Disclaimer: Anything you see here, I don't own. Well, except for the story, but that doesn't count. Enjoy!
Children of the Mount
By Rachel, Joanna, and Joshua
Chapter I: Alyceny
'Tessa'--my Mortal alter ego--sat in social studies class, barely paying attention to her teacher. As always, my senses were on high alert for anything unusual—and trust me, unusual is a pretty big word.
"Miss Shasena?" the teacher, Miss Lakira, asked.
"Spices," 'Tessa' replied. I could read Miss Lakira's mind so easily—it was like an overused sponge, already full of holes, but worn down and torn up, too.
I looked at my best friend, 'Roxanne'. She was bored too.
Then I looked over at 'Cole', who sat on the other side of the room. He was quiet, letting me into his thoughts without protest. He knew I was reading them.
Curse this freaking class to the fiery pits of Hades! he grumbled to me internally. I snorted.
Hopefully he was reading my impulses just then (and if I was reading his mind correctly, he was), because I was agreeing with him wholeheartedly. At least Algebra 1 was a touch more interesting.
Miss Lakira dismissed the class, and my two friends and I all met at the door.
Glad to be able to shed our Mortal personas for about five minutes while we switched classes, we started to talk.
"Bolty," I said, using 'Roxanne's' shortened real name, "What is going on?"
"Yeah," said Jasper, AKA Cole. "Your impulses have been fluctuating between dark gray, blue, and green for almost a week now."
"Seriously?" she replied. "I thought I was blocking those."
"You can't block feelings," Jasper replied. Bolty stuck her tongue out at him. In reply, he said, "Na nah na nah na na!"
I rolled my eyes. Jasper could be so obnoxious sometimes. "But you can block thoughts," I added, trying to spare some of my friend's feelings.
She gave me a withering look. "Well, duh, Aly. Except I can't block you."
"I know. And I can't block you. Which really sucks sometimes."
"Yeah, but thank the gods that we can help each other out."
I nodded. "Sometimes having a mind connection isn't such a bad thing."
We were almost to math. Algebra 1 was probably the most interesting class on our schedule, even though Bolty and I had been through it about…oh, I dunno, probably around 500 times. I didn't know about Jasper, but I did know that he was a century or two younger than me.
You might be thinking that we're vampires. Well, you're wrong.