Right, the fifth of was meant to be only three stories, hate my imagination, enjoy.
Rachel sighed quietly under her breath as she walked through the crowded streets, never having liked crowds but like any other person who wanted to get around the city, there wasn't really a way to avoid them no matter how hard one tried. Worse was it being 4pm, so a lot of people were heading home from work, going to pick up their kids from school, one of those times of day where the city seemed to be packed with far more people than it should be allowed to.
Luckily she didn't have to walk much further, just a few blocks to reach her destination and she could get away from it all, not able to help the occasional grumble as someone collided with her shoulder, the sounds probably were the worse, hearing the mingling of dozens of different conversation happening at the same time around her, she really hated crowds.
Finally she was able to step off the sidewalk and onto a set of stairs, smiling as she looked up at the sign above the door just a few feet before her and proceeded to enter.
It was exactly what she expected, overly white, the smell of disinfectant seeming to come from all around her, but considering where she was, that was definitely not a bad thing. Taking her only a few moments to see the sign for the reception desk and rounded the corner where it came into sight.
Approaching, she noticed a woman, blond hair tied back into a small pony tail, talking on the phone, from the one sided conversation she could hear that the woman was scheduling an appointment for someone and after only a few seconds wait the phone was put down and the woman looked at her.
"Rachel Roth, here for my 4:20pm appointed with doctor Berman." Rachel said with a polite calm voice.
"Roth was it?" The receptionist asked as her eyes scanned the list and Rachel nodded.
"Alright then, if you wouldn't mind signing in." The woman said pointing to an open book on the counter. "He just finished with another patient so he will be with you shortly." She said with a slight smile and pointed down the hall.
"Thank you." Rachel said politely and followed the directions until coming onto a waiting room.
Sitting down on one of the chairs, surprisingly comfortable for a waiting room, guess that's one of the perks of someone in the private care sector, leaning forward she grabbed one of the Magazines and started reading to pass the time.
Now the thing about Rachel is that she had a very rare and unique genetic disorder, her skin was unusually pale, a shade of grey even if one looked closely, unnatural violet eyes and hair. Those of course were only minor side effects of her genetic disorder, though none truly believed her even after a demonstration, she was empathic, with great focus could read peoples current thoughts and even move objects around the room.
She didn't like her physical appearance, she had gotten used to it but the constant asking as to why she dyed her hair that way, why she wore eye color altering contact lenses and why she looked like she had never seen the light of day was an annoyance she rather would be without.
Other than that she was roughly 5"7 inches tall like an average woman of the age of 16, her figure was slightly more developed than most, perhaps a plus to her condition. Her powers were what really annoyed her, at first she couldn't control them when she first realized having them just four years ago.
Now able to block out most emotions except for truly powerful ones and though she always had a little fun with her telekinesis, one to many time had she thrown objects into her own face with unwanted force.
This is why she was here, Doctor Berman, one of the leading scientists in the field of genetics, she never heard a scientist say that they weren't one of the leading heads in the field though, but his records checked out.
He had just a few weeks ago begun clinical trials for reversing or curing genetic defects, though expensive and having to sign a contract, considering things could go horribly wrong, those with unique cases were charged just the minimal costs as a way to get people to step forward, after all, curing a unique genetic disorder could cause a scientist to win a Nobel prize.
This was her first appointment, having signed all the forms needed, just having moved to Jump city a few days ago for the duration of the Trials.
"Wow..." She suddenly heard someone say in almost a whisper and couldn't help smile.
Now there were only a few things a man or any one for a matter fact could mean by the word wow, such as, wow what the hell is she wearing, considering she was only wearing a pair of jeans and a black sleeveless blouse, that certainly shouldn't be it, today at least. There were also the perverted meanings to the word, disgust, disbelief, joy, the emotions she felt coming from the person weren't any of those.
The wow was one left by near speechlessness when a man saw a woman and found her to be one if not the, most beautiful thing he had ever seen, those feelings are what she felt and couldn't help blush slightly.
She had others feel about her that way before though, after deeper probing it was mostly followed by the classic phrase, gotta hit that, but she didn't feel that either.
Her eyes slowly lifted, she saw a pair of smart black shoes, eyes slowly trailing up the freshly ironed looking smart black trousers, black belt with silver buckle, a plain white button shirt without a tie and the top button undone, then she froze.
Her body tensed at the sight before her, eyes widening, now Rachel was never one to judge a book by its cover but neither had she seen anyone like this before, who had it worse than her by the looks of appearance.
The man before her was young, possibly her age, standing at a steady 6ft and build wise was quite appealing, seemingly a young man who went to the gym for a few hours a week, nothing overly drastic, the uniqueness was what caught her attention. Short slightly spiked green hair, green skin, pointed ears, a fang sticking out from his bottom lip and her eyes made contact with his own emerald eyes.
Before her lips could part to say anything, the green eyes averted her own violet ones, now a strong feeling of depression and rejection coming from the man before her, from what she could guess he had seen one to many people react to his appearance like she had just done and god she hated herself right now for letting herself be startled like this.
She watched as the man walked to one of the other chairs to sit, literally as far from her as he could, one leg crossed over the other and arms folded before his chest, face and eyes turned down to avoid any more eye contact, the same feelings as before coming from him.
She was about to apologize when the door to her left opened and a young man stood there with dark blue trousers, black button shirt and a doctors coat. "Rachel Roth?" He said and she looked between what she assumed was Doctor Berman and the other man but sighed, nodding and followed him into the room without saying a word.
It was all fairly routine, Doctor Berman explaining that he will be seeing her on a weekly basis to explain to her if any of the treatments had any positive or negative effects on her, having to come in for a nurse to take a blood sample a day or two before hand so that the results would be ready for their meeting. Also explaining that she can quit any time that she would like, the payments being on a weekly basis as well so there were no loopholes to keep her coming back.
Doctor Berman asked Rachel some routine questions which hadn't appeared on the initial forms and for a demonstration of her powers, himself signing a contract saying that he will not give any information about her, for example, to the government and that nothing about her appearance or powers will leave this office. Rachel was a little skeptical as he brought this up, but sensing no deceit from him, she was rather relieved and finished with him drawing a small amount of blood.
"Right then , i will see you next Friday." He said with a smile as he held the door open for her and with a smile she nodded and walked into the waiting room.
The young man she had seen earlier was still sat there, his form hadn't moved an inch since having sat down. "Right then Mr. Logan, if you'd like to come in."
"Neil, i told you to call me Gar already." He said with a faint chuckle and stood up, walking passed Rachel and into the office, she still felt the saddening sensation flowing from him.
"Excuse me? Is it ok if i stay in the waiting room? I would just like to speak to the man that just went in with Doctor Berman." Rachel said after having approached the reception desk.
"...oh...yes...but here, put these in." The woman said with slight hesitation, reaching into a draw to take out a small clear box with two earplugs visible.
"Alright...thanks." Rachel said with some confusion and headed back.
This might be a doctors clinic, but she was still cautious, only having moved to Jump city a few days ago, she was certainly not going to stick those plugs into her ears, for all she knew dozens of people could have worn them already and though not a hypochondriac, she still didn't want to have some other persons earwax in her own ears.
She sat down, waited, fidgeting a little as she didn't want to pick up a magazine, focusing on the door and on the emotions from the other side, now she wished that she had put the earplugs in. Some of the most vulgar swear words she could hear were being shouted in succession, her empathic senses did not feel anger, only pain.
"Come on Neil, you've got to have something stronger." Gar said panting heavily, every fibre of his being ached.
"Sorry Gar, but i just gave you a dose of painkillers that would have killed a normal human." Neil sighed as he sat back in his chair, watching Gar putting his white shirt back on and buttoning it.
"Then at least give me stronger prescription tablets, the ones you are giving me are like trying to get rid of a migraine using a quarter of a baby aspirin." Gar complained.
"Again, even though we've been at this a few weeks, so far my tests show that any stronger will kill you, your metabolism is just to resilient. It destroys any trace of the painkillers within a matter of hours instead of the better part of a week and any stronger would cause you to O.D. on me, sorry, but you will have to make do." Neil explained with great concern.
"Fine, next week then?" Gar said with a slightly forced and very unconvincing smile.
"Make the appointment with Kira at the desk as always." Neil said with a slight smile of his own.
"Right, take care." Gar finished.
"Likewise." Neil replied and watched Gar leave.
Gar sighed quietly as he closed the door, eyes closed, buttoning all but the top button on his shirt, not having expected the woman from before, Rachel, to be sat there, he was given the last appointment of the day for a reason, so that he wouldn't have to worry about any one hearing him.
He barely looked at her for three seconds before turning to leave and make next weeks appointment.
"Mr Logan was it?" Rachel suddenly said standing up and approaching slowly.
"Yes." He simply said, he wasn't angry or upset with her, just both in general.
"I just wanted to say sorry about my reaction before. i just, didn't expect-" "Don't worry about it." Gar said, cutting off Rachel, but she could feel that he did not believe her, the unconvincing tone of his voice was enough to make that clear.
"Its just that i didn't expect-" "I told you, its fine, don't worry about it." Gar said, cutting her off again, used to people later trying to apologize and again, not believing her as he didn't anyone else and simply walked away from her.
Rachel stood there, now she felt like she had made an idiot out of herself for trying so hard like a pleading little child, worse however, the same sad, perhaps even depressing emotion was flowing from him.
Yay, done, minor role reversal but then again set in an Alternate universe etc. hope you enjoyed.
