"Hey! Lady! End of the line"

"Yeah…sorry"

She grabs the worn grey sports bag from the seat next to her and sighs. Looking at the sign on the platform, she glances down at an address written on a crumpled napkin. Dorchester. Her new home. Somewhere to start again where nobody knows. Nobody knows how she's changed. Freak. That's what they called her. Friends, family, her fiancée…

She breathed in the bitter winter air as a cab pulled up outside the station. "Dya need a ride maam?" She nodded entering the car. A smell of stale coffee, cigarettes and day old burgers made her eyes water.

"Where you going dahling?"

She smiled at the strong Boston accent and replied "Franklin Road, Dorchester please."

"Wow. Haven't heard a British accent for a while. Holiday?"

She paused. "Yeahhh. I guess."

"Not a lot of luggage for a holiday." He laughed. "Sorry dahling! I ask a lot ah questions. You'll have a wicked good time in Beantown."

"It's okay. No need to apologise. I've had a long flight, I'm not very chatty. Sorry."

"Ah no bother!"

The journey felt surreal. Only yesterday, she had emptied the joint bank account she shared with her fiancée, jumped in a taxi to Heathrow airport and got the first flight out to America. She went to check her mobile phone, forgetting she had tossed it into a bin outside the airport. Things are going to be different here. She couldn't help feel bad that she had stolen the 7 grand that she and Tim had saved up for a deposit on a house. Getting as far away from him as possible was the only thing she could do. The day she left she realised she could never go back. She tried to make sense of what happened that morning.

Weeks of being in and out of the doctor's surgery with a feeling she couldn't explain. Like there was something evil growing inside her. She'd begun hallucinating. Looking in the mirror and seeing these black eyes looking back at her. It was almost like she could move things without even touching them. She could hear conversations when there was no one in the room. She had tried to confide in friends. They were patient at first, but there was only so many times they could deal with 'an episode' as the doctor called them. That morning scared her. It scared everyone around her.

Tim came downstairs with a bag. She had known it was coming. He needed some space to sort his head out. His brother was coming to pick him up in an hour. He'd called her mother to take her to the hospital. She had begged him to stay. That she would get help. He got angry. The frustration of the last 6 months was finally coming out. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her violently. She felt a rush of energy pulsing through her veins. She felt herself grab Tim's sleeve and with one movement, had him pinned against the wall by his throat. She had lifted him off the ground. With one hand. She could see the fear in his eyes but something stopped her from letting go. He kept gurgling something. Then she heard it. 'Your eyes'.

She glanced in the mirror above the fireplace and saw the same black, dead eyes. It was almost like she was looking at some evil, unnatural version of herself. She could feel the hate pouring out of her skin. She blinked and the evil was gone. Her eyes flicked back to the sea green that Tim always said were her best feature. But looking at him now, all she could see was disgust and pure terror instead of the love and happiness she was used to seeing. She didn't even remember letting go of his throat. The man she was going to spend the rest of her life with, was cowering in a corner; mumbling the same thing over and over. "Get away from me you freak"

Freak.

And that was it. She knew it was over. She had been to numerous doctors but not one of their psychological explanations could account for the superhuman strength. And those eyes. She thought it was a hallucination. But he'd seen them. It wasn't just in her head. Whatever was going on, she knew she had to leave. They would lock her up. Declare her insane. But she knew she wasn't.

"Here we are dahling."

The cab driver had come to a stop outside her new home. She had searched online in the airport for a cheap flat in Boston. It looked even cheaper now she was outside it. It was a place to stay at least. A place to hibernate from the rest of the world. Somewhere she could lock herself inside so she couldn't hurt anyone ever again.

"Thank you for the lift. Have a good evening"

"Have a nice holiday!"

She stepped out of the stifling cab and into the Boston winter. No sleep for 36 hours, but she felt like she could run a marathon. She rang the buzzer on the apartment door.

"Who is it?"

"Lucy Fox, I called yesterday about the flat for rent"

The door buzzed open and Lucy walked into her new life.