AN: Hi! Thanks for the quick feedback! I'm going to put another chapter up now just to see what you think. Again, thanks so much.
Any further suggestions and comments are greatly appreciated!
How Rachel survived the rest of the day is beyond her. Between hot flashes and breaking out into cold sweats every 5 minutes, she was a mess.
She decided to take a cab home rather than making a fool of herself on the bus ride home. The entire cab ride home consisted of her tightly closing her eyes and breathing heavily to prevent her from getting sick.
"How much do I owe you?" she barely got out as the taxi pulled up to her house.
"It's on me darlin', are you sure you're alright?" the tiny old man asked, looking more and more concerned as the ride ended.
"Yessir, fi-ine thank you!"
She exited the car and walked slowly and steadily to her front step. Stopping just before the door to throw up in the garbage can outside.
"Sweetheart! How was your day!" Leroy asks as he leaves the kitchen with a plate of lasagna.
"Good. Umm, I'm not feeling well, g'nite" she mumbles out as she continues through the living room and up the stairs to her room.
"You sure you don't want a bite?"
"No thanks. Already had a bite.." she replies as she drops her coat, boots and backpack on the stairwell.
Once in her room, she locks the door behind her and starts removing the rest of her layers. Only to remain in a pink sports bra and undies.
She's shaking, but not because she's cold. Not right now anyway. She's shaking because her muscles feel as though they're losing control.
She climbs into her bed after trying to direct her path from her blurred vision and dizziness.
She gets under all the sheets because she begins to get extremely cold. Perfect white teeth chattering almost in rhythm with her rapid beating heart that she can feel in her throat.
Her hand is swollen and throbbing. The tiny bump has turned into a red swollen bubble that is without a doubt infected.
The next thing she knows, she's throwing the covers off of her and laying flat on the floor against the cold wood paneling.
Sharp shooting pains crash through her stomach as her feet begin to tense up in charlie horse pains.
She grabs her pillow and lets out a long, shrill scream to exert some of her agony.
Her ears begin to ring. From the screaming or the pain, she doesn't know.
Her hand feels like it is about to fall off from the pain as the large bump throbs more intensely by the second.
She lets out one last scream into the pillow. She'll be lucky if she has a voice tomorrow morning!
Hell, I'll be lucky if I'm alive at this rate.. she thinks to herself for a split second.
And then, it all stops. No more pain, no more ringing ears. Silence. Nothing but silence.
She tries to push herself off the floor but fails. The next thing she sees is complete darkness, and the tiny weights on her eyelids weigh them down as they close completely.
It's warm. Really warm. But not an uncomfortable heat, soothing almost as if she's in a warm bathtub.
Why is my stomach so soar? Wait a second..
She opens her eyes, one at a time to reveal that she is indeed on her bedroom floor half nude.
The sun is beating directly through her window onto her bare back.
She pushes herself to her bedside table to grab her obnoxious, round glasses. Placing them on her face, she sees three blurry images in front of her.
Squinting, it does nothing to clear the image. She removes the glasses to reveal an alarm clock with three digits clearly displayed.
Confused, she puts the glasses back to her eyes, again to reveal the same blurry focus.
Blurry.
Clear.
Blurry.
Clear.
Odd...
She removes the glasses entirely and glances back at the clock. 8:08am. AM? AM!
Have I really slept since 4pm yesterday?
A knock on her door brings her out of her thoughts.
She gets up to answer it but stops suddenly. Glancing at her bedroom mirror.
Startled at first she slowly walks towards the figure in the mirror. Before her is a fit, tanned, beautiful young girl wearing a pink sports bra and black undies.
Shocked at this sight, she starts looking at her reflection in awe. Beginning at her structured collarbone down to her newly formed breasts and even further down to her toned flat stomach supporting a set of ab-
ABS! ABS? When di- ABS?
"Sweetheart? Are you up yet? You're going to be late for school!"
Jumping at the voice of her father she returns to the door peeking out to respond to him.
"Sorry daddy, just getting dressed"
"Feeling any better? Any change?" he asks after a concerned pause.
She looks back at the mirror observing the way her calve muscles are flexed as well as admiring her backside and, well, her backside.
This is new!
"Yup," she turns back to her awaiting father, "big change. Be down in a few" she closes the door and begins to get dressed in front of the vanity.
She notices something else in the mirror. Directly behind her is the window leading into none other than Quinn Fabray's bedroom.
Rachel doesn't turn around but continues to glance at the mirrored image behind her.
The beautiful blonde is adjusting her cheerios uniform and tying her pony tail into a tight knot.
Rachel can't help but notice the sad expression behind the beauty on the cheerleaders face. She's disturbed by this expression. She's never seen her look so upset.
Before looking any further into it, she realizes it's a horrible invasion of privacy and turns to go downstairs for school. Failing at the attempt to wash the sight from her mind.
"Look at this Leroy, that new neo-technology building was robbed last night! 'Ozzcorpe Industries, victim of break and enter along with fatal injuries early this moring'" Hiram reads from the morning newspaper.
"Isn't that the corporation focussed on improved battle equipment and technology for the army?" questions his husband
"Ya. Ya it is.." Hiram looks at him with a concerned expression.
Bolting down the stairs at top speed, an energetic Rachel Berry greets her fathers with a kiss each.
"Well, looks like you're feeling much better today!" Leroy exclaims after setting down his coffee.
"Ya, I think I just needed to sleep it off" Rachel replies happily.
"You look different today. You're not wearing your normal attire."
Rachel looked down. He was right. She must have put on her jeans and hoodie in a rush. Her hair was even down.
"Ya, I didn't have time to get ready so I thought i'd just wear this to school today" she replies hesitantly "Umm.. does it look ok?"
"Wonderful sweetheart. You look wonderful" Hiram replies with another kiss to her forehead.
"OK well I gotta go. See you tonight" she says over her shoulder as she rushes out the door.
Seriously, where did all this energy come from!
As she leaves her house, the Fabray door bursts open with a frazzled looking Quinn marching quickly down her steps and up the road. Rachel pauses to observe.
Her father, Russell Fabray, barges with the same intensity out the door. Yelling at her with a force.
"I have to go to school, dad" she hears Quinn yell from further up.
"YOU'RE NOTHING! YOU HEAR ME! YOU'LL NEVER MAKE IT HERE, YOU'LL NEVER MAKE IT THERE! YOU'RE USELESS!" he yells at her from the front porch.
"Go back inside old man!" she faintly hears the blonde cry. She could have sworn she heard her sniffle back some tears but Rachel can't see her face from behind.
Russell mumbles something obnoxious and heads back inside. Rachel begins to slowly walk behind Quinn.
What's happening? Why are you so upset. Don't cry, you're too beautiful to cry.
Rachel thinks to herself as she walks behind the blonde, wondering if it best to confront her or give her some space.
A car horn is sounded from behind them and a black convertible pulls up beside the frustrated blonde. The Lopez one and her girlfriend Brittany open the door for the blonde and they drive away.
At lease she has someone to talk to about it I guess..
Within the next second, Rachel sees the school bus speeding down the road beside her. She jolts forward and starts sprinting beside it like yesterday. Screaming for them to stop and let her on.
Of course they don't stop. They never do.
Not again. I'm not a damn track and field star!
She goes to bang her fist against the side of the bus. A paper, football banner is placed on the side of the bus. Reading something about the home opener this Friday.
Rachel's hand hits the paper hard and when she goes to pull it away, the paper somehow sticks to it and doesn't fall off.
Rachel stops running and looks at the large banner that is somehow attached to her hand. Almost as if it were magnetized, she tries to rip it off, but is somehow stuck to her with a force.
After eventually removing it from her hand, she looks down in search for the swollen spider bite from the night before, only to notice that it had disappeared. As if it were never there.
Rachel looks back up to see the bus is far gone. She decides its best to take another cab and get to school somewhat on time for the day.
Lunchtime. The Cafeteria. Two of the worst things in high school life for Rachel Berry.
Making her way to the unoccupied table, she sits down and looks at her plate of disgusting cafeteria food.
She sighs to herself and is about to bite into her apple when she sees Quinn walking towards her.
They make eye contact and Quinn gives her a shy smile as she goes to turn to the jocks table.
Rachel sighs once more and continues to poke at her food as the girl passes her.
A sudden feeling runs through Rachel's veins. Her ears start ringing and there's a tingling sensation in her neck. The hairs on her neck and arms stand up and its a feeling of urgency through her core.
She turns to see Quinn slipping on some spilt juice and falling backwards towards the floor.
Quickly, Rachel catches the blonde before she hits the ground with one arm, as the other arm grabs her tray of food; catching all of it's contents perfectly on the tray as they fall.
An out of breath Quinn stares blankly at the brunette. Eyes wide with shock yet amazement.
Rachel stares right back at the blonde, who is still in her arms as if they were about to dance a tango or waltz.
"Wow," the cheerleader breathes out as if she was holding a breath "great reflexes! Um, th-thanks!" she finally gets out.
Wait, did she just stutter? Wait, focus Berry say something back!
"No problem, i'm glad you're ok!" she manages to get out
Quinn, still looking deeply into the brown pools of chocolate, frowns her eyebrows in curiosity.
"Hey, you're not wearing your glasses today! I didn't notice how, um, dark your eyes are. Did you just get contacts?"
What? What did- what did she just say? Something about contact? NO NO contacts! Like eye contacts you perv!
Rachel can't seem to put words into anything orally so she just gives the blonde a goofy grin and nods.
Quinn smiles back with a blush and straightens up. Patting down her red cheerios skirt that had risen up from the fall.
"Well, thanks again. See ya" she continues on with another signature wave.
Rachel stands there, awe struck once again at the blonde girl. The cheerio joins the rest of her squad at the table.
Huh.. that was.. an interesting scenario..
Rachel turns back to grab her tray of food, only to realize, yet again, her hand is magnetized to the tray!
She grabs the tray with her other hand and slowly pulls the one attached away. Only to see a thin, sticky membrane like substance coming with it.
At first she thinks it is just a piece of chewed gum stuck to the tray, only to realize that it's coming from her wrist as if it were coming from inside her body!
Panicked, she whips the tray away from her body as it flies behind her. Hitting someone with a thud.
Embarrassed and scared, she jumps up and starts walking quickly out of the cafeteria, the tray and gum-like substance still trailing behind her.
"BERRY! YOU SON OF A BITCH!" a loud deep voice is heard from behind her. She stops abruptly and turns around to see a very pissed off Finn Hudson lumbering towards her with his fists clenched..
There's chapter 2! Ill get the next one up after some more comments. Just have to make sure this is good to go.
Cheers!