The clock on the wall ticked painfully slowly as Miss Merkel instructed the class to take out their textbooks. Jana Petrov reached down to retrieve hers only to have the book snatched out from under her seat before she could.

"Here" David Andrews said, offering it to her with a dopey smile on his face. Jana rolled her eyes but took the book.

"Thanks David." David had been sweet on her for weeks now, helping her with her books, finding her a place to sit at lunch- had it been in a love sick puppy kind of way. It might have been cute but she knew there was only ever one thing on his mind, and his persistence had made it difficult to deal with. He was a sweet kid, and her friends had been rooting for him for a while now, but Jana had turned down every advance he'd given.

"So, my dads out of town tonight and my friends and I are throwing a party, a few people are coming over if you wanna join." He offered."Amelia and Emma are going, so are Shane and Gordon." There was something hopeful in his voice, and while Jana would have said no, the fact she knew her friends were going to be there made it different. He kept talking, rattling off the names of other people they both knew who had accepted his invitation, but the pounding headache that had been bothering her for the past hour was back and she could barely hear him. In an effort to get him to be quiet she decided to give in.

"I'll- I'll think on it." She promised, and his face lit up. Jana put a hand on her forehead, pushing back against the pain but the pounding was getting worse, and she hadn't brought any aspirin with her today.

"I can pick you up if you like!" He offered hopefully and she grimace, a look that was awfully close to a smile.

"I'll let you know."

"Now that everyone is done taking out their books I'm going to need a volunteer to read." Merkel said from the front of the class. Jana did her best to look as inconspicuous as possible, she looked down at the text book, trying to find something interesting in the pages on genetics. But biology had never been her strong suit, and she couldn't find anything that truly intrigued her in the little black words.

Don't pick me, please don't pick me, I always choke when I read out loud- Don't pick me. Jana's head shot up in surprise, Joy, the girl sitting just in front of her was always quite and reserved- it was the first time Jana thought she'd actually heard her speak in about a week.

Come on you old bitch This time the voice was Danny's, he sat three seats over from Joy, his black hair stuck up at odd ends and he slouched down in his leather jacket as Merkels' eyes passed over him. No one reacted to his words, not even a snicker- no one had heard him. Look somewhere else.

Chose someone else, I read last week.

A shit, I hate when she does this-

No, no not me- please not me

I can't-

Look away

"Jana will you red the opening section for us?" Jana's head shot up and her eyes widened, now everyone was looking at her. The headache was growing worse, and now she felt like there was a pressure against the back of her eyes.

"Yes ma'am."

Jana managed to mumble and around her there were sighs of relief as Jana once again lowered her head to the page, a bead of sweat rolling down the side of her face.

"Every cell in the body with a nucleus has the same complete set of genes."

Thank god it wasn't me

Ugh, I hate this class

Jana looked up, David had just spoken to her, she looked over but he was staring out the window of the far side of the class, completely oblivious. Jana lowered her head to the page once again, pressing her palm against the side of her head in an attempt to keep reading despite the increasing pain.

"A gene is made of DNA- De-deoxy-ribonucleic Acid"

The whole class was talking while she tried to read, each person having their own separate conversation. It felt like people were just spiting out words, ideas, fragments- all just to fuck with her.

"Can everyone please just shut up?" She muttered under her breath, and looked up to see that no one was talking, the room was dead silent.

"Jana-"

"Sorry-" Jana continued to read, her sudden outburst had stoped the voices, and the pain subsided to the back of her mind. She continued to read out the section of the book, her voice growing stronger as she did so- ignoring the fact she felt like she had almost lost her mind. When she was done she popcorn-ed it off to another student, one of her friends Micheal who sat across the class from her, there was an audible grown as his friends realized they would now be next but the class continued on as normal.

In truth the rest of the day was normal, there were no more strange voices, and the headache was minimal enough that she could push it into the back of her mind and forget about it. But the fear ate at her stomach, was she going crazy? She didn't think so, of course there was another possibility, but she would not consider it. She could not consider it.

At lunch Jana and her friends discussed the night, and their plans for it the young woman was relieved to learn her friends actually were planning on going.

"It will be fun Jana, besides, you know how loaded David's parents are, can you imagine how nice his house is?" Amelia said with an obvious look of glee in her eyes, Jana couldn't help but agree, everyone knew that David's family came from old money- like, gated community type of money. Amelia had been dying to find out what was inside of his home for weeks now, her taste for the finer things in life where either going to lead her to am empty bank account- or a loaded husband. There was no in-between, Jana liked to joke about it with her, but the two of them knew it was the truth.

"I'll do it for you Amy" Jana promised and Amelia clapped her hands together.

"Wear the black dress tonight."

"No!"

"Jana." Amelia said, stressing the first syllable like her grandmother always did. Jana glared at her friend and shook her head.

"Its just a kick-back, I'm waring pants." Amelia rolled her eyes and took a sip of her iced coffee before she began her probing once again.

Amelia picked Jana up at almost exactly eight that night. Jana's grandmother had left to go play bridge with a few of her friends hours earlier and Jana knew she would not be back until late at night. Despite her age, Elena Petrov had a much more extraverted life than her grand daughter, almost every night was either a party or a get together with her upper class friends. Jana didn't mind, she enjoyed having the house to herself, not to mention it gave her plenty of space to have people over- in truth in many ways, she had a lot more freedom than her classmates. However in others however it was quite the opposite, when Elena was home- it was hard to do much of anything. She was an extremely controlling woman and seemingly everything Jana did was held up for scrutiny. Elena was very concerned with how Jana was turning out, and often times her questions were out of the blue and straight up bizarre.

"You have the address right?" Jana asked as she opened the door to her friends black 1995 VW Rabbit. Amelia turned down the radio just enough to hear the question and rolled her eyes, gesturing to her phone with the address already queued up and ready to direct them.

"Alright, alright." Jana said as she shimmied of her coat and placed it on her knees. Amelia barely waited for her to close the door before she reeved the ancient engine and took off down the road.

"Gordon dropped out. His parents found his stash in his bag and he's grounded for a month." Amelia said as she reached over into the glove compartment in front of Jana and fought to open it. The car had been Amelia's older sisters, and despite it being well worn and well past its prime, it was the only car Amy's family would allow her until she turned 18.

Two more years with this heap of junk, and then I'm selling it for parts.

Jana looked at Amy as she finally managed to get the stuck glove box open and pulled out a pack of cigs.

"Only a month?" Jana asked in dry disbelief as she took the small box from her and pulled one out for her friend. Amy thanked her and took it, gesturing to the lighter which had been besides it in the glove compartment. Jana pulled it out and gave it to her, taking it back after Amy had lit the end.

"You know how is family is, his dads likely to forget in about a week- and his mom's to high off her ass to tell if he's sober." Amy said rather venomously, Amy had had and thing for Gordon for most of middle school and into high school. They'd broken up because of Gordon's drug use, well, more so because he couldn't remember half of what was happening.

Jana didn't want to admit she felt bad for him, it wasn't this fault he'd been exposed at such an early age- and with his dad such a dick and his mother barely conscious enough to hold a conversation. Jana honestly didn't blame him but it didn't change the situation. The conversation had obviously soured Amy's mood she took a deep breath and exhaled the smoke.

"Man fuck this shit." She snapped and turned up the radio once again. Jana didn't protest as the all to catchy pop song blared out through the speakers. The silence between the two girls didn't bother Jana, Amy was her friend because they'd had class together in eight grade and the teacher had sat them next to each other for the entirety of the year. She had trouble keeping friends, but Jana- who went out of her way to be un-confrontational had managed to put up with her for years now. Jana was likely one of Amy's only true friends.

The next song that came on the radio was Kesha's Tick tock and Jana made a noise of disgust as the high pitched song began blasting through the radio. Almost instantly however, as she put her hand to her head to sooth the headache which spiked with the song, the static on the radio kicked in the song fading in an out.

'What the-" Amy hit the stereo and the channel changed this time the song the static stopped.

"Three more years with this heap of junk, and then I'm selling it for parts."

"I know Amy, you already said that." Jana stated with a sigh as she rolled down the window to breath in something other than Amy's smoke.

"What?"

《Turn left》

"A shit." Amy slammed hard on the breaks and turned down the road. Jana grabbed onto the top of the car as they skidded into the turn.

Amy wasn't the best driver.

David opened the door for them when they nocked and lead them inside.

'Drinks are in the kitchen, Shane and Emma are out by the pool." He explained handing Jana and Amy a drink before leading them out towards the back deck.

"This house is amazing." Amy said, and Jana had to agree, high ceilings, wide open floors with artfully furnished walls- everything in the house was tasteful. In truth it was likely the work of an interior designer, but it was still beautiful to look at.

"Yeah I guess." David said shrugging as he opened the sliding glass door into onto the back of the house.*

The greetings where shared, and by the time Jana had finished her third drink- she was truly having a good time. Amy had been pushed into the pool by Shane, and was sitting with a towel around her shoulders. Emma and Shane where sharing a cig in one of the lawn chairs and Jana who had been sitting on the edge of the pool with her feet in the water, now had Davids arm around her shoulders.

Come on just a little closer.

Jana turned and looked at David, he was looking out of the water trying to pretend he hadn't been looking at her.

'Whats wrong?" He asked.

"Nothing." She lied and shifted a little farther from him.

Fuck.

"Are you sure?" He tightened his grip on her shoulder and shrugged it off.

Stop being so difficult. This time Jana had been looking at him. His mouth hadn't moved. He hadn't spoken those words aloud.

Jana didn't know if it was the alcohol or what, but she suddenly felt sick.

'Jana-"

"I need to go home." Jana got to her feet quickly, almost losing her balance and falling into the water. David caught her arm and she pushed away from him.

"Please-I just want to go home."

"Go- I-" Jana however was already at the door to the house. Jana opened it and closed the glass behind her. She stumbled through the house, her head was spinning, everything seemed to bright- everything to loud. She was hearing things that didn't even exist, the table should be making noise- and yet, she could hear it. The television that Emma had left playing an hour early flickered and then shut off. Fear clung to Jana's every breath as she threw the door open and started down the path towards the street.

The door slammed behind her.

She hadn't touched it.

Jana rushed down the street, behind her a trashcan began to rattle before the top flew off and into the middle of the street.

"No."

The word was barely a whisper on her lips, but did only seemed to antagonize the problem.

Above her the streetlight flickered and then the glass shattered. It rained down around her, but not a shard touched her.

"No."

There were tears in her eyes now, and the word was once again on her lips. But it was lost to the wind as she began to run. She didn't know where she was going, she was just running. As she ran, lights flickered around her, on the side of the street a car horn began to blare and she ran faster, tears streaming down her face.

'No."

Jana took a sharp right into a small park and ran until she caught herself on a tree.

"No."

She knew what was happening. She had convinced herself for months it wasn't true. She wasn't like her brother.

"I'M NORMAL."

She screamed and clutched out her head, it didn't hurt anymore, and yet the world around her swirled before her eyes, a paper from that morning, a discarded coffee cup, almost five dollars worth of change, and the light above her in the park flicked again.

The small scream which left her lips was one of desperation as she doubled over, the whirl wind of telekinetic energy moving faster around her.

It was then that she felt someones arms wrap around her shoulders holding her tightly as she sobbed.

"Its okay Sugah, its all going to be okay."