Noticed
Amelia sighed as she walked down the sidewalk, the sun disappearing behind one of the few grey clouds that inhabited the sky. The night before had gone so well if it wasn't for the fact that she had dissolved the clothes she had been wearing without realizing it. It was the biggest annoyance in her life. At least now she could control it, before it had been a curse, killing and harming everything that she came into contact with. Amelia tried not to bump into the other students that were heading across the lawn to the front of entrance of the school as she recalled some of the 'accidents' she had.
Amelia looked above the sink to stare at herself in the bathroom mirror. She looked at her face, pushed her eyelids down, and even checked to see if her tongue had changed a different color. If she didn't look different and she didn't do anything bad, why were her parents avoiding her? They were even afraid of touching her now. Amelia repeated the questions that spun through her head over and over as she grabbed some of her hair and let it spill out until it fell back into place. Her mom loved to comb her hair, and now she had to comb it herself. Her mom also said that her hair was very pretty and was a special color of brown. She liked it when people said that she was special and pretty.
She climbed down the small stool that she had been standing on. Something was wrong. Amelia couldn't figure out what, but she knew something was. She walked back to her room, the bright pink walls offering her a little solace from her problem. Grabbing her Raggedy Anne doll from its place on a small purple chair next to her play house set, she sat on her bed and began to practice her new trick. Carefully she pushed the smoke to come out of her hand, smiling as it made her hand turn green. Slowly she made it hotter and then cooler, the brightness of the green altering with the change in temperature. She toyed around with the smoke like a kid would do when they figured out that they could wiggle their ears or noses.
After a few minutes it didn't take her long to see that her Raggedy Anne doll was becoming smaller as the smoke started to eat through it. Amelia dropped the doll and fell off her bed from the shock. The resulting thunk onto the floor caused an extra wave of the green smoke to come out of her and started to dissolve the carpet. Amelia screamed and ran out yelling for her mom and dad, but unknowingly she made the problem worse the more she panicked. Her body felt the adrenalin rush and the green smoke came out around her to protect her from what ever was causing her body to initiate the fight or flight instinct. It grew larger and larger every second, engulfing the walls and turning the furniture into clumps of mossy goo. By the time Amelia had made it outside her house was already half way dissolved, its walls falling down and disappearing leaving nothing but green goop. When her parents came home all they saw was an empty lot where their house had been and their daughter sitting on the side of the street crying. Not even the green goop was left when the police and firefighters came over.
That was the worst thing she had ever done. She still felt guilty for it, but what could she do about it now? Her parents obviously hated her from that moment on. Amelia checked her schedule notebook, taking note if she had finished all the homework in the list. She grimaced when she realized that she hadn't finished all of her math homework. What class would she have to finish it in? Perhaps history…yes, Mr. Dorobosie was the most boring thing to happen to the school since they changed from blackboards to whiteboards. Sometimes she wondered if the school was really that cheap to wait so long to get whiteboards. Even the elementary schools had them before this school.
As the day went on, Amelia started to pay more attention to the clock above the teacher's desk then the notes she was supposed to be taking. As time passed on desperately slow, her pencil started to move on its own accord across her paper, creating circles and faces smiling back at her. She started to add more detail to some of her swirly lines by the time the bell had rung, signaling the end of another normal day. Slowly she put all her papers and pencils into her backpack and gave her English teacher, Mrs. Sullovin a quite goodbye before heading into the catastrophic halls. Making a beeline for her locker, Amelia quickly grabbed her books and headed towards the door. As she walked, she avoided any contact with the other students, making her look like she was the only player left on one side of a dodge ball field. She easily ignored the small snickers that came out of some of the idiots standing next to their lockers.
"Hey look, it's the teacher's pet… want an apple to give to your favorite teacher?"
Amelia walked passed them without even a flinch. So she said goodbye or good morning to her teachers every once in a while, that did not classify her as a teacher's pet. Now that Eugene kid in science was a real teacher's pet. He sat in the front desk all day, asking for help on questions every five seconds and even entered small talk with the teacher when everybody had free time. Not that any of that was bad, but he did it practically everyday and in every class that she had with him. Amelia leaned into the school entrance way's door and stared at the sky as she walked out. The day was perfect. The air smelled soft and clean and the sky was a creamy shade of light blue, the clouds from earlier having disappeared. Smiling a little when the sun shined on her face, she walked out into the sidewalk and started to head home.
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It was early in the morning when the ground started to shake. At first Amelia ignored the slight shifting her bed made, but after a particularly large explosion erupted somewhere near the edge of the town causing a few of the possessions on her shelves to meet the dull carpet, she bolted awake. Trying to catch her breath, she climbed out of her bed, ignoring her own body's complaint of leaving the comfort and warmth. Peering out the nearby window, she noticed most of the neighbors had also woken up and had started to pile up on the street watching what seemed to be a large almost mushroom shaped smoke pillar careen into the night time sky, almost invisible to the human eye. She noticed, without surprise, that her parents were some of the few people on the street that did not make an effort to go outside. Instead she heard them argue together downstairs, but from her room it was more like grumbling.
Sighing she went back to her bed and stuffed herself further into the covers trying to reheat what warmth was left in the sheets. Soon after she could vaguely recall hearing the sirens of the city's police and fire departments as they scurried over to the site of the explosion.
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"Did you hear? They say that one of those crazy nut jobs from the psycho ward got out last night. He blew up like an entire city block! They had to get the Supers in there and…"
Amelia stopped listening to the girl seated behind her and tried to finish the small homework assignment that had been given to her class. She was having a hard time finishing it though because her entire class was filled with an electric current of energy, students shifting in their seats to talk to one another, others laughing at recent events, and some, the few she was actually somewhat paying attention to, were talking about the large explosion that had occurred earlier that morning.
According to the latest conversations, the explosion had been caused by a patient at one of the asylums from the next city over. Supposedly he came to hide, but her peers kept coming to the natural conclusion that the patient was, for lack of a better term, a nut job. A mentally ill human deranged from reality and no longer fit to be in the presence of society. Unfortunately none of the conversations had explained the fact that the patient had exploded a city block.
Amelia got up from her seat as the bell rang for the end of school. As she walked through the hall, the other students were busily talking to one another. It was all the rage to talk about any new attacks that happened to the city or anything else that included the super heroes protecting said city. So as usual the entire student body of the school was buzzing with the recent news. She sighed in relief as she closed the school's doors behind her, the sudden silence outside breaking the sudden dizziness she had felt inside listening to all the chatter. At the bottom of the steps she slid her backpack off her back and searched inside for her schedule notebook, once she brought it out she heard a small voice next to her.
"Hi."
Amelia turned toward the sound, mildly surprised to see a young boy stand next to her. He was obviously still in elementary school and Amelia vaguely wondered why he was here in front of the high school.
"Hello." She said automatically.
"Do you go to this school?" The boy asked, his blue eyes turning a lighter color as they caught some of the light from the sun.
"Yes. I'm a senior."
"Oh, that's cool. My brother is a senior too. Sometimes I think he's too stupid to be one though."
"I think that's pretty natural among most of the guys in this school." Amelia said half joking and finding herself relaxing as she talked with the boy. He had his hands stuffed in his denim overalls and often looked away searching for his older brother in the crowds that spilled out the doors.
"Jack!"
The boy's head moved to the side and then he walked away from Amelia, but before he went too far he turned around and asked for her name.
"My name's Amelia."
"It was nice mettin' ya!" Jack waved good bye and then ran towards one of the popular boys in school.
"No wonder he has such nice eyes…" Amelia thought.
Dash Parr could be considered the most popular and sought after boy in the school. He was always with different cheerleaders everyday, smiling at every girl that walked his way, and cracking jokes with his friends while leaning on his locker in the hallway. Intellectually Amelia knew he was the best looking boy in school and she would admit that every once in a while she could imagine him talking to her and she would be the envy of the female population, but those were just daydreams. She felt no real attraction to him.
She watched them walk away and frowned a little as Dash told Jack not to talk to her. Jack retorted and Dash in turn noogied and tussled his younger brother's cream colored brown hair before they both got into a medium sized black car and it drove away. As the car disappeared from sight Amelia began to walk back to her house, hugging her shoulders as a gust of wind passed her.
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"I've done it!"
The loud shout of accomplishment echoed across the steel room as a small device was lifted up into the air.
"Ha, I've finally done it! The Incredibles won't stand a chance..."
A medium sized man clutched his newest creation in his hands as his eyes glazed over, dreaming of the sweet feeling of revenge and victory. Smiling to himself, he walked over to a nearby monitor, scanning the new specs, specifically those of Metroville. After reading some of the information, he coolly walked over to a nearby elevator, a slight jump obvious in his step. The elevator jolted up before steadying itself and continuing upwards. Coyly, the man smoothed down his gravity resistant hair, placed a helmet on his head and started up the closest vehicle next to him, a motorcycle. His finger raced across one of the pristine surfaces on the motorcycle relishing in the fact that it was free of dust and waxed to a shine so bright that if it was in the right position under the light it would blind anybody. The motorcycle roared as he rode away from his personal living area and headed straight to the city, ready and willing to test it out.