Hi!

Well, this is my first story on this site. Just thought I'd put a little note at the beginning.

I think I'm going to post the first few chapters today, see if people like it before I continue.

If you do like this story, please tell me! Reviews are welcomed and encouraged! But please, only constructive criticism.

Enjoy!

Christianne

**I do not own Supernatural**

Update: This is more of a prologue, the real story starts in Chapter 2...

Nikki POV

I hate my life.

Really. I hate it.

All of it.

It sucks.

"Maybe this is hell." I sighed dramatically, falling to sit in a chair as I thought outloud. "Maybe we were all bank robbers who died in a shootout or something, and now we're in hell."

"Shut up Nikki." Travis sighed, brushing his hand through his light brown, cropped hair before settling back on the stool he had been perched on before he got up to clear a table, and continued to type on his laptop.

"Seriously!" I say, louder this time, as I fought with the knot that kept my waitress apron tied around my hips. "That's one possible explanation for why we're all trapped in the un-Godly place!"

"If you hate is so much, quit." Wendy said from her place behind the counter. She had a small section of her bright red hair pinched between her thumb and forefinger, splaying the ends out as she looked at them with scrutinizing, narrowed blue eyes.

"No." I moaned, slouching more in my chair. "Then I'll really be in hell...I mean, no one to talk to, not even you two idiots."

"Hey!" Wendy said, sounding offended. Travis just sent me a glare. Travis was a man of few words; he'd only spoken ten words to me today, 'Shut up Nikki' made 13.

"Oh you know I don't mean it." I said, waving her off. I fell back and laid across two chairs, my butt on one, my upper back on another. I pulled my arms up from my sides, and covered my face with them.

Bored. I was so bored. And sadly, this was a normal day for me. Sitting in a nearly empty dinner, waiting for something to gain my interest, and swimming in my own thoughts. I didn't like that last point at all. Some of my thoughts I didn't want to think about.

"Wen," I called from my spot laying on the chairs. "Wanna make more shirts?"

A few months ago, Wendy and I had broken down. Desperate for something to do, we made shirts to wear as optional uniforms. They were pretty simple; various colored v-neck t-shirts with 'CJ's Restaurant and Bar' written on the front in an artful, creative way I designed it myself). After we made stencils and hours of careful painting, we ended up with a handful of shirts that we were ridiculously proud of.

"No, I just redid my nails," Wendy answered me, dropping her hair to gaze at her perfectly manicured, petal pink nails. I frowned at my own nails, unpolished and bitten. I should have listened to my foster mom when she told me biting my nails was a bad nervous habit.

"Excuse me?" I heard an annoyed voice say from the front of the restaurant. "Are any of you going to take my plate?" A snotty (obviously tourist) girl asked, glaring at me, while the older man, her assumed grandfather, across from her sighed and shook his head.

"I didn't hear a 'please' in there, so wait your turn." I said casually to her, making her huff and cross her arms and her grandfather, who I happen to know (He came in almost every day and always asked me how my day was going), chuckled at me and shook his head, not in disappointment like before, more of a the 'Well, you're one of a kind' derision filled head shake I got a lot.

I've been told many times, mostly by Wendy, that I could be 'sassy.' I didn't think I was sassy, or mean (Thanks Travis), I was honest. I didn't lie when it came to every day crap. I had enough of that in my first eight years of life, thank you, foster care system.

Eventually, I cleared the plates of the snotty tourist girl and her nice grandfather. He gave me a nice tip for dealing with his granddaughter, and smiled at me as they left. I kissed the five dollar bill as I put it in my pocket. At CJ's, yee who clears the table, keeps said tip.

"Hey, Trav, gonna help me with these?" I asked, gesturing to the four plates, three cups and cutlery I had in my hands. Travis just shook his head. "Great." I sighed sarcastically, awkwardly pushing the swinging door to the kitchen open with my hip.

Once I had the dishes on the counter, I reached over the large sink with my left hand, my right was braced against the side of the sink. I got on my tiptoes to reach the drain plug on the top shelf. I grimaced, mentally hating who ever made a sink this wide, and stretched my left arm a bit more.

As I stretched my arm out, and felt like someone was dragging sandpaper over my ribs on my left side. I winced and jerked back, my right hand clapping over my rib cage. I leaned back on the wall opposite the sink and pressed my hand tighter to the dull, burning pain over my ribs. I sucked in a breath and pulled my shirt up slowly.

"Shit." I sighed, seeing the angry pink mark forming perpendicularly over my ribs. I groaned in slight pain as I gently touched the five inch long, half-inch wide, strip of skin. I held in a hiss of pain when my fingertips barely brushed it.

I slid down the wall to the floor and sat on the cool hardwood for a second as I slowly put my shirt down and took a few deep breaths to suppress the pain. It was fairly easy, I had a high tolerance and there wasn't too much pain to begin with. I was more freaked out than in pain anyway.

Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

That's what worked last time. And, going by the results, still works.

"Hey Nik? You ok?" Wendy yelled from out in front.

I took a deep breath before answering. "Yeah, yeah Wen I'm fine!" I yelled back as cheerfully as I could. I gnawed my bottom lip as I looked at the mark again.

I wasn't going to go through this again. I just wasn't.

I sucked in a breath, forcing myself to ignore the mark on my ribs and went back out into the restaurant to the dinner rush.