Fade wasn’t a ‘religious’ man. So one could reasonably wonder why he was doing in a church, or perhaps a better inquiry, what was he planning to do in said church. The answer wasn’t on too complicated. Fade was bored with his last period class of the day in Briarwood, so he decided to cut out early, and check out the town. However, when he realized that the town was full of parole officers, he figured it’d be best if he laid low for an hour or so, until it looked natural for a teen to be wondering the streets. He was dressed-reluctantly, in a relatively conservative outfit of navy blue pants, and a black dress shirt. He didn’t necessarily dislike the attire, although he would much rather have picked out his clothing out of his punk wardrobe. However, he had already run into several arguments with the adults at the school over the attire, and he decided it wasn’t worth the fight anymore. He still wore black, fingerless gloves. Though the dress shirt-perhaps a size to snug-had sleeves long enough to hide the majority of the gloves, so you would probably need to look to see anything. Fade doubted that anybody would go so far as to find something abnormal about what he was wearing. If anything, he guessed the administration was just happy he wasn’t wearing more leather than a cow.

Back to Fade’s current situation, he had to lay low for an hour or so. And he didn’t really see the point in sneaking out of school, just to sneak back in, and hang around the grounds. He probably could have gone behind the bleachers, but he decided it’d be best to get out of the campus. So, he thought of places he could go. The mall was a definite ‘no-no’. It seemed Farris Beuler-as awesome of a movie that it was- also clued adults in on a few things that kids liked doing when they played hookie. So, the thought came to Fade. There remembered hearing about a church on Octavion’s campus. He also hadn’t gotten into any religious debates since he got to the town, so he doubted that anybody would suspect anything odd with a boy wanting to go to a church. Perhaps the fact that he happened to choose the one located on a girl’s private school campus, but it was still enough of an excuse to hold back the Calvary long enough for him to book-it if he needed to. So, with this mentality, he snuck onto the campus. With the girls in class, he didn’t have much trouble getting into the school. It was a simple matter of avoiding stray-teacher’s gazes. Once he succeeded in this, he found the chapel, and got in.

Fade glanced around at the dimly-lit church, wondering why people made churches look so gloomy. If the idea of a religion was to celebrate ‘the life and times of _____(name messiah of your choice here), then wouldn’t it be a bit more bright? And although Fade appreciated the craft that went into the stain-glass windows, and the pieces of what he imagined to be first edition art finds, he didn’t see the need to have a frown on every single person, in every single portrait. Minus the ‘evil roman king’, who happened to have an evil smirk on one.

Another thought tickled Fade’s mind. Octavian, the school name, reminded him of Gaius Octavian, the eighth ruler in the Roman Royal Family of Gauis. Although, since he presumed it was a roman catholic school, which then caused a second thought to play in Fade’s mind. If the roman’s were responsible for Jesus’s death (despite Mel Gibson’s villainous portrayal of Hebrew’s) it was odd that they ended up being the country that also spread the religion world wide- through their large empire. He was rather impassive on religion, and hadn’t yet decided where his faith laid. He didn’t judge somebody on their religion, though he did judge religions themselves. How else could he accurately choose one. Though despite his mental mini-rant, he had nothing against Christianity, or Catholicism. He simply liked to mentally rant…

Fade thought he heard the door open, so he jumped into the nearest bench, leaning his head forward, putting his face in his hands. He wasn’t in the mood to get caught so early. Or perhaps he was. He had recently had a long cerebral reflection, and he thought perhaps he did the things he did to be caught. To crave the attention of authority figures, including ‘the man’. But, then he remembered that ‘the man’ was lame, and there was little cause to describe him in any other way. Besides, he wanted to be able to sneak away for longer than the time he did. However, he was somewhat confident that it was a student, judging by the light footsteps that followed the door. And, unless he was mistaken or the person was walking incredibly lightly, he also guessed the person was female. Fade had no choice but to stay there, waiting for whoever it was to find him there.