Emily turned up the volume on her headphones as she walked down the street. She pulled up her hood and walked on to the music store. The staff looked at her for a moment and turned away as they usually did. She went over to the rock section and started flipping through. Music was roaring in her ears and she didn't notice for a while that there was someone talking to her. "What?" she said irately as she turned down her headphones. The person who was talking was a girl of about 15. She was smiling broadly and holding a CD out for her. "These guys are really good. Crush 40, have you heard of them?" Emily took the CD and turned went over to the bar-code scanner next to her. She listened to the first song and decided she liked it. She turned to the girl and said, "it's good." And went to pay for it. Emily hated the girls. It wasn't personal, but she was alive, so she hated her. The girl was confused and offended. She went back to looking over the CD's, feeling very bitter at the turn of events-Emily didn't care, she hated her. She started walking home, her headphones turned up to their loudest, drowning out all other noise. The sun started going down as she turned into her shortcut through the park. She thought about the girl in the Music store. She was well aware that she was like that to everyone she met. If she didn't hate someone, she was indifferent to them. this was a mantra that got her many enemies in school and around town in general. She lowered the volume of her headphones a bit. There was less noise in the park-less accursed noise. Suddenly she felt she was in danger and stopped. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and turned off her headphones. She did her best to focus through the noise and felt the three boys coming before they arrived. "Hey headphones. Don'tcha think it's dangerous for a girl to be out her alone." One of the boys said. The three large boys came out from behind the trees and into her line of sight. Her breath caught in her throught when she saw that they each had a baseball bat. Despite her fear, she couldn't help but be her usual blunt self. "leave me alone you punks, you're making too much noise." They didn't seem upset at that statement-indeed, they just seemed more amused. "Yeah, y'see, that's the problem. You think you're better than all of us, and that you have the right to just talk to us anyway you want. We think it's time for you to learn your lesson." At that they all began to approach her. She was surrounded with nowhere to run. She had never felt so terrified in all her life, and it seemed very likely that it would be the last feeling in her life. She took a deep breath and looked the leader in the eyes-if she was going to die anyway, then she would die defiantly. He raised his bat and brought it down towards her head. Suddenly, the bat flew out of his hand-along with the bats of the other two. They stopped and looked at her for a few moments and began to back away. Then they were aware that their bats hadn't just flown out, they were still floating around them. "She's a Mutie! Run!" Emily kept her eyes locked on them as they ran, the bats suddenly going after them, landing several hits until Emily stopped caring and the bats dropped. She turned up her headphones and started walking away, slowly processing the truth-she had suspected since she was seven years old-she was a mutant.