as “deformities.” She got two more when she turned 17, proudly selecting the tiger and dragon yin- yang to signify her earning her second degree black belt in Jujitsu. Celeste social life with parents had gotten better, though. She still did some things that her parents didn’t like but what kid didn’t. The fire had changed her, it showed her that life is precious, and it’s unhealthy to live your life angry all the time. Though she was still sensitive about her defect and her injuries, she chose not to let the things that other people said bother her, most of the time. And lucky for her she found that as she got older, the kids around her began to stop making fun of her outward appearance and instead judged her on what they saw within. And as she began to get older, her inner beauty began to unfold and by the time she was 18, she had become extremely beautiful; much so that most other people, especially boys, never noticed her defects. The girls that did notice never said anything to her and they tried not to offend her knowing that she still had a fiery temper. Celeste found herself on the receiving end of attention in high school that she never dreamed of. Boys loved her, girls looked up to her, and younger kids wanted to be her. Her grades went up and she found increased self esteem. Her mother was so proud of her that she signed Celeste up for a junior freestyle tournament the summer of her 10th grade year. When she went on to win the tournament Mikayla signed her up for another tournament, which she also won. She and her brother did spark a rivalry to outdo the other in any sport they could. They bet each other large sums of money that they could rack up more trophies and awards in different sports than the other in a years time. Mikayla continued to train Celeste in sambo who won her first junior national tournament at the age of 17. Celeste had been going to small public school called Lowell County High for 3 years. There she competed in every sport the school had to offer. She had been transferring her feelings and transferring it into energy. She reached her peak height of 5’10 as a junior and was always tying to make herself faster and stronger. She set certain goals for herself, and perhaps since her brother was a whole lot bigger and a whole lot stronger than her she tried to even the playing field between them by at least being faster than Chris. She reached her goals after continuously working out and conditioning her body. By the time she was a senior she had accomplished a lot of what she set out to do. She was proud of herself and was convinced she was the best. These are some of the accomplishments that she had achieved by the time she was 18. She could run a mile at full speed without stopping. She could ride a bike for 75 miles and could dunk on a basketball hoop. She could do 250 pushups or 100 one handed pushups in succession. She could also balance herself on her hands and do ten pushups that way. She had begun to lift weights as a freshman and by the time she was a senior she could easily lift her own body weight and she made it a goal to get passed 200 lbs by the time she graduated. Though, those numbers were a far cry from Chris who, in 9th grade was already 6’4 and could bench almost 100 lbs more than his sister. Celeste’s parents sold their house and moved the family to the better half of the southern part of the county, 10 minutes from were her cousins the Romanovich’s lived. Celeste last year her parents switched her to Black Valley High, the big high school in the southern part of Lowell County. Of course Celeste refused, because she didn’t want to leave the friends she had made and she felt more comfortable at a smaller school. She was afraid of being rejected again. Her parents convinced her when she found out that her two cousins, Emory and Isabella were being transferred there as well. It also seemed that Emory had an ace in the hole as her best friend Melissa was one of the more popular kids and was looking forward to seeing her old friend again. She had told Emory that she would do her best to make her and her family feel welcome in such a big school. Melissa and Emory had gone to middle school together and had played in a band together, with Melissa playing drums and Emory a guitar. Now Melissa as traded in her drumsticks for a pair of pom- poms and a cheerleader’s outfit. Isabella was looking forward to switching schools because Black Valley was closer to where her friends lived and she could get to the skate park easier. Celeste just wanted to finish high school. Celeste hadn’t made up her mind about college yet as she was still debating on what to do with her life. Celeste never really had a favorite subject in school; everything just seemed so boring in the past few years that she just decided to float until she figured out what to do with herself. None of the professions really interested her. Except law enforcement, and maybe working for the government, those were the kinds of jobs she could see herself doing; not some job were you lay around an do nothing. Her older cousin Annabelle had joined the army out of college and had been ship overseas to help with the Bosnian War Effort. Annabelle was one of the people that Celeste looked up to and considered her a hero. Annabelle was the rebel of the family and her rebellious spirit was rubbing off on all of her younger cousins including Celeste. Her relationship with her mother was finally getting better as Celeste stopped her fits of rage and started to listen to her mother. The fire had woken her up to the fact that her mother really cared about her and Celeste trusted her instincts that her mother loved her. Now the two could have a normal conversation without getting into a fight. Celeste developed love and mutual respect for her mother and a relationship began to form between them. Celeste stopped resisting her mother’s advice and started to listen to her. Instead she tried to impress her mother and make her proud by continuing her training and trying to be the best athlete she could be, while trying to outdo her brother anyway she could. Although Celeste was not happy about having to change schools again, she was very happy that her cousins would be going to the school and for the fact that Black Valley was notorious for their sports programs, being nearly invincible in both basketball and football. Celeste was hoping to make an impact and establish a name for herself and be the best athlete in the school. As far as getting along with the other students, well she figured if they showed her respect then she would return it. As Celeste grew older she slowly grew out of the angry, psychotic teen to a calmer and more respectable young woman. And instead of walking around looking for fights, she started using her words to solve her problems and only using violence as a last resort. And from time to time her temper would flare up and she would lose it but she had better control over her emotions and instead of hauling off and breaking something, she managed to walk away, a tool that helped her repair her relationship with her mother. Celeste had also become somewhat protective of her two cousins and at times her overprotecting them got in their way. Celeste regarded the two as sisters and felt it was her duty to keep them safe even though she knew it was impossible has the duo proved to be more reckless and rebellious than even Celeste. Emory was not only an expert guitar player but she was extremely right winged when it came to views about politics, the environment and the world as a whole. She not only spoke her mind freely but expressed her views in music form. When trouble came her way she maintained her beliefs and usually could escape a confrontation without getting hurt. Her little sister on the other hand was a different story entirely. Out of everybody in the family Isabella Romanovich was easily the most reckless and lived her life on the edge. Isabella had been involved in just about every extreme sport under the sun by the time she was 16. She was an avid skateboarder and had been skating almost as long as Celeste had done Martial Arts. She was always getting hurt doing something outrageous with her little group of friends but somehow managed to maintain her integrity as most of the stunts proved to extreme for the rest of the family to participate in as no one else could skate or snowboard like she could and there was no way any of her family would even consider bungee jumping or cliff diving adequate actives but yet she did them, much to the horror of her family. Although one thing she admired from both her sister and Celeste was their perseverance and more times than others she found herself impersonating them. She used them as models and was driven to live her life sticking to the man. Indeed it was the similarities of the trio that banded them together and though they all led different lives, Celeste regarded them as the best friends she had since Pricilla, whom she rarely got to see. The trio looked out for each other and had each others backs and was more than ready to take on Black Valley High. Enter Melissa, Emory’s best friend since middle school. Though the two hadn’t seen each other since middle school, Melissa was willing to help them feel welcome in the new school. Now with summer quickly drawing to a close and school about ready to start, Celeste finds herself growing anxious about the new school year. Of course Celeste would be nervous, why wouldn’t she be. She was having acceptance issues and was worried about this new school turning her back into a monster. And though Emory had put in a good word for her friend, Celeste just couldn’t bring herself to trust Melissa, or just the fact that Celeste hated cheerleaders in general. Maybe if she got to know her better her views would change, but until then her views wouldn’t change.


“Celeste get up, this is the third time I’ve called you!” Mikayla’s voice vibrated into Celeste’s ears. “Come on and get ready, your going to be late.” Mikayla walked into her daughter’s room and pulled the covers off her sleeping daughter. “Come on Celeste get up, your going to make both you and your brother late” Mikayla complained. Celeste weakly pulled the covers over her head as she attempted to go back to sleep. “This is what happens when you procrastinate on your summer work and do it at the late minute, now hurry up, Chris is already dressed and ready to go and if you want breakfast then I suggest you get a move on” Mikayla told her. “I’m not hungry and I’m sure that lunch won’t be any better” Celeste said as she finally got out of bed. “Just give me a second and I’ll be right down” “thank you” replied her mother. Celeste sighed as she quickly jumped into the shower, brushed her teeth and put on some clothes and went downstairs. She quickly retrieved her backpack and the keys to her red Explorer as she headed towards the door. “Bout time you woke up” said Chris as he finished putting his plate in the sink. “Thought you were going to make us late” “Don’t worry, we’ll be on time” Celeste replied. As they headed out the door her mother stopped them to wish them luck at school before heading for work herself. They lived about 30 minutes from the school but with Celeste’s driving skills they would make it there in ten. Trying to make small talk she asked her brother if he was going out for basketball later that season. “Sure” responded Chris. “I think you should, your really good” responded Celeste. “You flatter me Celeste although that’ll be nothing compared to all the things you do. Unless you don’t try out for anything” “that’s unlikely but for such a big school they don’t offer very many sports” Celeste responded. “You kidding Black Valley has just about every sport under the sun.” “I know but the only one that seems to be inviting is track and field.” “Don’t limit yourself sis you should at least try out for basketball” her brother told her. “Ha that would be the day” Celeste laughed. “You’ve seen me play, you know I suck. Hell I can’t shoot worth anything.” “True, but try out anyway. I’m sure with your speed and strength you’ll be a great asset to the team. Just try and steal the ball and give it to someone that can shoot. And besides you’ll probably be that only girl that can dunk, which is quite a sight to see” said Chris. They continued to talk about their future when Chris noticed that time was running out and it looked like they were going to be late after all. “No we won’t” Celeste said has she veered onto the highway. “This little detour will save the frustration of traffic.” “Still you have to drive really fast to make it in time” Chris said. “No problem” Celeste said as she pushed the Explorer to twice the speed limit as she barreled down the highway. “Celeste it’s amazing that you haven’t gotten a ticket yet” said her brother. In what seemed like a few moments they finally saw the sign for the big school. Celeste quickly pulled into a parking space and the two made their way to the main campus building. They were instructed by a teacher to check for their names on the big bulletin board and to go to the classroom that would be their homeroom. Once Celeste had found her name she made her way to her homeroom which belonged to Mrs. Jonesbury who was her math teacher. the classroom was rather large, seeing that there were about 30 people to a class. A sign saying ‘welcome class of ’97’ hung above the door as well as different posters and signs and letters that decorated the room. Celeste was at least glad o see that Emory was in the same class as she was. The teacher passed out their new schedules as the morning announcement blared over the loudspeaker. Celeste went over and sat down in the empty seat next to her cousin and the two of them began to compare schedules. “Not bad” said Emory, “looks like we have a couple of classes together but not many, just 2nd and 3rd period.” She said as she examined Celeste schedule. “You’re not taking a foreign language?” Celeste asked her. “No, are you?” “Yea, I’m signed up for Spanish” said Celeste. “That’s weird, did you tell the school that you already can speak two languages because they usually let kids who are bilingual go without taking a language” explained Emory. “Guess I would have to be trilingual to get out of it, huh?” “I guess” “Hey have you talked to your friend, what’s her name, Melissa yet?” Celeste asked. “I haven’t seen her. I thought I would but apparently there are a lot of cheerleaders at this school and instead of flocking together they all travel in packs, I mean I’ve seen half a dozen of these groups and she could be anywhere, this school is huge” Emory tells her. “Well she’s bound to show up sooner or later” Celeste said as the bell rung signaling the end of first period. “Well I’ll see you later Celeste” said Emory as she got up to leave. “Yeah you too” Celeste responded as she picked up her schedule and examined it. Oh great, thought Celeste, I have English next. She grabbed her stuff and made her way to her next class.


The rest of the day seemed to flow smoothly for Celeste as there were no major problems with anybody and in her last class of the day, PE, she received the first of many praises from her classmates when she dunked on two of the starters for the girls basketball team when they where all just messing around with the balls. Her gym teacher, who was also the girl’s basketball coach, was so stunned that she forgot to blow her whistle to signal the end of class. Who could blame her; Celeste cut such an imposing and intimidating figure that most kids just stayed out of her way. Plus those that did talk to her found her to be very interesting and somewhat mysterious but all in all a very cool person. Chris had enjoyed similar success and had already caught the eye of the basketball team who had taken a liking to the youngster who seemed to be years older than he actually was. Isabella too was finding her own crowd to fit into. The only person whose day hadn’t gone liked she’d hoped was Emory. She never did get to see her friend even though she looked everywhere for her. Maybe I didn’t look hard enough, she thought to herself. Maybe she didn’t recognize me or maybe I just didn’t recognize her. Emory knew that she had changed a lot since she had last saw her friend and maybe Melissa changed too. The problem that she encountered was while she was looking for her friend she managed to piss of one of the groups accidentally. She shrugged off the incident only to have the group come back and attempt to humiliate her during PE. The scuffle ended with Emory telling off the group and the group marking her as an outcast. She told Celeste about the ordeal as she waited with her, in the parking lot after school. “The nerve of some people” said Celeste. “And I was beginning to hope that not all cheerleaders where b*****s.” Emory shook her head and said “I don’t think that they were necessarily being mean on purpose, they seemed pretty agitated over something.” “I doubt it. Hey, here comes your sister, and I see she’s already making friends” Celeste told Emory as she pointed towards Isabella, who was busy talking to a guy. Emory yelled at her sister in Spanish to hurry up only to receive a negative reaction from her sister. “I’d kill for a cigarette bout now” Emory said as she turned back to speak with her cousin. “Thought you quit” Celeste said. “I did, for a little while, but then the pressures of school and the band and my family got the best of me. You know you’re not the only one who has trouble with their family” she said has Celeste nodded. “Smoking calms me down; helps settle my nerves, much like your medication does for you.” “B******t” “I’m serious” “really?” asked Celeste. “If you were born with the unique ability not to feel any physical pain at all would you take your meds?” “Knowing that if I didn’t take them then I would die, of course I would.” “Well the feeling I have when I’m off them is unbelievable, it’s like I’m invincible, or at least that’s how I feel. The problem with that is if I stay off the meds for too long then my body starts to deteriorate. Much like smoking does for you, it might take the edge off now but it’ll destroy you eventually” Celeste explained. “I know; that’s why I’m trying to quit.” “I didn’t even know that someone as conservative as you would even take up smoking.” Celeste said. “life full of surprises” Emory said as she turned to yell at her sister for a second time only to receive another nasty comment. “Don’t worry; I don’t see Chris anywhere either, which is typical.” “Hey” Emory said suddenly as she pointed to a small group of girls walk out of the school building to meet up with another group sitting next to a silver sports car and a jeep. “Those are the girls I told you about” “huh” Celeste replied after taking a good look, “they don’t look evil.” The girls were busy talking and laughing when suddenly they began to point in Emory’s direction and two of the girls broke away from the pack and began to walk towards them. Emory started to speak to her cousin in Russian so that the two girls walking towards them wouldn’t understand them. Both the girls were of medium height and they both were brunettes and they both wore school jackets. “May I help you” Emory asked them as they approached. The girl on Celeste’s spoke quickly while the other hung back; obviously afraid of Celeste. “Um yea hi, um, we would like to apologize for what happened earlier” the girl said. “Yea” the girl behind her spoke. “Um apparently there was a miss communication between us and we’re sorry if we offended you.” “Yea we’re really sorry” the other girl finished. “I guess we just overreacted” the girl on the right said. “By the way, I’m Tina and this is Mary.” “Hi” Mary said. “See our friend found out what we did and insisted that we come over here and apologize.” said Tina. “Yea she’s been kind of upset because she’s been trying to find her friend and now she can’t” Mary said. “Hmm sounds familiar” said Emory. “What’s your friends’ name?” she asked. “Melissa” said Tina. “Why?” Emory looked Celeste and laughed while the other girls looked stunned. “Don’t worry about what happened, ok.” “K” said Mary. “Hey can you guys do a favor for me?” Emory asked them. “Sure” they said in unison. “Can you let Jacobs know that her old friend has been dying to talk to her?” The girl’s faces lit up when they realized they had found Melissa’s friend and thy both went running back to the group like little kids to pass off the good news. Emory and Celeste watched as a girl almost as tall as Celeste with stunning features and long blonde hair get out of the car and started to make her way towards them with a big smile on her face. “holy s**t” said Emory, half expecting to see the short, thin- as- a- rail, girl with short black hair and glasses and not this tall blonde bombshell walking towards her. The girl couldn’t help herself as she ran up to her friend and embraced her with a big bear hug. “Emory, Emory is that really you?” “Ack, Melissa you’re choking me!” “Oh, sorry” she said. “Oh my gosh, Emory is that you? Geez you’ve changed so much” said Melissa. “No kidding” Emory said. Melissa nodded and turned to face Celeste. “Hi” Celeste stuck out her hand I’m- “Celeste, Yes I remember” she said as she shook Celeste’s hand. “Emory has told me so much about you” Melissa told her. “Is it really true that you don’t feel any pain?” Celeste blushed slightly “well it’s complicated but yes technically if I didn’t want to feel pain then I don’t have to.” “Wow, that’s so cool. God knows that if I had a choice I’d want to be pain free. The same goes for probably half the school; I’m sure you will be envied by a lot of people.” “Ah well” said Celeste, blushing even harder. Emory laughed out loud and said “Careful Melissa, the last thing this girl needs is an ego trip.” As Celeste made a face the trio was interrupted by Isabella who skated over to them. “Bout time” said Emory as Isabella produced a piece of paper with the boy’s number it. “Looks like I have a date this weekend. What do you have?” “Isabella, you remember my friend Melissa don’t you?” “A little” Isabella said then turned to Melissa with a smile on her face. “hey you were that short, geeky girl that played in the band with Emory. I guess you’re not so little anymore.” “Neither are you” Melissa responded. “Well Emory it was so nice to finally see you again” said Melissa. “Celeste nice to meet you” she said as Celeste nodded. “I hope to see you guys soon, alright?” “Of course” Emory said as she embraced her friend again. They said their goodbyes as Emory and Isabella got into Emory’s car. “Yea I’ll see you guys later. I’ve got to go find Chris; God knows were he went off to.” Celeste said as she went off to find her brother.

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(Part 1 of Chapter 4)

 

[Bernkastel]

(Part 2 of Chapter 4)

The next couple of months went smoothly for Celeste and her family. All of them seemed to be finding their spots in the school. Celeste was worried about being an outcast all over again but she found out that Black Valley wasn’t such a bad school after all. And like Melissa had predicted, Celeste was becoming quite popular. It turned out that a lot of the kids did in fact envy her and she became highly respected for her athleticism. She reluctantly joined the basketball team for winter season after the coach pleaded with her to join the team. Even though she new that Celeste needed the extra practice to perfect her ball handling skills, she knew after seeing Celeste’s athleticism. Just her speed and strength alone made her a valuable asset to the team. Celeste proved to live up to that expectation as she proved to be unstoppable. Though her shooting abilities were low she set new records with steals, rebounds, and assists. The Ladies at Black Valley managed a 16- 6 record and later placed 2nd in the Lowell County Gold Rush tournament then placed 5th in the state tournament. Chris had also enjoyed a lot of success on the guy’s team. They only lost one game in the regular season and they won the Gold Rush tournament then went on to win state. Emory began to discuss with Melissa about the band she was hoping to form. Melissa was reluctant at first but after some hounding by her friend she agreed to come by a local club and watch her play. Emory was amazing on the guitar and she had found another girl, named Megan, who could play just as well as Emory could. Emory recalled the times when she and Melissa played in their own little band together back in middle school. Melissa was the best drummer she had ever known and as she recalled had won several awards for her talent including a junior championship for rhythm and speed. Emory never fully grasped the reason why Melissa became a cheerleader in the first place but Melissa always said that by becoming a cheerleader she could become a role model and become a student body leader. Melissa did say that she never really did give up her drum set, as she continue to play as a stress reliever and finally decided to take up Emory’s offer about joining her new band; though it wouldn’t be until mid February that she joined the joined the band. Upon doing this she decided to ration her time with the cheerleading squad and Emory and the band. Emory herself was struggling to keep her near perfect grades while struggling with issues about college. Emory never really decided if she wanted to go to college or if she wanted to pursue her dream of becoming a musician. And since Megan was old enough to land the group better gigs playing at well know clubs and bars, Emory actually thought that her band had a chance to go to the big time, what with her and Megan on guitar, Melissa playing drums, and since they were busy recruiting a bass player, the band might actually make it. The problem was that her parents really wanted her to go to college and be successful with her life. Though they knew that Emory was incredible on the guitar, they didn’t think that she could be a successful musician. The decision to form the band and the possibility of the band being a success in future not only took a toll on Emory but Melissa as well. The added pressure that Emory’s parents put on her, as a senior, enabled Isabella to get away with most things, like sneaking out of the house late at night, going to concerts, and skipping school to go to the stake park with her friends on weekdays. She even got away with failing for a while until her parents found out and put her on study hall, but she didn’t care. Since most of her parents attention was on her older sister, Isabella found that she could away with a lot more than she used to. And since finding out that her older sister Annabelle had joined the air force and was being reassigned to a new job which added another year to her service, her parents had flipped out. The only good news her parents had gotten that month was from her older brother, David, who, after graduating from college, had moved to California and was making a living customizing cars. That news quickly turned grey after they learned that he had been involved in illegal street racing for the past year helping him earn some extra money. So with her parents focusing on everybody else in the family, they quickly forgot about her; which was a good thing because then Isabella could do whatever she wanted. Mikayla had also hounded Celeste about colleges, but like Emory, she was stuck. Celeste really didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life, although her initial plan was if she didn’t make it as a full time fighter then maybe she would get a business degree and open her own business. Though she did know that she did have a potential future as a professional fighter, even her mother had told her so. But her father really wanted her to go to college but he supported her either way, as he too agreed that if Celeste worked hard enough, she could become a huge success as a professional fighter. So with both her parents blessings backing either decision regarding her future, Celeste continued to work hard in school and at the end of the second semester, she finished with a B average. Celeste decided to join the track in field team in the spring. She knew that this would be the sport to utilize her skills, since her school didn’t offer a martial arts program. After seeing Celeste display her quickness and agilities on the basketball court, the track and field coach had practically begged her to join. Celeste knew that the sport wasn’t the most popular in the school and though the kids gave it their all, most of the time they always came up short to a rival in the tournament. Celeste promised to try her hardest to change that and bring home a championship. Celeste began to live up to her word as she set new records for the 5k and the mile. She made school history as she became the first person to run a mile in under 5 minutes. With her amazing speed and agility and unnatural strength, she lead her team past the Regionals en route the schools first state victory. As word got out about Celeste’s impressive speed and strength, she became the nearly unbeatable team captain for the Black Valley Warriors. Celeste’s didn’t stop at state, as she eventually help lead the team to a top 25 ranking among all the high schools in the United States. Celeste continued to set new records at her school as she soon claimed the titles of fastest and strongest girl in the school. She also set unbeatable records for the long jump, high jump, pole vault, and hurdles. Celeste had become such a talked about and celebrated celebrity at her school that she won female athlete of the month 3 times and eventually female athlete of the year. Scouts for the next Olympics had come to watch the state championship match and offered her a spot in the upcoming Olympics. The school as a whole seemed to jump on the Celeste bandwagon by the time she started to make a make a name for herself. She gave the school something to look forward to each week as she put on a show new show for the students and the parents every time she had a meet. She had also earned full sports scholarships to several top colleges, including Clemson, USC, and Duke to name a few. Celeste was also quickly becoming sot after by the guys at her school, who began to ask her out. At first she resisted, but soon she began to date, just to get the feel of things. She just didn’t limit herself to one type of social group, as she found herself dating popular guys to social outcasts. She figured that she was once a social outcast, and somewhere in the world, she still was. She wanted to give everybody an equal chance and she wasn’t up stuck and didn’t act like a b***h, either. She acted fair and treated everybody she dated with respect and her dates returned the favor. Another thing was that none of her dates really seemed to mind the fact that she had a disease and the fact that she’d been burned in a fire. The only thing that seemed to drive guys away were her two differently colored eyes, though some thought they were cool, and others had problems getting around them. out of all the guys she dated, there was one that caught Celeste’s eye in particular. Joey Ferguson, the captain of the football, who was your typical jock who liked to show off in front of the girls, always seemed to choke up whenever he talked to Celeste. There was something about her that made him intimidated yet want to try and figure her out. She was a tall blonde that had an athletic body to die for and the brawn to match, as she was nearly as strong as he was. She also had the brains to match because she was an honor student. To Joey, Celeste was the perfect woman, the only problems were that she obviously overdid her tattoos, she had both her arms and her back almost completely covered and she had dotted her legs and stomach here and there. The second thing that bothered him was her eyes, her two freaky eyes that seemed to stare into your soul when you talked to her. It not that he hated them, its just that they made him uncomfortable but he did eventually warm up to them when Celeste explained her condition to him. the two begin to date and the two went to homecoming together, right after Joey’s successful football season. The only person that didn’t jump on Celeste’s bandwagon was a girl named Nicole Sullivan. The green- eyed monster of jealously got the best of her. Though Nicole was a bit on the heavy side, she was still a great athlete, holding records in the shot put and javelin throw. An amateur powerlifter, Nicole had boasted nearly unbeatable records in the strength category. She was extremely proud to be the only female to be as strong if not stronger then most of the guys. That was until Celeste beat her records of the bench press and the bench squat. Nicole, obviously pissed, attempted to regain those titles back, which she did, only to have Celeste break them again. The two went back and forth until Nicole set the bar extremely high, squatting 400 lbs and benching 220 lbs. Nicole bet Celeste 100 dollars that she couldn’t beat either record. Nicole felt confident enough that Celeste couldn’t break either record, but Celeste tried anyway only to come up short on the bench squat. Nicole had to give her respects to Celeste that she had broken all the other records but these records were and would always hers. “Don’t push your luck, Celeste told her. “What are you going to do?” Nicole asked. “Face it, you can’t beat me, so just give it up.” “You obviously don’t know me very well” Celeste said. A week later, after school, Celeste proved just as good as her word as she attempted the bench press. She warmed up and did a warm up lift. After that she moved up to 220lbs. on her third lift she got 225lbs but knew she need to go higher. She messed up her next attempt and set the bar down. “Come on Celeste, or is too hard for you?” Nicole taunted. Celeste said nothing as she put an extra 5lbs on the bar. She takes a deep breath as she positions herself beneath the bar. This is for all the glory, she thought to herself as she lifted the bar with as much strength as she could muster. Midway through her first rep she suddenly put the bar back up. “Too much weight Celeste? Yea I thought you couldn’t do it.” Celeste said nothing as she got up and added 5 lbs to the bar. “No way Celeste, no way in hell can you lift that.” Celeste merely smiled as she did 10 reps with 235 lbs before setting the bar back as Nicole just stood there with her mouth open. “Where’s my money” asked Celeste, sitting up. Nicole said nothing as she held out a crumpled 100 dollar bill. “Always a pleasure” Celeste said. And as if rubbing salt in an open wound, she laid back down and did 5 extra reps with the weight as Nicole stomped away. “Fine, keep your d**n record” Nicole said under her breath. Things with her a Nicole seemed to get a little worse a after that but Nicole wanted nothing to do with Celeste. Nicole knew Celeste had beaten her fair and square and she wasn’t about to resort to childish measures for revenge. Instead she vowed she would reclaim the title of strongest female in Black Valley High.; because it wasn’t fair for Celeste to be both the fastest and the strongest. Nicole lived up to that promise as she smashed Celeste’s record by the end of the month. Instead of following Celeste had started to train for the Texas Junior Freestyle Tournament that started at the end of March. This would be the breakout tournament of the year and adolescents aged 13- 20 from all parts of Texas would be traveling to El Paso for the 3 day tournament. Celeste, who was always constantly training, had taking some time of to do track but now it was back to her rigid routine that consisted of nothing more than school and training. After the tournament was over she would more time to spend with her friends.


The weekend before the tournament in El Paso, Celeste got an invitation to go see Emory’s band play at the battle of the bands in downtown Houston. Celeste had talked to both Emory and Melissa, who both seemed pretty excited. “So how long is the show going to be” Celeste asked her cousin. “3 hours” responded Emory. “So how did you guy land a spot?” “Megan got in for us” said Melissa, “She‘s got a lot of connections.” “You guys wrote your songs right?” “Of course” said Melissa. “What’s your group’s name” asked Celeste. “Hmm” smiled Emory. “Darkness Falls” “That’s original” said Celeste. “Hey I know you guys are coming to the tournament next week?” “I don’t know” said Melissa. “There is a big football game next week and I’m already missing the one tonight.” “Bah, once a cheerleader, always a cheerleader” said Celeste. “I know your coming, right Emory” “I don’t know, as much as I like seeing you kick ass, I have a feeling it’s not going to be something I’ve already seen.” “That’s probably true. Man, now no one’s going” “hey, you’ve got your mom” said Emory. “She’s not going either” said Celeste. “WHAT!” gasped Emory in surprise. “It’s just me and my dad this time. My mom as to work and she can’t go, but I give kudos to my dad; the man has never missed one of my matches. He always managed to see every single one, even though he works a lot.” “That’s good.” Emory said. The program started at 8:00 and went till 11:00. Celeste had to leave at 6:30 to go pick up her brother and her little cousin Isabella and make it to the show on time. “It should be really good” said Isabella. “Emory’s band is amazing; I think that they’ll win easily.” “I heard them a few times” Chris said. “They are really good. It should be a really interesting show.” Celeste met with Emory briefly before the show. She wished the band luck and got to meet the new bass player, Darla, an Englishwoman who doubled on the bass and the keyboard. The show was amazing, so many bands with so much talent, or lack there of. As the night narrowed down, Darkness Falls made the final ten then the final five. Soon the only to bands left were Emory’s and an all male band called Asylum who obviously underestimated the all girl band. In the end it was Darkness Falls who sang better, rocked harder and ran smoother than their male counterparts, with the band going crazy on the last song they played. “My god” said Isabella. “Even if that was the devil himself playing against them, they would still win” the crowd cheered wildly as Emory accepted the trophy on behalf of the band. The next Saturday Celeste was walking though the big glass doors of the tournament building with her father. Celeste was placed in the advanced heat filled with a dozen others her age and rank. Celeste blew through them all, it was like watching Jackie Chan beat down the bad guys, only she was Jackie and her opponents were the bad guys. Celeste channeled all her aggressions and fears and used them as energy. Before she knew it she had made it to the final 30 in a double eliminations tournament on the 2nd day. This time instead of just beating her opponents, she would knock them completely unconscious. Celeste’s only loss in the double came from a young girl of Chinese background. Celeste managed to pick herself back up and she eventually made it to the semifinals. The rules were best of two as Celeste went on to compete against the girl who beat her in earlier in the finals. Gabriella Hung, the 16 year old from Newport, Virginia had been training and fighting nearly as long as Celeste had, but knew two completely different styles from Celeste. The young girl had a black belt in Kung Fu and knew bits of Karate while Celeste had trained mainly in Jujitsu, but she had managed to pick up some Tae kwon do along the way. Gabriella seemed to have the edge in hand to hand combat but the girl could not break any of the wrestling holds if Celeste managed to wrestle her to the mat, and Celeste, having more experience, knew how to counter the majority of Gabriella’s offense. Celeste was also surprisingly quick and extremely strong which helped Celeste out wrestle the girl to the ground and earn an early 2 point lead in the 5 point match. After catching the girl off guard and applying a scissored armbar, Celeste went 3 up. Not to be swept, Hung proved that her first victory over Crimson wasn’t a fluke when she got Celeste down for one point. After that, Hung nearly knocked Celeste unconscious with a stiff kick to the head to earn a second point. Celeste, to Hung’s surprise, sat up then in one quick motion, had the smaller girl by the arm and in with a show of power, lifted the girl completely off the mat and above her head. Celeste slammed the girl to the mat, then as quick as lightning applied her rear naked choke, knocking the girl unconscious and giving Celeste the victory and the trophy.


Celeste had so much work to complete when she got back fro the tournament but she did it with a smile on her face a turned it all in before the deadline. Ironically the first person to congratulate Celeste on her big accomplishment was Nicole who also told her that she had raised the weight records so high that she couldn’t beat them if she tried. “Don’t worry” Celeste told her, “I don’t think I could even if I wanted to.” The last month of school was upon them and it was time for the last three things that the students had to go through before school got out. These things were the prom, finals, and the all school talent show. The talent show was the week before finals which was a week before prom which was a week before finals. Most of the school entered to try and get the prize of 500 dollars. Most of the acts were funny and some were serious and others just plain sucked. Celeste decided to enter but when she heard that Emory and her band where going to follow her she needed an act that even they couldn’t follow. When it was her turn, Celeste went out and gave a short speech then brought out 2 large stacks of 2 x 4’s. She positioned the first stack of planks and to the delight of the crowd broke them in half. Then she took the other stack and positioned them as well. “No one try this at home, ever” she told the crowd as she went backstage and brought out a small can of gasoline and poured it all over the blocks. Then she pulled out a set of matches and to the gasps of the crowd, she lit the stack. Her principle asked for complete silence from the school as Celeste could really hurt herself doing but he trusted her when he saw her perform the act previously. Celeste readied herself then in one quick motion split the thick stack of 2 x 4’s down the middle as chants of “Holy Shit” erupted from the crowd. Backstage Emory, who watched the whole thing, was shaking her head in disbelief. “We’re doomed!!” wailed Melissa. “Emory, that cousin of yours is an absolute lunatic” said Megan as Darla shook her head in agreement “how are going to follow that?” she asked. “I have a plan” Emory as she quickly filled them in on what they were going to do. In response to Celeste’s act, Emory and the rest of the band played a beautiful reenactment of Ozzy Osborne’s Crazy Train and in the end Darkness Falls had even out staged the great Celeste Crimson.


It was the night that everyone looked forward to. Prom marked the end of another great school year at Black Valley. All the girls and guys were flocking to make sure everything was perfect for the big dance. Students were busy getting there clothes and were busy picking dates if they didn’t have one already. Celeste decided to go with Joey and since her performance at the talent had made her a school legend, Joey didn’t even have to worry about trying to bring attention to himself and his date. At Celeste’s side Joey had been reduced form popular jock to just an ordinary guy. Emory and her band had volunteered to do the music at the prom as well. Emory had finally decided to put college on hold and she was going to try and make this band thing work; Melissa had decided to follow as she began to find newfound comfort in her music. The night was full of surprises as Celeste, who was the favorite for Prom queen, graciously declined when she threatened the lives of the students in charge if she were to win. So with Celeste of the way, the school found a more than suitable replacement as the senior class president announced the king to be Andrew Miller and the queen to be, his girlfriend Melissa Jacobs! Melissa, who at the start of the year had been captain of the cheerleading squad and now she found herself playing in a band that might very well be her career. She was overjoyed, to say the least; this had been a dream for her since the sixth grade. She was just grateful that she could spend the moment with new friends and all her old ones. Once the magical night of prom was over, the school now faced finals, the final obstacle before graduation. Celeste did her best and after days of straight studying she swore she did the best she had ever done. Graduation for the class of 1993 came just as quickly. As Celeste looked out into the crowd to locate her family she saw her mother, father, brother, her Uncle Dave and her Aunt Melina as well as Isabella. To her surprise she also spotted her Aunt Jasmine and her Uncle Jim. Her family applauded as she and Emory got their diplomas and afterwards congratulated both of them as well as Melissa for a job well done. That summer Celeste finally told her parents that she really wanted to pursue her dream as a fighter and go to the international level. “I think she should” said her father. “She’s amazing Mika, I have no doubt that she’ll be an incredible fighter.” “Neither do I but your going to need more training and coaching if you’re going to go as far as you want to” she told her daughter. “Unless you think that I can juggle both college and fighting” asked Celeste. “Not in the long run” said her mother. “Well I can at least get a job, right” asked Celeste. “Sure” said her father. “Well, when do I start” asked Celeste. “When your ready, but first you need more training darling” “Sweet” said Celeste as she went to her room. She knew that she had what it takes to make it to the top and it would only be a matter of time before she got there. As Celeste entered her room, she laid down on her bed and closed her eyes and thought how good her life was at that moment.

end chapter 4

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[Bernkastel]

Chapter 5
Finally a fighter

“Come on Celeste, we’re going to be late”, her mother told her as they walked up the marble stairs to the entrance of the office where they would be filling out the registration forms for Celeste’s next tournament. Celeste had already competed in several tournaments earlier that year, though she hadn’t won any. She planned to change that with this next tournament. This freestyle Jujitsu tournament was one of the most important fights that she would get to compete in this year. As she followed her mother up the stairs to the office entrance, Celeste began to reminisce about her glory days in high school and the friends she rarely saw anymore. At first she though that competing in tournaments would be fun and that competing 24-7 would occupy her time, but she turned out to be wrong. Competing was fun and all but it turned out to be really boring at times.
She found her daily schedule reduced to nothing but work and training. The tournaments that she thought she be fighting in only occupied a portion of her time. The rest were being shared by a part time job working as a secretary at her mother’s company. Every day she would wake up, go to work, come home then train until she went to bed. She had to stay in peak condition for every tournament, which left little room for a social life. Celeste laughed to herself when she thought about all this and wondered how her mother had made it as a fighter. Celeste began to seriously wonder if the fighting career was really for her, and if she should try something else. Although her skills had improved a lot, as she had since graduated all the way to the rank of Yondan (4th degree), but she was yet to win a major tournament.
Celeste had won several local tournaments as well as the huge Texas Jujitsu Freestyle held in El Paso, but she wanted more. With her mother as her trainer and guide she began to tackle more advanced tournaments with harder opponents. She did really well until she got to her first national tournament where she placed 14th overall. Since then she made it a goal to herself to win at least one national tournament. Another good thing that came from Celeste’s decision was an improved relationship with her mother. Ever since her mother had finished training her and showed her the tricks of the fighters trade, Celeste had developed a mutual respect for her mother and started to regard her as an older sister rather than a mother. Celeste obeyed her mother’s every command and never questioned her authority. When Celeste came up short in a fight, Mikayla was always there to offer words of encouragement to help her daughter out. Mikayla knew that Celeste was a skilled fighter, she just needed proper guidance.
Mikayla had long looked forward to the day when her daughter would be competing in tournaments in Europe and Asia and perhaps Africa. Maybe one day Celeste would attempt the Devil’s Gauntlet tournament held in China every 3 years. Mikayla was a two time winner of the prestigious tournament, being the youngest female ever to win the title at just 19 years of age. She went back and won the tournament again 5 years later. She was picked again as the most likely winner of the 1979 tournament, but collapsed of lung failure in the finals on the last day of the week long tournament. After her surgery, she never was the same person again and constant pain kept her from ever fighting competitively again. Celeste however could somehow take a huge beating and still keep going. Mikayla knew about Celeste’s ongoing conflict with trying to decide to keep fighting or to try and juggle a college career as well. Mikayla just told her daughter to do what she pleases. Though it would make Celeste’s job a lot harder, her mother had kidded with her.
Mikayla had given Celeste the desk as a secretary at her office just to try and fill Celeste time slot with work instead of just training, because that was all she was doing. The job also gave Celeste the opportunity to earn a little extra money on the side to help her pay for the apartment she and her mother had toured earlier in the year. Mikayla had asked her daughter if that empty space was because she never got to see any of her friends or anybody her age. She encouraged her daughter to get out, maybe start dating again. “Can’t Mom”, came the reply. “I have to keep training; I’ve got to keep myself in peak condition. I don’t have time for anything else.”
Although Mikayla thought that her daughter might have been a little over obsessing about her training, though she had to admit that Celeste was really good at being consistent with her training. She reminded Mikayla of when she was young and would train constantly. She could sympathize with the fact that her daughter felt empty because that was how it was when she was little. She focused solely on her training and ended pushed the people most important to her away until it was too late. She didn’t want Celeste to make the same mistakes she did. She encouraged her daughter to a least get out and have a little fun. Celeste ended up joining a gym to please her mother. She did end up making some new friends and ended up having some fun, all while juggling her complex schedule.
Celeste did eventually warm back up and that depression she had faded. She found that she performed better and ended up ranked higher than she was before. She and her mother began hanging out together more often after that. Celeste told her mother it was to make up for a lot of the arguments and fights they had in the past. Life was really looking bright for Celeste. Not only was she living her dream but she for the first time in her life truly happy. She had taken on a loveable, upbeat personality, despite her disorder as she still found herself coping her mother, who, had since graduated to the rank of Kudan (9th degree black belt) turned out to have great insight on just about everything. Mikayla and Celeste also made a great team as well.
Mikayla was very pleased of how much of a professional Celeste acted at the different competitions. Celeste was able to keep her temper in check as she performed. She was a good sportsman who fought hard but didn’t crack when she was defeated. The only exception was in a competition held in California. The competition was the second biggest tournament held that summer and the winner would get special placement in the National tournament which was just a few months away. Celeste had done well enough to make it to the quarterfinals and was looking to go to the finals and win. Unfortunately there was another girl present at the competition who made usually made it a habit to fight dirty without being caught by the officials.
Mikayla knew that the girl was trouble and she didn’t want anything bad to happen to Celeste or even worse to have Celeste lose it and seriously hurt the girl. After watching the girl cheat by using an illegal choke, and knocking her opponent unconscious, she requested that the girl not fight Celeste, but the officials said that couldn’t happen that the opponents were chosen at random. And sure enough the two were chosen for the quarterfinal round. As Mikayla stood by and watched nervously, the two girls began to fight; each one trying to shake the other. Celeste got the upper hand after a while and it began to look like the girl was finished. The girl instead faked a shoulder injury and while she was on the ground she blindsided Celeste tried to lock her aggressively in the illegal choke, but Celeste saw it coming and trapped the girl inside her own maneuver. After being pulled apart by the officials, the two started to brawl right there on the mat, as Mikayla began to scream for the officials. Even after being separated twice, the two were still at it. They managed to knock over an announcement table and $2000 dollars worth of equipment. Celeste started bashing the girls’ head into the side of a broken speaker when the officials finally separated the two. Both of the girls were suspended from the tournament and they both had to pay for the damages that they caused.
Celeste took some time off to regroup afterwards. Her mother looked just as embarrassed as she was even though Mikayla said it wasn’t her fault for starting the fight. Celeste wasn’t even considering fighting in the National tournament after the last incident, but her mother talked her into it as the two of them made the 6 hour flight from Houston to the capital to register Celeste for the fight. Celeste’s sleeping in the next morning had almost made them late. Celeste had always wanted to win a national Jujitsu tournament or just to get to the finals would be amazing. Celeste registered herself while her mother made small talk with the representative. “This is going to be a three day tournament, Celeste”, her mother said. “Are you going to be okay with that?” “Sure”, said Celeste.
The tournament was held in the beginning of December in Washington DC. Celeste got a surprise as she found out that her father was going with them. “No way in hell am I going to miss my little girl fight in a national tournament, I’ll have someone else cover my project while I’m gone. The tournament had about 200 of the top fighters in the US ready to compete: 100 men and women from different parts of the nation. Celeste quickly moved though the ranks as she fought one challenger after the other. She stopped during the break periods to talk with her family and to find out her ranking.
Celeste made it all the way to the top 10 on the last day, as the champions would be crowned that night. Her parents her overjoyed that she had made it this far and her dad was having the time of his life videotaping Celeste in action. “Wait until the guys at the site get a load of this,” he said. “She sure is talented” said Mikayla. “That’s right” replied Kenneth. Celeste continued to overcome the odds as she somehow made it to the final round of the night. Celeste opponent was a little Japanese - American girl named Patricia. Celeste had spoken with the girl before earlier and found her to be very pleasant she was also interested to know that Patricia had also made it a goal to one day compete in the Devil’s Gauntlet back in her homeland. Celeste had promised her a good match if they happened to meet later in the night. Sure enough, here they were, in the finals of a national tournament.
Though Patricia gave up a lot of strength to Celeste she could match Celeste’s speed move for move. The match could’ve gone either way easily. After a long, hard, well fought match, it was Patricia who got the victory with a score of 5-4 over Celeste. Even though Celeste was disappointed about not winning, she wasn’t angry at all. In fact she was the first to congratulate Patricia after she won. “Don’t be so disappointed Celeste” Patricia responded. “You are an amazing fighter and I’m sure you’ll have plenty of victories in your future.” Celeste thanked her then congratulated her again then she went to go find her parents. Her dad picked her up in a tight hug as he responded how awesome she looked out there. Her mother hugged her as well as she told her not to be disappointed because she did just fine, better than what she thought she would do anyway. “2nd place in a national tournament really isn’t that bad at all” Celeste. “I know that I can do better and next time I do one of these things I’m winning” “So I’m guessing you’re glad you came” asked her mother. “Yes”, said Celeste. I’m just ready for the next chapter of my life, like moving out.” Celeste said. “Are you sure you can’t handle being on your own?” Mikayla asked. “Sure I am, bring it on, I can take it.” Mikayla smiled at her daughter.

end chapter 5

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[Bernkastel]

Chapter 6
Comatose

Life was perfect, or so it seemed for Celeste Crimson. Everything seemed to be going her way for a change. She was in the best shape of her life, she was finally living her dream and her relationship with her mother was the best that’s it’s ever been. It seemed that for Celeste life couldn’t get any better for her. Life was also good for the rest of the family, because their lives couldn’t be more perfect. Every member in the family seemed to have something going for them. Celeste’s mom was thrilled to be managing her daughter, and seemed to be happier than she’d ever been. Celeste’s father had finally achieved his life long dream in mechanical engineering when he helped design a environmental safe and efficient hydrogen engine that could be used in any kind of automobile and still keep the buyer happy by delivering all of what they used to be able to do, plus more.
Chris achieved his life long dream after an explosive senior season that landed him a multimillion contract with the Sacramento Kings. Celeste’s cousins all got to enjoy some personal success as well. On her aunt’s side, her older cousin Elizabeth, has since graduated from law school and has since joined her mothers firm. Her younger sister Jamie, who decided to drop the whole dumb blonde/spoiled rich girl act after high school, and actually try to aspire to something. She made her mother very proud when she graduated from med school. That left Ava, Jasmine’s youngest daughter, after witnessing the successes of her two older siblings, decided to follow her dream of becoming a cop. After joining the L.A.P.D, her decision was unfortunately met with some dismay from her parents. Jasmine had told her that she didn’t like the fact that her daughter was being put in danger everyday when she went to work. Jasmine also told her that the family already had a liability in Annabelle, who was out fighting the war in Iraq. Ava knew the risks, but she was a good cop and she tried to be as safe as possible. Ava worked in the area where her older cousin Dave Jr., who was the son of Mikayla’s brother Dave Sr.
Dave was a renowned celebrity in the Los Angeles area. After moving to the area, Dave had taken the sport of street racing. He quickly became very popular and with the money he earned, he started a nightclub which, over time became very popular. By the time Dave was 32, he not only was a street racing icon but also a multimillionaire. After seeing the success of his first nightclub, he expanded and soon owned over a dozen of these nightclubs all over the LA area. Unfortunately, Mr. Romanovich had a brief run in with the law, as he was involved in a group that was illegally smuggling drugs across Mexico and into the United States. After a brief jail sentence, in which he posted his own bail, Dave now had to face his baby cousin as she continuously breathed down his back. Dave already had an estranged relationship with his father, and spending time in jail only made it worse. Although times were rough for the Romanovich family, Dave Sr and Melina could at least be proud of the fact that both of their younger daughters were basking in the light of celebrityhood.
Emory and her band had since released several albums and had even earned a spot to perform at Ozzfest in 2005. Isabella had accomplished her dream when she was lucky enough to compete in the X- Games, where she won the gold three times. She won one in the motocross freestyle and two in skateboarding were she took both the vert half pipe and park events. 2002 seemed to be the year of success for the entire family. At least until a string of horrible tragedies would threaten to cripple the entire family.
The year 2003, dubbed “the year of horror and salvation” by Jasmine or the “year that god died” by Celeste. The year started off normally that was until the first of the bad news hit the family. Ava had been gunned down by a Latino gang who apparently were doing Dave’s ex partner in crimes’ dirty work. Thankfully, Ava survived, but when word got out that Dave could have prevented the attack on his cousin, the rest of the family was outraged. The tension grew thicker as all sides of the family began to distrust each other. Then in early March, the first of the long string of tragedies occurred. The Romanovich’s, who already had enough on their plate, received the worst news that a set of parents could receive. Their daughter Annabelle, who joined the air force against her parent’s will at one point, now piloted helicopters for the force. Her family received the horrible news that Annabelle was killed when her helicopter was shot down, killing her and 20 other soldiers. In light of the tragedy, the whole family began to put aside the feelings as the family came together to mourn the loss of Annabelle.
It seemed like less than a month’s time when more bad news struck the Romanovich’s, as they weren’t even over Annabelle’s death. Isabella, who was practicing for a motocross event, was attempting to land a 100ft freefall jump off a base cliff onto a natural ramp on the other side. The jump was extremely dangerous. If a rider wasn’t careful, he could wind up landing awkwardly and being sent crashing down the rocky embankment. Isabella, being the daredevil that she was, had already successfully completed the jump over a dozen times. The trick was that you had to adjust the bike just right so that you could land the jump.
On this day, Isabella and her group that was also attempting the jump extra risky. Strong winds threatened to blow the rider off course and into the side of the cliff. Isabella had already completed the jump once, but the landing was really rocky. She managed to pick herself back up and was reading herself for another jump. She knew what she was doing was dangerous but she didn’t care, she loved living life on the edge. She gunned the engine and rocketed down the step hill and onto the flat land that lead to the jump. She braced herself as she hit the ramp at almost 100mph as she soared through the air. Then something unexpected happened. The strong winds that had been nearly behind her on her last jump were now to the right of her and were threatening to blow her off course. Isabella immediately threw her body against the wind but the wind had blown her off course and she knew it. She braced herself as the wind blew her left of the spot were she was supposed to have landed. Isabella screamed as she hit the ramp at over 120mph. She lost control upon impact and immediately careened to the left where the bike buckled from underneath her. She was tossed from the bike as she pitched and rolled down the escarpment in front of her, her body bouncing off various rocks as she fell nearly 30ft before rolling the rest of the way down.
As Isabella body finally came to a dead halt, she was immediately surrounded by paramedics. Isabella was immediately light flighted to the nearest hospital. and since she was out in the middle of nowhere to begin with, so it took a lot longer to find a hospital. Isabella had been knocked unconscious in the crash. She snapped both of her wrists and arms as well as both her legs. She suffered massive head trauma and broke nearly every rib as well as busting a lung. Because of her injuries she was pronounced dead but the doctors somehow revived her. Then came the awful truth. Even though Isabella’s injuries were healed, she also badly damaged her spinal cord in the fall. Even after several surgeries, the doctor’s could mend her broken spine. The doctors told Isabella that she would never be able to walk again, as the crash had rendered her legs useless. Now the outgoing, risk taking, flamboyant daredevil would now have to spend the rest of her life confined to a wheelchair. The news that Isabella had been crippled was of course heartbreaking but it was just one of many tragedies to hit the family that year. The big one came near the end of March when Mikayla had her yearly check up. Mikayla had been complaining about pain in her chest for months now. The pain was usually mild but sometimes she would have trouble breathing because the pain got so bad. The doctor became concerned as well and forwarded her to a specialist who later confirmed the unthinkable; Mikayla had developed cysts on her lungs that were quickly developing into lung cancer. The news shocked the rest of the family as they now had to deal with the fact that Mikayla could be in serious trouble.


As the weeks passed, Mikayla began to feel worse and worse. She went back to the doctor, who sent her back to the specialist. The specialist, who became increasingly concerned that the cancer was spreading, started mikayla on treatment. The specialist was even more worried about the fact that the disease went so long without anyone ever noticing it. Mikayla’s worse fears were confirmed when the doctors confirmed the fact that the cancer was spreading and the chances of he survival were becoming thinner. As shocking as the news was, Mikayla refused to lie down and die, plus she had the support of her family behind her. She continued with her treatment for several months until her niece Jamie, who specialized in the field of the lungs and heart. Jamie moved Mikayla into her care so that she could be her doctor. At first, everything was going fine for the family, even though they worried about Mikayla, they somehow knew that she would be okay. When she didn’t, the family began to worry again, especially Celeste. Though Jamie said that everything was fine, she also began to worry, as she clearly saw the cancer beginning to spread throughout her aunt’s body.
Jamie had Mikayla coming in for treatment every two days until she saw the cancer start to clear. When Jamie thought that Mikayla was getting better, she sent her home. it was late April when Mikayla came to her niece complaining that she was having trouble breathing again. Jamie was just guessing that, since her aunt already had lung complications from when she was a child, Jamie thought that the problems were connected with the severe asthma that Mikayla had struggled with since childhood. Jamie saw no signs of the cancer in the tests she ran until she ran until she looked at the x-rays of Mikayla’s lungs. The x-rays showed signs of cysts reforming on her lungs which not only were beginning to slowly spread cancer back to Mikayla’s lungs but were becoming immune to any further treatment given to them. No matter what she did, Jamie couldn’t figure out how to stop the cancer from spreading once it started. The cells grew at an alarming rate, and began to choke Mikayla’ surrounding organs. Try as she might, Jamie knew she was fighting a losing battle and even though she never admitted aloud that Mikayla was losing as well, she knew it to be true in her heart. Jamie couldn’t break the news to Mikayla or the rest of the family that there was now all of a sudden a good change that Mikayla could die. Now she faced herself caught up in a deadly race against time, in order to save her patient. But she wasn’t just a patient, and she was much more than an aunt to her. Mikayla was like a second mom who shared her wisdom and guidance and was always there for her if needed to talk or if she just needed a shoulder to cry on. Jaime had always been her own free spirit and Mikayla had always encouraged her to go her own way even when Jamie’s mom thought otherwise. As much as the thoughts of losing Mikayla hurt Jamie, the thought of somehow being responsible for her death began to haunt her. And for the first time in Jamie’s perfect 28 year life, she was feeling what true sorrow felt like. She felt the pain that the rest of the family had been feeling for all of their lives. And she felt the pain that they would soon be feeling because see knew that Mikayla was no longer getting better. She had promised to take care of Mikayla and she vowed to do everything she could to fight the cancer, she failed, she broke that promise and now she would have to live with that the rest of her life. The effect that the news had on Jamie was so devastating that for the first time in her life she hid herself from the world. She changed so much that when she met with Mikayla during their next appointment, Mikayla could sense a significant difference in her niece. Hell, Jamie wouldn’t even look her in the eye, she was so ashamed.
When Mikayla asked what was the matter with her, Jamie told her she was dying. Jamie filled her in on the situation with the cancer in her lungs. She said that it traced back to the area which got infected when Mikayla got infected earlier. And since she has a lung condition, it only complicates the situation. Jamie confessed that the news had taken her completely by surprise. She also told Mikayla that she had known that she found out the news a week before but could never figure out how to tell her aunt that the cancer had grown past her control. Jamie had been using the most up to date vaccines when she fought the cancer off the first time. But then having the cancer reappear, then become immune to all of the medication that Jamie was administering to it, surprised her. Jamie also admitted that she wasn’t being total honest with her. She told Mikayla that her charts looked fine when really she was gradually getting worse and worse. Needless to say, Mikayla was pissed when she heard this but Jamie told her she panicked. She had no idea what was going on but was doing everything she could to fix it. She showed Mikayla countless numbers of graphs, charts, and scans of the cancer and the countless different solutions she had tried to find a way to put a cap on the disease, but she had to regretfully give up last week when the cancer reached the point of no return. “Its already taken over both your lungs” she said. After hearing Jamie confess herself and seeing the proof with her own eyes, she wasn’t quite as upset and took a softer tone. Mikayla said that she really couldn’t believe that this was happening. After everything that had happened already in the year how could something like this happen? Mikayla and Jamie sat in silence for a while after that, trying to figure out how to break the news to the rest of the family. Mikayla didn’t know what to really do with the news. When someone tells you that you’re going to die and can prove it, there really isn’t much left you can do but just live out the rest of the life that you have left. Jamie told Mikayla that the cancer was still in the early stages but it was developing rapidly. She estimated that Mikayla have about 5 to 6 months left to live. The news sent another wave of silence though the office as well as sending Jamie into another crying fit as she realized what she just said. Mikayla told Jamie that it would be okay as they, and the family would figure out way to get though this.


So far the past year had surprisingly no effect to Celeste up to this point. True it sucked to be in the same shoes as Isabelle or even Dave Jr. But he had a s**t load of money, and probably didn’t even care what the rest of the family though of him. At first her mother’s cancer scare had frightened her pretty bad, but as soon as she underwent the treatment and recovered, Celeste went back with her life and her quest to win a martial arts national championship. Celeste assumed that her mother was still on the road to recovery, in fact, everyone did. Both Celeste and Chris were on the road when Mikayla dropped the bomb on her husband that night. Kenneth was, of course shocked. He couldn’t believe that the woman that he had been married to for nearly 30 years would be dead. To hell with shocked, Kenneth was heart broken. The two spent the rest of the night debating how to tell the rest of the rest of the family the news. It was around 4:00 in the mourning when the phone ringing excessively woke Mikayla. It was her sister Jasmine, who was completely distraught to the point where she was speaking gibberish. Jasmine didn’t believe her daughter when Jamie told her the news so she had to hear it for herself. After Jasmine got the news, it spread like wildfire.
Within a week, the entire family was aware of the situation, even extended family in Russia, everyone but one person, Celeste. The reason why the family didn’t tell her right away was because they were afraid of how she might react. From what Celeste told them, she was fighting in some pretty tough tournaments and she lost both of them which put her in a sour mood, so that why they put off telling her the news. Eventually, they made Chris do it. Needless to say, Celeste didn’t believe him and just blew him off until he insisted he was telling the truth. Celeste told him that she had signed up for another tournament, which took place a week from then. Celeste phoned her mother just to double check, but when she confirmed it, Celeste denied the fact again until she could hear that her mother was being serious. A wave of mixed emotions overwhelmed Celeste at that point. She really could do nothing but just stammer into the phone. Mikayla was half expecting her daughter to start crying out in pain, but instead she lashed out with such hate and such rage against her mother that Mikayla jumped out of the chair that she was sitting in. try as she might, Mikayla could not calm her daughter down. Celeste told her she really didn’t care what happened only that she was going to participate in that tournament. Celeste was later disqualified from the tournament, when she lost her temper and attacked an official after a bad call.
Celeste flew home after that, even though she seemed to be avoiding her mother until she could take it no longer. She went over to her parent’s house and basically threw herself at her mother saying how sorry she was and how much her mom meant to her and how unfair the world is. Celeste became so emotional that she eventually just curled up into a ball onto the couch and let everything that she had let build up over the past few weeks, go. No one in the family could really grasp the fact that Mikayla had a terminal disease. Even though the family tried to function as normal for the next few weeks; they couldn’t. Mikayla, for the time being lived her life doing the things she always did, work, at least for now. Mikayla knew that eventfully it would get to the point where she couldn’t do anything at all and she would have to rely on other people for basic needs until her fate was ultimately decided by her family. But that time was still a few months off, but even now, Mikayla could feel her strength decreasing everyday. Since Jamie was being no help at all, Mikayla was switched to a different doctor, whose job it was to at least keep Mikayla comfortable for her last few months. Everything ran the away it was supposed to from there, except Celeste, she just ran away. She was scared and confused and didn’t really know what to do with herself. Of course she didn’t want her mother to die, but there wasn’t really much she could do to keep that from happening. Eventually she returned home to her family, realizing that her mother did not have a lot of time left and she wanted to spend as much time with her mother as possible.
Mikayla’s doctors told the family that the cancer was increasingly taking over her cardiovascular system, crippling her internal organs. Eventually it got to the point where Mikayla had to be hospitalized because the cancer had made caused her to lose the ability to breathe on her own. The doctors had Mikayla under heavy medication so that she couldn’t feel anything. She lost a lot of strength and a lot of weight. She looked really thin and pale at this time, and it was killing Celeste to see her this way. Celeste began to plummet back into her depressive stage when she stopped taking the medication for her Bipolar Schzio Affective disorder. Even though her mother would want her to stay strong, it was experiencing this was putting Celeste through Hell, and she wasn’t strong enough to bear the pain, even though she could practically feel none at all. She was constantly coming and going from home, never really wanting to stay but never really wanting to leave. The other members of the family were so busy dealing with their own s**t that they didn’t notice what was going on with Celeste nor did they really care, at least not at that point. The doctors who were caring for Mikayla told the family that she did not have a lot of time left and that it would probably be a good idea to start preparing for her death. All of the family began to pay their respects to Mikayla as she lay on her deathbed. Celeste lost count of all the times that she had spent by her mother’s side. There where times when practically the entire family stuffed themselves into the hospital room to pay their respects, again and again. Mikayla deserved them, because of the impact that she had on the family. And even though the family was torn up that Mikayla was dying, they admired Mikayla’s ability to stay calm although she was dying. It almost seemed that she felt nothing even though her body was deteriorating.
At this point, Celeste didn’t know what to feel. Of course she was sad and she had already wept for her mother. But what good would that do? it wouldn’t make her mother better. Celeste heart was breaking, along with her spirit and her dreams along with that. All Celeste wanted to do was to take her mother’s pain. Hell, what she wouldn’t give to make her mother better but it just wasn’t going to happen, to live with the cards life deals you, even if they suck. Towards the end of May, Mikayla’s doctors moved her to a different hospital wing filled with other terminally ill patients. To Celeste, it seemed like her mother was the only middle aged person on the floor, as everybody else were older patients. Nonetheless, they all had the same thing in common. They all had cancer, and they all were dying, including her mother. Now it was just a matter of time before the cancer consumed her.
Celeste’s father had talked with her aunt and uncle about what to do when the time came for the family to make a decision on whether or not to pull the plug on Mikayla. The problem was that since Mikayla’s children were also adults, they also had votes on the issue. That meant that everybody had to be in agreement when they decided about pulling the plug on Mikayla. Celeste wanted no part in the issue in fact at this point, Celeste felt so s****y that she could hardy stand to exist anymore. No matter how many times she had wished for her mother to get better she didn’t. No matter how many times she begged god to let her die in her mother’s place, it didn’t happen. All her prayers were ignored, and god was dead to her now. She didn’t think it was fair, having to watch her mother suffer the way that she did. And she felt selfish knowing that she couldn’t feel any pain at all while her mother lay suffering every singe day. She also felt selfish because she wanted to keep her mother alive; she didn’t want to pull the plug on her mother, even though everyone else did.
Celeste argued that by not pulling the plug, the family was keeping Mikayla alive. Celeste did not want her mom to die nor did she want her to suffer. She eventually came around but took some convincing from Mikayla, one on one right before she died, that this was what she wanted. She told Celeste that they have a lot more in common than she realized. Mikayla told her daughter that when she was her age her mother was killed in a car accident. She tells Celeste that her relationship, which had been somewhat strained in the past, had been recently mended, and she was really looking forward to repairing that relationship. Mikayla tells Celeste that she died before she could show her mother how she really felt. Mikayla tells Celeste that she knows how her daughter feels about her, and she knows her daughter is a good person. She tells her that beneath that rough exterior is an interior fully capable of love and hope and joy. She knows whatever her daughter puts her mind to she can accomplish, even letting her go, even if she does want to. Celeste, whose been extremely emotional the entire time, tells her mother that even though she doesn’t want to, she has to, because death is apart of nature. Celeste tells her mother that she doesn’t want her to die because there was still so much stuff still left for them to experience together. Mikayla tells Celeste that even though that was true, there was still a lot of stuff that she didn’t get to experience with her mother. Mikayla said that even though her mother passed on she needed to stay strong, not only for herself, but for her sister and brother. Eventually she settled down and started raising her own family. Mikayla said that even though it got hard at times, she always knew that she could talk to her mother, who was in heaven watching her every move. Mikayla tells Celeste that that’s were she’ll be, in heaven looking down on her. Mikayla points at Celeste’s heart as she tells her daughter that she’ll be there forever and she’ll never leave. Mikayla also tells Celeste that she was always proud of her and she would continue to be proud of her always.
The weekend after mother’s day, which was preceded by a long week of tearful goodbyes and confessionals, Mikayla’s entire family showed up to say their final farewells as Mikayla’s immediate family gave the unanimous go ahead for the doctors to pull the plug on her incubator. Mikayla had been in the hospital for 2 months now battling terminal lung cancer. In the beginning she remained active until the cancer made it so she couldn’t breathe on her own anymore and she required an incubator. Soon after that, the cancer started to corrode her insides and she lived in constant pain, despite heavy sedatives. Even though the decision to pull the plug on Mikayla was a tough one, it would finally enable her to be reunited with her own mother, someone whom she had been looking forward to seeing ever since Jamie told her she was going to die. Though it sucked to leave behind everybody she loved, she at least looked at it that she would at least see her mother on the other side. And so that’s how it came to an end. After 2 months of pain and suffering, Mikayla Romanovich Crimson died peacefully in the presence of her family. The grief and tears of sadness overcame nearly everybody in the room as the doctor announced the time of death 8:30 pm April 4, 2003. Mikayla looked so pale and withered, and she looked ages older than she actually was. The only saving grace for Mikayla’s family was that at least she died peacefully, or at least she looked that way.
Celeste just stands there, staring at her mother’s lifeless body. She remembers everything she and her mother had talked about the week before and even though she knew that this would be the eventual outcome, it still hasn’t kicked in or her brain just hasn’t registered that her mother has died. Her brother notices her and tries to comfort her but Celeste suddenly pushes his hand away has she shoves other members of her family out of the way has she quickly walks down the corridor and out the hospital doors. Her brother chases her though the parking lot, trying to get her to stop and come back, but what Chris doesn’t know is that Celeste hasn’t taken any of her meds in weeks. She hears no voice of reason and at this point she as become an emotional time bomb filled with sadness, hate, anger, guilt, rage, and pure grief just waiting to explode. Celeste jumps into her car, ignoring her brother’s attempts to try and reason with her. Although Chris is a whole lot bigger and a whole lot stronger than his sister and could probably have detained her if he tried, though it would just make the situation worse. He stands clear as he watches her race out of the parking lot and into the street, narrowly avoiding getting hit. Celeste doesn’t know what to do or where she’s even going at this point. She’s so emotional at this point that she can barely see the road in front of her. Celeste finally pulls off the road into an empty parking lot, narrowly avoiding being hit again. She parks her car at the far end of the parking lot and immediately breaks down and starts crying. She is too emotional to even think straight, and being altered by her lack of medication as only made things worse for her. Celeste is just now fully coming to grips with the fact that her mother was really gone and she wasn’t coming back. It was true that she knew that it would be inevitable, but she still didn’t want to accept the truth until the end. Celeste was at least happy that her mother thought so highly of her, but now she would be able to experience any of the other joys that a mother and daughter are supposed to. Celeste would now have to put those life plans aside because her mother was dead. Dead! It still didn’t fully register with her. Celeste continued to drain herself of her emotions until she had nothing left. By that time she had worked herself into such a frenzy that she could barely summon the strength to drive herself to her apartment, where she collapsed on her bed and cried herself to sleep.

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(Part 1 of chapter 6)

 

[Bernkastel]

(Part 2 of Chapter 6)

A few weeks later the family had arranged funeral plans for Mikayla. Thousands turned up to pay their last respects to Mikayla. Celeste was amazed at all the people that showed up. All of the family in America showed up including all of Mikayla’s friends at her office and the church where the family attended. Several other family friends showed as well as dozens of extended family from Russia, including Celeste’s grandfather, Peter Romanovich. A horde of different fighters and colleagues that Mikayla had fought and worked with from Russia and other parts of the world, showed up as well. Among others were some of her old friends or others that she had an impact on. Even old fans from Mikayla’s glory days as a fighter showed up to pay respect to the woman who thought as a young woman she would influence no one. She had admitted that to Celeste before, but Celeste didn’t believe that now, what with all the people that showed up at the funeral. The actual memorial consisted of a look back on the life that Mikayla had. Even though she wasn’t a celebrity, to most of these people she was. To the others she was a friend, a teacher, a mentor, a co- worker, a caregiver, an aunt, a sister, a wife, and a mother.
A special video package that highlighted her career as a professional fighter was played. In it were clips from some of the different tournaments and fights that Mikayla had participated in throughout her career, including a special clip of her setting a world record when she became the youngest female to win the prestigious Devil’s Gauntlet Tournament at age 19. The Devil’s Gauntlet was a tournament that Celeste could only fantasize about and yet her mother won it at such a young age. The rest of the memorial consisted of Mikayla’s husband, sister, brother, and children remembering Mikayla. Jaime, Isabella, as well as Mikayla’s sister-in-law, and a few of Mikayla’s closest friends gave their respects. Celeste only stared as her mothers casket was lowered into the ground at the end of the service. Her tombstone read Mikayla Romanovich Crimson 1948 - 2003 Beloved wife and mother, mentor and teacher.
Mikayla’s death wasn’t the end of the tragedies that year. When things couldn’t get any worse for the family, they receive news that Celeste’s grandfather, had also passed away. Celeste grandfather had been 82 years old when Mikayla died and the death of a daughter taken at so young of an age was just too much for him to take. He followed just months after Mikayla. Although his death wasn’t as much of a shocker as Mikayla’s, the family still mourned his death. There was so much going on inside the family at that time that most of the family had come to expect such tragedies to occur seeing how they had endured so many in one years time. For Celeste, her grandfather’s death was the final straw. Celeste got the idea into her head that she didn’t want to be apart of the family anymore, hell she just didn’t want to exist anymore. Before she could do anything to harm herself Emory beat her to it.
It seemed that Emory had found herself in some hot water with her band after her band was dropped from the label. The other members in the band blamed her and she and Megan end up separating the band for a brief period of time. When Emory strikes a deal with Melissa to try and jump on another label without Megan, Megan and Darla leave, splitting the band. Emory and Melissa played the show but to Emory’s misfortune, she never got that chance to join another label because Megan was killed in a car accident following the concert, which ruined Emory’s chance of reforming her band and getting onto another label. Emory, who was extremely depressed at that point, then decided that life wasn’t worth living anymore. She drove straight to her hotel, went up to her room, closed the door and cried because life had somehow gotten so bad so suddenly. Emory had a solution to her problems, as she took out a bottle filled with ecstasy and swallowed half the bottle. “To the pain” she said. Emory Romanovich came so close to dying that night. The only thing that saved her was Melissa, who somehow knew that Emory was going to try something like this. Emory barely made it out alive, just barely, but her little stunt had only fueled the fire that was causing her family to break apart.
At that point Dave Jr. had completely turned his back on the family due to his relationship with his father. Chris, who sensed that his sister was depressed, decided to treat his older sister to the movies to try and cheer her up. What Chris didn’t realize was that his sister had been off all of her medication for nearly 2 months now. He suspected that she wasn’t taking her Bi-polar meds but he had no idea that she wasn’t taking her HSAN meds. If she wasn’t then he suspected that not knowing what being off those meds would do to her body would keep her on them, but he was wrong. Celeste knew full well want the meds were doing to her body. The scary thing was she was enjoying it but at the same time she couldn’t feel a thing. Lack of interest and care has kept Celeste from taking her Bi-polar meds. Her grief and pain as overcome her and the death of her grandfather and the stunt that Emory pulled just proved that life wasn’t worth living anymore, which wasn’t true, Celeste just couldn’t see it anymore. Instead she was choosing a silent and painless way to kill herself, or so she though. After the movie, which Celeste did half enjoy, as she and her brother were walking towards his car, she suddenly gets a weird look on her face and doubles over and starts vomiting blood.
Chris tries to help her but it doesn’t work. Celeste is still on the ground vomiting blood when her nose starts to bleed. Chris is openly alarmed at this point and asks if Celeste as been taking her meds. Celeste answers “no”. Chris immediately calls 911. When the doctors arrive on the scene, Celeste is now gushing blood from both nostrils and is violently coughing up blood. The EMT’s take Celeste and Chris to the emergency room where Chris calls his father and tells him what happened. “she needs to get more of those shots from that doctors office in Utah.” Kenneth tells his son that he will call the number of the clinic. He says that he and Mikayla always used to keep the number just in case something like this would ever happen. After he calls the clinic and sets up the appointment, he calls the hospital to talk with the doctors and explain Celeste’s situation. The doctors put Celeste on an emergency flight to Utah were she is administered the life saving medication. All of the sudden, all of Celeste’s pain rushes back to her and she could hardly stand it. Although the clinic kept Celeste for a few days while she recovered, she had other ideas.
During her stay she slit her wrists twice which totally took the nurses at the clinic by surprise. Since the clinic was not prepared to handle such situations, Celeste’s immediate family had her escorted back home and placed in a place that was. Celeste was institutionalized until she could get herself back under control. She admitted that the lack of her Bi-polar meds had caused her to distort feelings and false hopes into a false reality. Even though she checked herself out of the hospital, she soon was doing out patient therapy because she hated the shape her family was in. No one talked to each other anymore and it seemed that it was every family for themselves, as the adults who acted as the glue of the family could no longer deal with the drama. It remained that way for several more months until the whole family got an unexpected surprise when a ghost from the past would return to try and clear her name while sweeping the family up in the wake that went with it, eventually reuniting everyone.


Almost 10,000 miles away, across the Pacific Ocean, Annabelle Romanovich isn’t really dead but she’s close to it. She’s being detained in a maximum security prison in North Korea. She being held there as a prisoner against her will after a mission she was supposed to complete went horribly wrong and she wound up detained. Annabelle had joined up with the CIA right after she had joined the military. The whole story about her being killed in action was faked. Although Annabelle didn’t know that her death was faked, she knew that the CIA had done something to protect her new identity. The result of a scam had lead Annabelle to believe that she was fighting on the right side when really, she wasn’t. She knew that was a lie, she had fought for the right side but something happened, something see couldn’t remember. Being locked away for nearly a year and a half had made her forget a lot of her memories. Annabelle could only remember bits and pieces form her childhood and growing up years. In fact the only thing that she had left that kept her from losing everything she remembered about her family was a small, torn and wrinkled photo that consisted of her mom, dad, sisters and older brother. The photo was taken a few years ago, when she was still in high school. Annabelle managed to keep the photo hidden from the guards by hiding it under a loosened tile on her cell floor. Annabelle would often look at the photo, but by this time Annabelle had forgotten the names that went with the faces in the picture. All she knew was that those nameless faces were her family.
The prison where Annabelle was being held was basically impossible to escape from. But Annabelle had a plan, an escape plan that she had been devising for months know. Though Annabelle had suffered some long term memory loss, and that was due probably form all the beatings she got, her short term memory was still very sharp. She remembered her plan in full detail but to pull it off, she would have to have the help of some of the other inmates. She was hoping the escape would look like an accident if she were to pull it off. Her plan was to basically be thrown out with the dead when the guards loaded all the bodies into a truck then drove it to a mass grave to bury them. Annabelle planned to jump ship before the truck reached its destination. When the time came for Annabelle’s plan to be put to the test, it worked. The only catches were pretending to play dead and getting herself out of the truck without being noticed. And since the guards usually transported the bodies under the cover of night, it made it that much easier for Annabelle to use her expertise and escape. Once she escaped and was in the clear, she hightailed it as fast as she could to the Russian Border, which was located about 100km due north of the prison.
Once in Russia Annabelle made her way to an old friend she remembered that lived in Vladivostok. The friend hooked her up with a one way flight to Los Angeles, California. Annabelle wound up in the same area where her older brother, David ran his businesses. In fact she walked into one of his casinos looking just as lost and wild eyed and confused as ever. David was present at the time giving tours of his new casino to potential investors to his casino. To make a long story short, David ends up picking up his own sister but doesn’t even recognize her at all. He can sense there is something wrong with this girl because she seemed too nervous and edgy. He ends up taking her to his place because she had nowhere else to go. Dave eventually found out who she was by talking to her. She seemed to not remember a lot about her childhood or her family, but it was that photograph that she always carried with her that showed Dave who she really was. As soon as Dave saw the photo, chills began to run down his spine. He thought he was going crazy or maybe that the girl was crazy, but sure enough the girl standing in his apartment before him bore a striking resemblance to his little sister who had been dead for nearly two years.
After pushing the girl into trying to remember more about her past, Dave finally convinced her that she was Annabelle Romanovich. Up to that point in time, Annabelle had been using her alias, Mary McNight because that’s the only name she remembered to be hers. Once her brother reminded her of her real name and some of her past, parts of her broken memories came flooding back to her as she finally said her brother’s name for the first time that night. Dave was so overcome with different emotions that he didn’t know what to think. His first initial thought was what had happened to his sister. So Annabelle spent the rest of the night filling her brother in on what had happened to her. Dave found most of the story repulsing and it filled him with an intense rage that he hadn’t felt in a long time. His demeanor changed when Annabelle told him that the Feds that put her away before were most likely going to come after her again. She told him that she didn’t do anything wrong, her superiors became corrupted and began working for an enemy country. They basically used her to get what they wanted but instead of killing her they had her locked away for life with no hope of getting out. Dave did the only thing he could think of at that point, he took Annabelle to their little cousin, Ava. At first she was skeptical but once Dave showed her the photo, she was a believer. Annabelle filled Ava in on what had happened to her for the past several years. Ava basically reacted the same way that Dave did, and she provided no answers to the problem at hand. Ava told her that she would lose her job over this if her bosses ever found out what she was doing with a wanted fugitive. She made several calls to her superiors who checked their databases but they found no records of Annabelle’s existence. To make a longer story shorter, Dave and Ava go to great lengths to protect Annabelle from the corrupt Fed’s that wanted to take her back. Finally, in a last desperate attempt to save Annabelle; Ava as turns Annabelle over to the FBI. From there the steps are taken to set up the trial that will last the greater part of that next year to determine the fate of Annabelle.


The news that Annabelle had returned had taken the entire family by storm, what should have been a blessing quickly turned out to be a nightmare. For Celeste it was just seemed like an excuse for her family to gather together for something that none of them really believed was happening. To Celeste this trial was bulls**t. She didn’t believe the whole Annabelle story, or at least not at first. Then again, she had purposely placed herself into an out patient therapy program and she was the one who never talked to anybody else in the family because she chose to. But when the trial started and she finally saw that the bulls**t that everybody talked about was for real. She didn’t think that it was fair that all of Annabelle’s family had to be present at the trail. The lawyers just told her that the jury would need all the legal adults in Annabelle’s immediate and extended family members living in the United States. And since everybody in the family were all over the age of 18, all of them had to go. Celeste also found out that every member would have to give testimony on behalf of Annabelle as well. In the beginning of the case, Celeste really didn’t pay attention to the details at first.
As the case progressed, Celeste began to pay attention to the case and what Annabelle was trying to prove or not to prove, really. Celeste found herself getting into the trial, and she wasn’t the only one. The other members in the family were beginning to get into the trial as well, some for better and others for worse. Some members of the family took pity on Annabelle, while others, like Celeste were downright horrified with some of the things that Annabelle was saying. Celeste knew that she had had a rough life but some of the things that Annabelle was talking about really made Celeste questioned some of the motives she had for her life. Celeste thought about her and her recent losses. Sure they were difficult, but for her own reasons she chose to remain selfish, she didn’t choose to help her family when they needed help the most. She was so selfish that she tried adding to her family’s pain by trying to kill herself not once but twice. Then she chose to isolate herself from the rest of the family because she felt that it wasn’t worth her troubles to be around a sick and corrupted family. She felt so selfish, but she wasn’t throwing a pity party for herself. She was taking Annabelle’s message seriously, if only she could endure half of what Annabelle had gone though, and then maybe she would have a different outlook on life. Celeste had often thought about the things that plagued her life: a disease that causes her to feel no pain at all and a disorder that causes her to become two- faced.
From what she understood, Annabelle got married, got pregnant, then made plans to live the rest of her life in a paradise. That was before she and the rest of her team found out that they had been used by their superiors to get some data that would allow an enemy country to gain access to nuclear weapons, which scared the s**t out of Celeste. From further understanding of Annabelle’s story, Celeste knew now that Annabelle’s superiors gave the data to that country’s leaders, then they started to kill off all the members of Annabelle’s team, including her husband, to cover their tracks and make it look like her team had handed over the data to the enemy willingly which wasn’t true. Annabelle was captured, but instead of killing her, her superiors placed her in a North Korean maximum security prison. There she was constantly beaten and tortured, she miscarried and lost her baby, and to top it all off she began to lose some of her memory due to the beatings she received. Then she some how escaped to the States where she is now trying to clear not only her name but her husband’s and the rest of her team as well. To Celeste that was her definition of a hero. Ever since she was little, she has always looked up to Annabelle. Annabelle was the true Bad*** of the family, not her. All Celeste really was, was a whiny b***h that would throw some punches whenever she got angry. Celeste knew nothing of responsibility and she knew nothing of pain, real pain. Granted her mother’s death was tough, and she still got teary eyed and emotional at times when she thought about her, which was okay. What wasn’t okay was using her mother’s death to justify leaving the rest of the family to rot. She could have done something to help ease the pain of her family but she was just too caught up with her own petty s**t to really give a d**n about her family. Now, as she takes in the cry for help from her cousin who is desperately trying to claim her innocence.
Celeste got the message and was ready to help her family, not for her sake but for Annabelle’s because Annabelle had been reduced to nothing and had nothing, not even an identity, the only thing that belonged to her was the Tombstone sitting atop the empty grave in her parent’s yard. Celeste, on the other hand had a lot to live for. She had her ambition and her drive to become a world class fighter. She had her mother’s love and her blessing, which is more than some kids get. She has the love from her father, her brother, her aunts, uncles, and cousins and now Annabelle needed that love. She needed that hope and passion to continue her life and obviously there was still some fight left in her or she would be on that stand pouring her heart out. Celeste believed she was innocent and so did the rest of the family, who also were transmitting the message that the family would have to come together if they wanted to survive. Celeste was surprised how much momentum the case gained in the end. The case was not only appealed in the Supreme Court, but it gained national recognition from television. in the end, Annabelle’s lawyers managed to find a surprise witness that would swing the case in Annabelle’s favor and in the end the jury found Annabelle not guilty of the charges set against her. She also cleared her husbands name and every member in her unit’s name as well. Celeste knew this would be a time for reconstruction, not only on her part, but her entire family. Even though the pain from her wounds still hurt, at least she had a just cause to get out of bed in the morning. From that point on, Celeste’s life was back the way it ought to be, with Celeste trying to reach her goals. That night, Celeste had a dream, a dream she hadn’t dreamed in so long that it shocked her. She dreamt she was being consumed by fire again, but this time instead of burning her, she and fire became one. She later came to the conclusion that fire represented her passion and her desire. Her desire to follow her dreams and become the person she was destined to become. But for now she would focus on taking her life on step at a time. She would be comatose no longer.

end chapter 6

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[Bernkastel]

Chapter 7
Broken but not Destroyed

Celeste suddenly sits up suddenly in her bed, alone in her apartment in the middle of the night. The usual nightmares had awoken her again, as she tried to escape the hell that had become her life. She holds her throbbing head as she gets up to retrieve a bottle of aspirin from the restroom. Yesterday had had only reminded her that it had been almost two years ago since her mother’s tragic death. Celeste never really recovered form it. Hell, the tragedy took the entire family by storm. 2002 was just a s****y year altogether.
One tragedy seemed to follow another as the family suffered unspeakable losses that year. The bad luck started with the news that Celeste’s cousin Annabelle had been killed in Iraq. Then the deaths of Celeste’s mother and soon her grandfather split the family down the middle as Dave Jr. turned his back on the family and Jamie nearly swore off her job when she failed to find a cure for Mikayla’s cancer. More horrible news came when the family learned that Emory had overdosed on ecstasy during one of her concerts and had barely made it out alive. Then her younger sister was crippled in a Motocross accident which sent her mother into a deep depression. Celeste was battling her own demons during that time and was losing badly. The emotional toll weighed heavy on Celeste and she couldn’t take it. She had begun to seriously consider taking her own life. She had also stopped taking her meds altogether and eventually she collapsed after her brother had treated her to the movies to try and cheer her up. She was airlifted to the hospital in Utah where they could give her some more of the HSAN meds. While she was recovering, she tried twice slitting her wrists to no avail. That left Chris with no choice but to hospitalize his own sister. Celeste was eventually released but after watching the rest of her family fall apart she readmitted herself, not wanting to come out. So that was how it was for a half a year until something forced the family back together and eventually reunited them.
It seemed Annabelle had returned from the dead somehow and was a fugitive from the American Military and the CIA though she was an American citizen. She was captured and was put on trial with the accusation of treason. She was accused of helping an enemy country gain nuclear weapons, even though it was her mission to become a mole and try and skate out the plans for the weapons the country had. She and her late husband were tricked into aiding the rogue country by corrupt CIA. Afterwards the CIA tried to dispose of her and her husband and their unit, when they found out the scheme after their corrupt supervisors tried to con them into giving up the plans to the enemy. Annabelle’s husband was killed and she was sent to a maximum security prison in North Korea where she was held for nearly a year and a half before she escaped to the states were she was picked up by family in California before being arrested by the CIA. Her trial lasted over a month as the judge, jury, and lawyers labored in the case. Annabelle was eventually found not guilty and walked free on the condition she was released from the CIA. Having Annabelle back in the house brought her mother out of her depression and the family began to mend ties as they tried to put some of the memories of the past year behind them. All these memories passed though Celeste’s mind in a second as she swallowed two pills and went back to bed. Tomorrow she would force herself out of bed and force herself to go to work. Celeste still had her job working at her mothers office and it killed her to walk though the double doors and to her office. Fortunately the ladies at the office were very sympathetic and always treated her with kindness. Celeste wasn’t the only one still struggling with the tremendous losses of the past year.
For Kenneth Crimson, this was the most depressed he’d ever been in his entire life. Mikayla had not only been his wife but his best friend and soul mate. Losing her was almost too much to bear. For the first time in his life since he was a small child did Kenneth really feel alone and neglected. He found himself crying himself to sleep at nights and he dream the Mikayla would be asleep beside him but he would wake up and find that she was gone. He didn’t blame his wife for leaving him, how could he? She had fought a losing battle and she fought bravely, even in the end. All feelings of anger and regret that he had felt during that time he buried in order to help pull his family back together. He wasn’t the only one falling apart. It seemed like the entire family was going to hell in a hand basket and it wasn’t just his wife’s death that would take them there. It seemed like the family was suffering loss after loss; every time something tragic would happen, they didn’t even have long to grieve until the next tragedy occurred. Kenneth had to watch helplessly while Dave and Melina’s family tore each other apart. Hell he could barely help his own daughter, who seemed to be slowly relapsing back into the unstable angry person she used to be. Then all of the sudden Annabelle comes back from the dead and forces the family to come back together. The last time Kenneth could remember seeing the entire family together was when Celeste’s grandfather died, and that was just months after Mikayla died. Kenneth had never really been a praying man, but after all the grief and sadness that he endured Kenneth often found himself praying for peace for his family, and for his wife, and for himself. At times he never really forgave himself for Mikayla’s death but at least he could forgive himself.
Jasmine Cross, Mikayla’s twin sister, also felt an empty void in her heart after Mikayla died. Jasmine knew it was selfish but what she wouldn’t do to have her sister back. If only money were worth something in heaven, because she had more money than she would ever need. She had raised 3 wonderful daughters and had married a wonderful husband. Although she firmly believed that Mikayla was firmly responsible for her success. Jasmine was lost as a teen; a heavy drug user and alcoholic with a bad attitude and no regard for her future. Jasmine’s parents knew very little about Jasmine’s problems because were so busy with Mikayla. Jasmine remembers she was very jealous of her sister, for reason that didn’t even matter. They were petty, and she knew it. Jasmine was very grateful for the ass- kicking she received at the hands of her sister because it allowed her to finally get the help she needed and eventually develop the skills she needed to evolve into the person she was destined to be. Jasmine returned that favor by least trying to help her sister conquer her personal demons. That was partly the reason why she became a lawyer, was to help people. Now it didn’t matter; the only person left to help was herself. She considered herself tough as nails and able to take a lot of emotional pain before giving up and hiding herself from the world. But all the consecutive losses that the family had to endure that year were just to much. Jasmine grieved for her brother’s family, who seemed to be tearing apart from the seams. She grieved even more for her brother- in- law’s family and was at least happy that her family had escape unscathed that year. Bulls**t, that wasn’t true at all, and she knew it. Her family had suffered a lot. Ava, Jasmine knew, had been fired from the force after her superiors found out that she helped house a wanted fugitive. Jamie threatened to quit her job but was talked out of it and Elizabeth rarely talked or smiled anymore. In fact Jasmine found it hard to laugh or smile but she knew that life was slowly getting better and her family was slowly rebuilding itself.
Dave Romanovich knew what sorrow tasted liked. He and his family endured so much and were still enduring it. Every member had lost something other than a dear family member and it weighed heavy on all of them. After all the smoke had cleared, Dave was at least grateful to have his daughter Annabelle back in his life and alive, and he was especially grateful he could salvage the relationship he had with his son. But his heart was broken when he learned that his daughter Isabella was crippled in a motorcycling accident and that Emory’s band had broken up and Emory had tried committing suicide. With the added pressure from the deaths of his beloved sister and then his father, the only reason Dave got out of bed in the morning was because he was the only person who would take care of the kids in his house because he knew his wife wouldn’t. His wife had plunged into a deep depression and didn’t come around until Annabelle came back into her life. Dave’s heart went out to Celeste’s family and he did whatever he could to help the rest of the family. Dave had shed all the tears he was going to, his mind; his spirit somehow functioned and moved on like a robot except he still could feel the sorrow and pain of his heart tearing at soul. Dave knew that all he could do was wait for time to heal his wounds and pray that the family find the peace they were looking for.
Both Celeste and Chris were aching for things to get better. Chris did everything he could to help out the family. He took time off from basketball and even paid for Isabella’s medical expenses while his aunt and uncle struggled to pay the bills for Isabella’s surgery. After Annabelle came back Celeste began to swallow the feelings she had built up over the months and began to help the family as well. 2004 was the year for repair as Celeste entire family began the slow process of rebuilding their lives. All the money that had built up into a deficit had been paid off by the combined efforts of Dave Jr. and Chris. As Isabella and Annabelle got used to their new surrounds, Emory attended NA meetings until she eventually stopped using ecstasy although she never really stopped smoking cigarettes. Emory decided to go single instead of trying to hook back up with her old band. Dave moved back to Los Angeles and continued where he left off, business as usual. After the force found out the details from the trial, Ava’s department rehired her and promoted her to lieutenant. Chris brought the family some real good news when he announced that he and his girlfriend were getting married. Chris had also moved back to Sacramento, where he is in hot pursuit of his first championship ring. Not to be stopped by her crippled body, Isabella still found ways to be hardcore when she started to train for the Paralympics. She went on to win the gold in 3 different events. Jamie and Elizabeth both did their jobs with a smile on their faces. Annabelle again shocked the family when she suddenly disappeared without a trace. The only person who had any idea where she went was Isabella, and she told no one were Annabelle was. Annabelle was an agent, she had the training and she longed to do the work she once did; if not in the US, then perhaps in a different country. Perhaps Europe?
Celeste worked at her mother’s office until she could work there no more. As much as Celeste loved her mother, she could not do communications, even if she was paid highly for it. Celeste decided that she might go to college anyway, but what about the dream of becoming an international fighter? She thought to herself all of the things she had accomplished: at 25, she was already a yondan (4th degree black belt) in Jujitsu, a feat which was remarkable, for anybody. She had a belt in judo and she knew a little bit of Tae kwon do, combined with the Sambo training that had since become a family legacy. Recently though, she had been obsessed with studying presser points. Would she throw all this hard work away? Could she? Celeste had considered it thinking that she at least got to participate in some national tournaments even though she didn’t win any. Odds were that she never would. She needed to get better, learn some new material. She wanted to learn something new and exciting, yet challenging to learn. A lot of fighters she fought could match the moves that she dished out. ‘I can’t keep relying on my strength and speed alone’ Celeste though to herself. ‘If I can do moves that few others know, then I can start winning.’ Celeste started searching the internet for several weeks until she found something she would enjoy learning and that fit the description she wanted.
After searching for nearly a week and not finding anything, she finally found a relatively new style that combined everything from Judo to kickboxing to street fighting to Jujitsu. This new style even included classes on perfecting presser points. “San Jitsu” Celeste read out loud. “Was formed in the 1970’s by grandmaster judan Frank Sanchez” Celeste continued to read on about San Jitsu. She found that the style wasn’t that widely known. In fact the only parts of the world were the style was known were the island of Guam and select parts of Brazil. Celeste read that the only place where the style was widely taught was Guam. Celeste booked marked all the information and ended writing a letter to Frank Sanchez asking him for more information on the style. She told him she was already a skilled student interested in learning San Jitsu. It seemed like the mail took forever for Celeste to see if see had gotten an answer or not but sure enough, Dominguez had indeed written her back: thanking her for responding and sending a book with more information. Celeste decided to act on the information and decided to call one of the numbers in the book to get even more information. The woman on the phone answered every question that Celeste had honestly. Celeste was particularly disappointed that to learn San Jitsu one would have to move to Guam, but she could live with that. The next obstacle would be figuring out how she was going to get there. Surprisingly her dad wasn’t crushed when she told him the news. “Guam is a nice country, I’m sure you will have a fine time there, studying what you want to study.” “Thanks dad, now the only problem is getting the money to finance the trip.” Celeste had money saved up but she didn’t think it would last a couple years.
She got a real surprise when, upon hearing what Celeste wanted to do for the next several years, Chris forwarded her all the money she would ever need with no extra charge. At first Celeste complained but then Chris said “take it; I have more money than I will ever need. The only repayment that you owe me is by going over there and learning as much as you can then come back here and kick as much ass as possible.” With the money in hand and her families good graces she made the arrangements for everything, including her flight and setting up where she would live. She didn’t quite know what would happen once she got over there but she did now that someone would pick her up at the airport then take her to meet her trainer. Guam is an English speaking country so she didn’t have to worry about a language barrier and the currencies were the same as they were in the US. She had a morning flight so she had all her bags packed before hand.
The day before she left to go to the airport, Celeste made a special visit to her mother’s grave before she left. This place had become a special place and a sacred place for her as well as for several others in the family. Here she could vent and get her feelings out as well as talk to her mother. Celeste told her mother how much she missed her and that she would be going a trip. She told her she was going on a trip to Guam, to learn some new tricks and make herself a better fighter. Very few times could Celeste come here and not get emotional. It was one of the few moments when Celeste’s rough exterior would melt away and she would become a sobbing emotional wreck. It made her more human, reminded her that she has feelings and a soul, even if she was not exactly considered a ‘normal’ person. Even now Celeste can feel herself getting choked up as she talks to her mother’s headstone. “Maybe one day I’ll be in the big time. I know you would have been proud of me. I love you mom” Celeste says as she’s completely overcome with tears. She lays down next to her mother’s tombstone and cries for a while before deciding to leave the area. The next day Celeste drives to the airport with her father who sees her off. “Love you daddy” Celeste tells her father as she kisses him good bye. Celeste’s flight takes all day as she finally arrives in Guam that night. Her escort drives her into town where she rents a room in a hotel as she leaves a message for her trainer to meet her tomorrow.


Celeste met with her trainer whose name is Eduardo. He is a 7 degree nanadan, trained under the judan, Sanchez. Eduardo tells Celeste that there are a few other grandmasters but not many. “San Jitsu may be not well known but that doesn’t mean it’s not hard to learn” Eduardo tells her. “Training can vary; it just depends on how much you want to complete it.” Eduardo spent the rest of the day giving Celeste a tour of the different facilities in the town. He explained the significances of each building. “There really is no set time limit to how long you train and study. The school here tests you on your abilities and if you don’t know something you keep working at it until you can get it.” Eduardo continued to explain everything and how stuff worked as well as any questions that Celeste came up with. When he finished, explaining everything he let Celeste see what the ‘classes’ would be like. Although Celeste wouldn’t be the only ‘student’ the classes would be small enough so that it would be almost like one on one. Celeste also found out that Eduardo wasn’t the only teacher either.
Celeste turned out to be the most advanced student in the class and already knew most of the basic techniques as well as some as the more specific areas of San Jitsu. Celeste began to slowly sharpen her skills as she began to artfully mix the new skills she was learning in with the old. Celeste found San Jitsu to be quite easy to learn and she was having the time of her life learning it. She also found the Island of Guam to be breathtaking and quite advanced for such a small country. After completing a year under advanced study, Celeste took a short leave to return to the States to attend her brothers wedding. Then she returned to Guam to continue with her advanced study of San Jitsu. As Celeste moved swiftly up the ranks of the different belts, she took the time to journal all of her thoughts. She had started a journal and was avidly keeping a record of all her thoughts on her experience. Celeste found that journaling helped to keep her occupied and to help keep her from moving back down into a depression.
The day finally came when Celeste finally got to meet Frank Sanchez in person. She recalled him to be one of the nicest people she had ever met. Dominguez was impressed with Celeste’s progress and even offered to teach her some new moves. Dominguez always liked to hear stories of Celeste’s past. He was not surprised to hear that Celeste came from a martial arts background. He was pleased to hear that Celeste was trained by her mother, who was a grandmaster herself in the style. As more time passed, Celeste became more and more skilled in the style of San Jitsu. Celeste found herself so entranced in her new surroundings that she often forgot the flow of time and all the things that were happening back home. It had been nearly two years since she had even seen her family. Even though she would write them often, she never really went home to see them because she was trying to complete her training as fast as possible. Lucky for her, since she was already heavily trained in martial arts, learning a new style was easy for her. Celeste often would tell her family of all the things see saw and all the things she did. She had only been home three times and that was to attend three different weddings for her brother, her cousin Jamie, and her cousin Dave Jr.; who married his longtime girlfriend of nearly 20 years. Other than that, Celeste never really followed a lot of her family’s personal life except through the letters that she received and she wrote. Some of the time, Celeste would forget some of the small things that happened with her family as well as some of the big things. Hell, she even forgot that her brother and his wife had had a child until she got back home.
Finally after 5 long years of constant hard work and sacrifice, Celeste Crimson graduated through the ranks and know could call herself a Master, a rukodan. Sanchez, who personally trained her for the last few months, really liked the fact that she would mix the different styles she new and was learning into her own unique fighting style that was hers and hers alone. Celeste was so ecstatic that she called her father right away and told him the good news. Kenneth was overjoyed to hear that his daughter had finally earned her black belt and was considering coming home. He had been empty inside ever since she had left. He knew it was selfish to think that way, but if something were to happen, he didn’t think he could bear it if he lost her too. As Celeste began to make plans to return to States, she began to have conflicting thoughts as to whether or not she wanted to go back to the US or not. She was 30 years old, she had never been to college and the only job she had ever had was working at her mother’s communications office. She had quit that job to move to Guam. On the upside, she did have 15 years of advanced training in martial arts. She decided to move back to the states and start fighting in underground tournaments to earn money to support herself. As the date approached for her fight to go back to the States, Celeste quickly began to make to try and experience as much of Guam as she could before she left. She said goodbye to all the students and teachers that had helped her reach her goal. She especially thanked Eduardo, her main teacher, and Frank Sanchez, for just being an inspiration. As Celeste finally returned to the states she found herself unexpectedly swamped by half of her family at the airport. She found the rest of them at her father’s house as her entire family turned out to throw her a welcome home party. Needles to say it was one of the happiness moments in Celeste’s life. Later that week she went to visit her mother’s grave; something she hadn’t done in a while. She took several minutes and just talked with mom. She told her that she indeed had accomplished what she set out to do and now she had her sights on a national champion and didn’t plan on stopping. She told her mother that she was dead set on winning the Devil’s Gauntlet one day. “Just you wait and see” Celeste told her mom.

Nearly 6 more months pass. Celeste, staying true to what she wanted to do, immediately started fighting in the underground circuits. A lot of the tournaments had a cash prize, and since Celeste could easily destroy any opponent, female or male, she usually took the cash without much trouble. The money was really good as well. Celeste could usually rack up $5000 to $10000 a month fighting in these tournaments. Celeste had bought an apartment on the west side of Houston, which was about 30 minutes from her father’s house. Celeste soon began to train for her first national tournament since coming back to the states; only this one would take place in her old home state of California.
Celeste went into the tournament with a strong will and sharpened skills. Even though her mother wouldn’t be in her corner to cheer her on this time, Celeste did have confidence. She had not only confidence but added knowledge. The years had transformed her from the emotional child that fought just to fight to a young warrior who had better understanding and who fought with their heart instead of their mind. She knew her way perfectly around her surroundings and she her moves do the talking for her. She had become an expert in making up different combinations that others couldn’t combat or follow. Celeste was so confident in her abilities that she figured that if the judges blindfolded her then tied one hand behind her back she would still win. She was confident but not cocky. Of course there were other skilled fighters here, or they wouldn’t be here. Celeste did really well the first round, cleanly sweeping all her opponents. By the end of the first day, Celeste was the only person, male or female, who had not lost a match. The tournament was set up a little differently then some of the other tournaments Celeste remembered competing in. apparently on the third day they take the top 20 fighters who had the best average on the so called ‘practice matches’. Celeste was the only person still undefeated so she was ranked at the top going in. It also meant that Celeste would have to fight fighters who were less ranked than she was until the playing field was evened out. Celeste continued to breeze through the line of fighters; winning every time. by this time Celeste had caught the eyes of the judges as well as the audience.
On the last day of the tournament Celeste got a surprise that she had not been anticipating. It was after she had ensured herself a spot in the quarterfinals. As Celeste began her rest period between the matches, she heard a voice calling her name. As she turned, she saw a woman with light brown hair staring back at her with a smile on her face. “Can I help you” Celeste asked the woman. “Um- hi, I don’t know if you remember me or not, but my name is Pricilla Williams. We went to middle school together.” Immediately Celeste’s face lit up as she stood to embrace her old friend. “My God Pricilla, It’s been ages since I’ve seen you” said Celeste. “How have you been?” “Good” said Pricilla. “Geez, it’s been forever hasn’t it?” “Since middle school” said Celeste. “What are you doing here” she asks, gazing around. “Actually we came because my husband is a huge fan” Pricilla said has she pointed to a tall, stocky man walking towards them. “Celeste Crimson, meet my husband, Julian McDaniel” “Pleasure to meet you” said Celeste, shaking his hand. “So, you got married” “yea” said Pricilla. “I also had kids, if you believe that” “no way, D**n, looks like I missed that boat.” said Celeste. “Sorry we lost touch” “Don’t worry about it” said Celeste said. “How’s your dad, is he still in the force?” Patricia shook her head, “No, he retired years ago. But hey get a hold of this” said Pricilla has she pulled out her bright and shiny Captains badge. “Would’ve guessed you’d join the force” said Celeste. “My Cousin also works for the Los Angeles district” she said after examining the badge. “I know” said Pricilla, “she works in the same district I do” “That’s some crazy s**t” said Celeste. “She told me how to get a hold of you but I never could.” “So how are your folks” Celeste frowned and said “my dad is fine, he still works but he is an independent engineer. And my mom, well she’s… she’s been dead for nearly 6 years” Celeste said as Pricilla mouth fell open in shock. “Oh my God, how?” “She had lung cancer” “Oh Celeste I’m so sorry” “so I’m guessing that your dedicating your championship win to your mom, In deeper respects?” “In respect I am but I’m also doing this to prove to myself that I can. I’ve never won a national tournament and I told my mother that I would dedicate my performance to her at the Devil’s Gauntlet, if I ever got good enough to even qualify for it.” “Well I’m sure your mother would be very proud of you if she could she you now” said Pricilla. “Thank you” said Celeste as she embraced her friend the same time the judges were motioning her back for her next match. “I’ll see you after you win tonight” “alright, see you then’” replied Celeste. Celeste lived up to her promise as she stood with her head high, as she held up her trophy after she had won.
Instead of keeping the trophy at her house, she instead drove over to her mother’s grave where she could get away from all the problems in the world. She told her mother what she accomplished and what she planned to accomplish as she told her mother that she would indeed attempt the Devils Gauntlet, but promised nothing. “This is where I could have used your advice the most. Regardless of what happens I know you would be proud of me anyways” Celeste said as she rose to leave. Celeste said her final goodbyes for the evening and began to walk back to her car and drive home, leaving her championship trophy rested up against her mother’s headstone.

end chapter 7

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Thats the end of the Celeste Chronicals, I hope you liked it, and you that now have a better idea of the Celeste Crimson charatcer.

 

[showtyme27]

I took the time out today to read through this and there is only one word for it....IN-CRED-IBLE!!!! you put so much thought, so much depth, so much time, into this sorry I felt as though I was there or watching a life story on T.V., this is byfar one of the most impressive things I have ever read and i'm truly glad you decided to post it in full so other guys on this site can enjoy an amazingly written peice of work, my hats off to you this was truly great and i'm even more amped because it seems there is more too come! i'll check back soon to see if their is more to read, again Great Job man!

 

[Bernkastel]

Geez man, your a trooper. I wasn't expecting anyone to read it in full, as its really long, 115 pages on word. I appreaite you just taking time out just to read it.

As for me adding more to this, well if you didn't notice, Celeste wasn't the only character in the story, and I planned on giving everybody in Celeste's family their own story. Celeste wasn't even my origional charatcter, her mother, Mikayla was my orgional. I created the Celeste character after my ideas for the Mikayla character reached their extent. And since I didn't want Celeste to be the only character with a complex background, growing up to be famous, I added a brother who plays pro basketball, a cousin who is a heavy metal guitar queen, another cousin whose in the CIA, another cousin who is a professioanl stakeboarder and another cousin who is a drug smuggling casino owner who street races. There was supposted to be an 8th chapter, but I ran out of time before I got to do it. If you go back an read the Celeste bio when I introduced my roster for the first time, you'll notice a 5 year gap between chapter 7 and her profesional wrestling training and debut. Chapter 8 was just her undertaking the Devils Gauntlet, winning her class, and continuing to become a female martial ars icon. In my origional story, the pro wrestling career is non existant, but I modified it because in the 9th chapter of Celeste's life, 20 years from now, she'll be married, have kids, and would have become one of the top female martials artist in the history of Jujitsu, even surpasing her mother in terms of skill. I figure there is room for a decade or so long pro wrestling career before all that because she wouldn't be doing much of anything else at this piont in time, execpt fighting in more tournaments and training students. And at this point, before her wrestling training, she's at least proven herself to be amongst the best female fighters in the world.

 

[wotdoiput]

Well i agree with everything that Showtyme said... just trul amazing dude, but I know ive already said that to you. Your writing is great and to me very addictive that I just wanna keep reading more, so I as well cant wait until we see some more chronicles, of anyone that you have created!!

I really hope that the guys here do themselves a favour and read what you have got, to see some trult incredible writing, keep it up.