'Santana Lopez', Brittany repeated in her head, 'The girl with the eyes is called Santana Lopez'.
For some reason, knowing her name comforted Brittany. It grounded the girl with the eyes, it humanised her a little. It made it so the girl sitting arm's length away, the girl who didn't feel like she was part of a world Brittany knew, a little more relatable.
That didn't mean that Brittany dared to look at her. She didn't know if she was afraid of Santana or if she was intrigued or if she just simply knew that in every sense of the word, she was no match. Whatever it was, her body and instincts were set to defence.
All she could do was watch her through her peripheral vision, only really detecting small movements from the Latina and knowing all she actually wanted to do was get up and run from her. That feeling was still looming between them. It was pressing in on her. Burning her. Taunting her. It was making the blonde sweat but not from any physical heat but from a nervousness and a disturbance it caused within her. She could feel her chest tightening and her limbs shaking. She could feel her breath growing shorter and sharper. Her vision started to become glazed, like a frost was creeping over her eyes. She could hear her heartbeat, Artie's heartbeat, every heartbeat around her... but not Santana's.
Brittany shut her eyes forcefully and tried to drown out the sound of everything she could hear around her. Mr Kroll's voice and his marker on the whiteboard. A students insistent grinding of their teeth. A knock on the door from outside the class and down the hall. But the most obvious sound, the most grating was a heated crackling. Like the popping of wood on a bonfire. Like the sound of flames licking the air, gasping for oxygen. Like a raging forest fire, taking the life of everything around it. Her breathing got worse. She could feel the air around her being sucked into this flame. This heat source. Her head started to pound with an icy jab. The hairs on her arms stood up and her teeth started to chatter.
In attempt to regain control, to calm her senses, Brittany clenched her fists and pressed them into her eyes but as she did so, she felt a soft crunch and a coldness in her palms. She took her hands from her eyes and slowly opened her fists and there, moulded into a ball shape of her fingers, was the light dusting of a snowy frost.
Brittany let out a fearful gasp. One that didn't go unnoticed by Artie. He looked over at his girlfriend and saw her staring confused into her hands. "Brittany?" He whispered with worry, "Are you okay?" She didn't respond. She just continued to shake and stare into her open hands. Artie leaned over to touch her arm but at his sudden movement, Brittany flinched away and balled her hands into fists again. She quickly tucked them under the desk and turned to Artie with an accidental threatening glare. She saw him retreat backwards, his hand slightly come up in a defence and a worried look dawn his face. His reaction confirmed it. She wasn't imagining this. There was something wrong. Something was happening to her and she needed to get out of here.
Drawing that conclusion, Brittany acted fast. She grabbed the bag at her feet and stumbled from her chair. She felt the eyes of her fellow students and her teacher fall on her. She felt the eyes of Santana more. But she didn't look up and she didn't explain. Without a word, she made a fumbling but effective move for the door. As she opened it, she heard the demanding tone of Mr Kroll's voice asking her where she was going. But she ignored it. She just needed to get out. She needed to get away.
She could feel the coldness building up in her hands again. She could feel it cling to her skin and to the material of her bag. And with that, she ran. She ran down the hallway she had previously turned out of and headed for the exit. She got to the fire door she had previously entered and with her free hand, she pushed the bar that unlocked the latch and used her shaking strength to open it fully. And then she noticed it. The spread of ice along the metal, originating from where her hand held it. It crept along, patterning it with delicate snowflakes, building its momentum with every second Brittany held on.
With tears falling down her face, she ripped her hand away only to have a spray of dusty snow fall all around her. She could feel the panic building, intensifying and that only seemed to encourage the blast of soft ice. She waved her hand violently, trying to shake off whatever was stuck to her but it didn't matter. The snow continued to shoot out of her palm with force, turning more and more into hard, shards of ice.
"What the fuck is happening?!" Brittany cried softly.
But she couldn't stop. Someone could see. Someone might see this freak show she was involuntarily performing. So she ran again. As fast she could, she ran across the school grounds and with every step she took, she could feel that pressured heat that had berated her, subsiding. And with that, so did the ice. Noticing this, she ran some more. She ran out until she hit the road and already she could feel her vision clear up. She ran until she could no longer see the building from which she just escaped and her hearing returned to its albeit not normal but comfortable frequency. She ran until she was surrounded by evergreens and by the chirping of wildlife and then she stopped.
She stood looking out into the columns of green that stood defiantly against the cold. She felt the brisk wind dance with the loose ends of her hair and the crispy cold air return to her lungs. She couldn't feel that threat anymore and she couldn't feel her body's violent reaction. All she could feel was a numbness, an emptiness. She could feel the stain of the tears that had fallen from her eyes so she reached up to wipe her face clean only to be met with a hard line of ice that had followed the journey of a tear drop to only take shape at the dip of her chin.
With a whimper, she picked the hard ice drop from her chin and laid it on her palm. She enclosed it in a fist and with all her might, squeezed and tried to melt it with her body heat. She held it until she thought enough time had passed and that the small rounded icicle would surely have disappeared, turning into a small puddle of cold water like physics dictated it should. With a silent hopefulness and a prayer to whomever was listening and to whomever could help, Brittany opened her hand and looked down. And there, square in the middle, just as perfect as before was a singular small tear drop made of ice.
With disbelief, she just stared like she had before and tried to suppress the panic that was beginning to rise again but before she could even begin to get a handle on anything she felt a small sting in the back of her thigh. A drowsiness washed over her, the dampness of the ground greeted her knees and then everything went black.