Disclaimer: I do not own Justice League or any copyrighted characters (Batman; Wonder Woman; Superman; etc.), but I do own the characters Ashley and Wytch (oh, and Lena, but no biggie on that).
Please R/R, constructive criticism welcome :)
Have you ever tried not to wake up, when you can feel the cold blade of a knife pressed to your throat? I have. I failed.
I opened my eyes, and looking back into mine were the shifty purple ones I've come to know far too well.
"Why are you here?" I whispered, trying not to move. The blade was already cutting into my flesh and I felt a line of blood slide down my skin. She laughed.
"You know why I'm here, little sister," Wytch grinned, "To make sure you remember who's boss."
I shivered. I'm not her little sister, I'm worse. I'm her twin. And she wouldn't let me lead a normal life while she was still breathing.
"Oh, you think you're so precious," she crowed. Precious to who? Our mother, and presumably our father as well, had died long before I could remember. I lived in an orphanage. She went on, regardless. "But you're not the normal little human you always thought you were. You and I spent nine months together, remember?" Uh, no, my memory kind of doesn't reach that far back. "Did you really think you came out unscathed?" Yes, this was something I'd questioned before. Nine months, that's a long time not to kill each other. We've never repeated the feat, that's for sure.
"Do you have a point?" I asked, still trying not to move my head.
"Yes."
"Then get to it, before I die of boredom."
She suddenly pulled the knife from my throat, which had gone in half a centimetre and hurt like hell when she ripped it out. Then she slashed it across my face, from the edge of my blind eye, right across my lips. It was a sudden move, and I recoiled. Wytch didn't usually chuck temper tantrums. I actually reached up and touched the cut on my face. It was deep, too deep, perhaps, to heal without stitches. I imagined explaining that to a doctor.
Well, you see sir; my crazy sister who's got magical powers came into my room during the night with a pocket knife…
Not.
Wytch was regarding me with a triumphant look in those violet eyes.
"I'll get to it in my own time, sis. I'm the one with power in this relationship, remember?" Relationship? I think it's better described as an arch enmity myself.
Wytch had backed off a bit, and I managed to get a look at Lena, my roommate. This orphanage was new, and it was two people per room. Though she irritated me a bit at times, I didn't mind Lena and seriously hoped Wytch hadn't killed her just to threaten me.
She was lying in her bed, and there were no obvious bloodstains, but I still held my breath and watched carefully. As soon as I saw she was breathing normally, I sighed with relief. No deaths, I said to myself, it's fine as long as nobody dies.
At the other end of the room, Wytch was looking less pleased with herself. Her facial expression screamed, Pay attention to me, I'm talking!
"Okay, fine, what were you saying?"
"You're a metahuman," she stated bluntly, knowing her speeches were lost on me.
"What?"
"You heard what I said."
I shook my head. "I know, but how?" How could I be a metahuman? That meant I could… do something, weird, special. But I couldn't. I'd always been helpless when it came to defending myself against others, whether it was Wytch and her coven (No offence to Wicca people, who I think might use this word too, I know you're not totally screwed up like my sister), or the school bully, or whatever. I could get as angry as I wanted, nothing was going to happen. Nothing to help me, at least.
Wytch just stared at me, misinterpreting my question.
"Weren't you listening to me at all?" she demanded. She brought up the knife again, and I saw it was covered in my own blood. But I was to stunned to feel pain, or fear.
"Not how did I become a metahuman," I said, staring into oblivion, "How am I a metahuman?"
Wytch laughed, pleased to know something I didn't. By the way, you may have been thinking of her laughs as evil cackles, and picturing her as having a huge, hooked nose with a huge wart on it. Unfortunately, no. She's got this really irritating tinkly laugh, and she's pretty. The only not normal things about her appearance are her eyes, which are violet, as I have mentioned. But everyone wants a weird eye colour, and you can't go much weirder than purple.
"I'll give you a clue," she said, grinning evilly (perfectly straight teeth, pure white), "It's what our mother named you after."
Then she vanished, in that irritating way magic people do when you have an important question to ask them.
Even though I'm used to Wytch's "What is the sound of one hand clapping" talk, what she said creeped me out. As far as I knew, our mother hadn't named either of us. I'd always thought the orphanage had named me, and Wytch had just called herself that because she felt like it. Besides, the name Ashley indicates what? My mum liked names beginning with vowels and having three consonants in a row? Other than the fact my name has the same amount of vowels as it does consonants, it's pretty normal.
Why was I wasting my time, contemplating something my definitely mentally unstable sister had said? It was probably bogus to mess me up anyway. The problem at hand was her coming back, perhaps with more of her coven. I needed to get out here.
I changed clothed and was packed in less than ten minutes. I grabbed my bag and leapt out the window with well practised precision.
I looked back at the orphanage one last time. I was leaving a place I'd called home for six years. I turned back and kept running. Oh, who cares? It's just another lie anyway.