Chapter Two: Ripples
The darkness had come for her.
Lyra slowly opened her eyes and stared into the void of shadows, her heart speeding up almost instinctively.
The girl could hear a distant dripping sound and smelled something cloying and metallic... as though the room were full of stale blood. Her heart skipped a beat when the realization hit her: something or someone had been slaughtered down here, all alone in the darkness. The albino lifted her hands, but paused when she felt something strange: instead of hitting a slick stone wall, she felt warm skin and satin-like hair beneath her fingertips. After several moments of touching this anomaly with a bit of apprehension, she registered heavy breathing and blinked.
She didn't know why, but she vaguely recognized the person standing in front of her.
Not enough to know who it was, but enough to tell her this person was familiar.
"Who are you...?" Lyra whispered, struggling to see through the shadows. "Why are you here?"
"Shut up..." a female voice sneered, making her twitch. "I've always hated your 'oh-poor-me' act!"
"I see you..." a familiar ragged voice whispered, echoing out of the darkness with the chilling rasp of fire. "I've found you..."
Almost immediately, the void of stars filled the air and Lyra saw a gorgeous brunette standing in front of her.
Lyralianna twitched when she realized she was staring at the student council president of her school, Erika Montgomery: the girl's crystal blue eyes were full of cold hatred, and her expression was wrinkled with a terrible smile that had been laced with rage and satisfaction. It wasn't until the moment her blue eyes began to glow gold that Lyra realized she was holding an enormous sword high above her head, shimmering tip facing a blood-red sky. High above, a crimson moon rippled into view.
"-ight as well..." a distant voice sniggered. "After all, she won't know."
Lyralianna's heart froze when the blade came down.
"NO!" Lyra shrieked, bolting upright in bed and flailing around in mass hysteria. "NO! NO, NO, NO! NOOOOO! HELP!"
"Holy shit!" Nathan squawked, jumping away from her bedside with both hands raised. "Chill! Chill! I wasn't really gonna do it!"
"H-huh?" Lyra asked, glancing at up her foster brother with frightened yellow eyes: the blonde boy was holding an uncapped marker in his left hand, but aside from that, he looked rather spooked. "Nathan...? Wait, w-what are you doing in my bedroom again?! And what's with the marker?!"
"N-nothing, all right? Damn, you nearly gave me a heart attack," the boy irritably huffed, shakily capping the marker and shoving it into his back pocket; she blinked when he hefted his backpack. "Anyway, get dressed... Toni's letting you ride a public bus with me today since your social worker is coming to check on you this afternoon. She said she doesn't want you to be tired for the meeting."
"Eh? Mr. Kay is coming?!" the girl squeaked, looking at him in surprise; he merely stared at her with a flat expression. "O-okay... um, I'll... I'll be ready in a second. Just hold on."
True to her word, the girl leapt out of bed and slipped on her uniform in a flurry of action, but her reluctant sibling scowled when she tied the familiar black ribbons into her hair. Once Lyra had gone through her usual morning routine and had grabbed all of her needed belongings, they went downstairs together and headed for the bus stop without meeting each other's eyes.
"When we get to school," he grunted, scowling in disgust, "you get off after me. I don't want anyone thinking you and I get along with each other."
"Fine," Lyra sighed, lowering her eyes. "If you say so."
She should have been at least relieved. After all, it was an extremely rare treat for her to be able to ride the bus and not have to walk all the way to school. Even if they were on a public bus: all of the seats had been taken due to the morning rush hour, so they were standing. However, for some weird reason, she couldn't even smile. She ended up staring into space with such a blank expression that she actually caught Nathan's attention.
"What's your deal?" he muttered, inconspicuously nudging her shoulder to avoid drawing attention; the girl blinked a few times and looked up at him with a dazed expression before shrugging and staring out the window. He seemed rather vexed by her lack of response, but the girl was kind of happy to see a bit of anxiety lacing his expression. The fact that he was worried was a sign that he might have actually cared about her.
Even if it was only a little.
"It's nothing... I'm just surprised by the fact that you're concerned," Lyra murmured quietly, glancing up at him with stoic eyes when he frowned. "You... hate me, right? You've already sided with the groups that harass me in school, and you've befriended every other person who doesn't like me... so, why are you acting worried?"
"You know why I'm worried," Nathan quietly retorted, giving her a serious look. "The last time you woke up screaming, you blew out the windows and somehow set our whole god damn house on fire. You're lucky my mother hasn't tossed your sorry ass out yet, since you destroyed all the family photo albums in the process."
That made Lyra shut her mouth and keep it shut, since he was completely correct.
It gave her a sick feeling in the core of her heart.
"I'm sorry," Lyra stated softly, finally giving her foster brother a very feeble smile. "I..."
She trailed off when her eyes watered, but she held the smile and turned to look out the window.
Nathan's eyes flickered a bit, and for a few moments... he actually looked uncomfortable.
Lyra was normally a very expressionless girl, and she rarely let her feelings get the best of her... especially in front of him. He stared at her watering eyes; then he flicked his gaze to her hand, which was clutching the bar above them so tight that her knuckles were visible.
"Anyone home?" Nathan hesitantly called, waving a hand in front of her eyes. "Seriously... are you okay?"
"Huh?" Lyra quietly asked, looking at him with a dazed expression. "What?"
He frowned.
"Okay, spill it," the albino boy muttered, scowling out the window. "What's wrong with you?"
For a moment, the girl merely stared at him with a blank expression.
"Bad dreams," Lyra hesitantly told him, giving another halfhearted smile before she shrugged her shoulders. "I keep having... nightmares. That's all."
Nathan seemed unconvinced by what she'd told him, but he didn't push the subject.
A soft sigh slipped through Lyra's nose as she watched the unfamiliar scenery pass by.
This was the Bronx.
In this part of New York, there were pockets of neighborhoods with huge, beautiful houses that looked exactly the same. The girl secretly loved the suburbs, but sometimes the fact that everything looked alike really bothered her.
Her thoughts soon drifted to the puppy she'd found a few days ago.
After the school day had ended, she had considered going home... but a nagging worry had lingered in her mind, so she'd gone back to the courtyard just to make sure. However, much to her shock and dismay, the little puppy had still been waiting there for her, curled up in the same spot she'd left him in.
When she'd stopped in front of him, he'd looked up and yapped.
"What the hell are you still doing here?" she'd whispered, not believing it for a second. "Why?"
The puppy had simply gotten up and happily pranced over, spanking the ground with a paw and another bark.
She'd squatted down with a sigh and had gently rubbed his ears, feeling more than a little uncomfortable... but while she'd been petting him, she'd felt his ribs. Much to her shock, underneath all the fluffy, scruffy fur... he was so thin it was a wonder he was even alive. The little guy had genuinely been starving.
Once again, she'd told him to stay, and had left him there... but that same night, she'd grabbed her meager dinner of buttered toast and hard boiled eggs and had snuck out of Toni's house, making her way back onto the school grounds by climbing over the gate. With an odd sensation of empathy, she'd given the puppy half of her meal... but then, just as she'd been about to take a bite of her own toast, he'd leapt up and snatched it.
With a gentle tug, it had ripped in half, and he'd happily started eating, fluffy tail wagging.
Lyra had blinked, then smiled a little.
"Well, I think I found your new name," she joked, rubbing his ears. "I'm gonna call you Bandit. You're a little sneak thief."
His tail had wagged, but aside from that the dog had continued eating. She wasn't sure what kind of breed he was, exactly, but she'd figured he was a mix between a husky and a German Sheppard. In truth, school had become almost bearable for her now that the little guy was around. He always waited for her... so she made sure to split her food with him at lunch time and dinner time.
It had been almost a week since that day she'd found him on on the bridge.
On the down side, however, a week had also passed since she'd spoken to Miss McKinley.
"We're here..." Nathan muttered, roughly elbowing her arm before he hefted his backpack. "Wait for me to get off."
"Oh... go ahead," Lyra murmured in a soft tone, absently closing her eyes. "I'll wait here."
"Good," he grunted, sounding like he didn't care one way or another. "Later."
Lyra stared at his back as he headed down the aisle and got off the bus: once he'd gotten off and was halfway to the doors, she followed him, moving much more slowly with her head lowered.
"Bye," she mumbled quietly, slipping the long strap of her bag over her shoulder and hefting her pack. "Have a good day."
The girl's arms were hanging limply at her sides after she gently stepped off the city bus, and with an emotionless expression, she looked at the path leading to the school. Her long white hair was slowly swept off to the side by a gentle breeze... she could already feel her throat locking up.
Like always, she felt as though this were a death sentence.
School without Miss McKinley and the library was almost too hard.
However, when she walked through the gates and made her way towards the front entrance, Lyralianna instinctively realized that something was wrong: every single girl and boy standing in the area glanced up and started looking at her. Everywhere she looked, there were groups of boys and girls looking straight at her. The students of her school looked like punks: some had piercings, others had dyed hair, many had multitudes of tattoos... but all of them were wearing identical school uniforms worn with careless attitudes.
"What the hell is up with everyone today...?" Lyra wondered, slowly turning her head and looking at everyone with furrowed brows. "Why are they staring at me like that?"
She didn't know why, but staring was an understatement: death glares was a much more accurate description.
Despite her expressionless exterior, she could feel her heart turning cold, and an familiar ringing sensation started building up behind her eyes. After a few moments of standing stock still in the middle of the sidewalk, the girl slowly began walking toward the building doors, discreetly keeping an eye on the people around her.
However, Tiffany's little trio halted her before she could walk up the stairs.
"So," the blonde girl giggled, giving her a sinister expression. "I guess there's no way for you to deny that you're a mutant now, is there?"
Lyralianna did a double take, staring at her as though she'd grown another head.
"Huh?" she asked, staring at the girl in total confusion. "What are you talking about?"
"Playing innocent won't work this time, skank," Brittany sneered, pulling a newspaper out of her purse and tapping it. "Your face is all over this thing! You can't hide the fact that you're a mutie anymore!"
"I guess you must have been desperate for some positive attention, right?" Alexa drawled, leaning forward with a smirk. "Hey, girl... not judging or anything, but did you let him fuck you or something? Is that why he wrote such a nice story?"
Lyra twitched and looked at her in horror.
"What the hell are you talking about?" she squeaked, blinking in shock. "Seriously, give me that thing."
When she snatched it out of Brittany's hands and unrolled it, the girls smirked since Lyra's stoic demeanor went clean out the window within seconds. Her eyes immediately widened and her jaw tightened in shock. On the front of the newspaper was a picture of her face: when it had been taken, she didn't exactly know... but if she had to guess, it was a week ago... on the same day she'd found Bandit.
After all, she'd only sat on the railing of that bridge once in her whole life.
And on the cover, there was a photo of her sitting on that same railing, looking at the sky.
The camera had somehow been positioned at a weird side angle when the picture had been taken.
"See?" Alexa sneered, watching as the albino's jaw slowly went slack. "Can't hide it now, you little freak."
"What the hell?!" Lyra whispered, knees turning to rubber almost instantaneously; she frantically flipped the page and started reading, eyes enormous and heart racing with disbelieving anxiety. "What the hell is this?! I never... I never gave anyone permission to take my picture! Who took that picture?!"
"Seriously?" Tiffany scoffed, checking her nails. "Girl, bye... don't try to act innocent. it's pathetic."
Lyra couldn't even hear her: she was so immersed in reading what had been written that her mind had gone numb. The headline was appalling.
"Teenage Girl saves a Fox News reporter using shocking psychic ability"
"No," Lyra stammered, legs finally giving out; after she plopped down on the ground, she shakily started reading, mouth trembling. "No, no, no, no, no! NO! That creepy stalker was a news reporter?!"
Feeling herself going numb, the girl frantically read through the article, trying not to panic.
In a shocking and somewhat unbelievable turn of events, last week we discovered that our own Fox News' reporter, Gene Hughes, was saved by a local New York teenager in a most unusual way. He claims that the girl warned him to be careful about driving through a well-known street crossing, and like any rational man, he didn't really pay attention to it... but then, in a startling turn of events, that warning actually saved his life.
"From what I could tell, Lyralianna was a highly unusual young lady... in several different ways," Gene told News Reporter, Betty Goldman. "When I first met her, I thought she was suicidal. I mean, she was standing on the railing surrounding the edge of the Mastierre Hotel's rooftop, but at the same time... there was a part of me that thought, incredulously, that she might have been an angel. I know, I know, it sounds ridiculous, but it's true. I've never seen anyone with white hair before, and her eyes were like something right out of a fairy tale."
When we asked Gene to recount his experiences with the teen, he claimed that she warned him about the connection between his phone and the accident. Low and behold, within ten seconds of arriving at the street crossing, his phone did indeed start ringing: Gene was so spooked that he proceeded to ignore the call, which actually saved his life.
"If I had ignored the warning she'd given me and picked up that call," Gene tells Fox, looking at the reporters with shaken eyes, "I might not be standing here today. Mutant or not, that little girl saved my life... she's a hero. I mean, only ten seconds after that phone rang, a runaway bus shredded across the street and crashed into a telephone pole. To think, that could have been me... it was terrifying."
According to witnesses, who also saw the accident, nobody on the bus was seriously injured, but there were quite a few scrapes and bruises. We've asked Gene if he thinks this brave and somewhat unusual girl would be willing to meet with Fox News for a formal report, but as of right now, he doesn't know anything about her aside from her name.
Lyra was in shock: the little color in her cheeks had completely gone white, and her eyes were blank with horror.
"What's wrong, Mutant?" Tiffany asked, leaning down with a nasty little smirk. "Cat got your tongue?"
That was it.
Shredding the newspaper without a word, Lyra lunged to her feet and tore up the stairs.
Everyone's eyes were on her when she tore down the hall, but she was so determined to get away from the people around her that she ended up running around for ten minutes before she found the library. Once she got there, the girl slammed the doors shut and sank back down to her knees, muscles shaking violently.
However, the sound of a grandmotherly murmur couldn't even bring her spirits up.
"Why, hello, Lyra!" Miss McKinley called, sounding surprised. "I haven't seen you for a while! Hm...? Why are you on the floor? Is something the matter?"
The girl didn't answer: she couldn't.
She was so sick of everything, so tired of being different, that she couldn't even look at the one person who'd accepted her.
"Miss... McKinley," Lyralianna stated shakily, slowly crawling back to her feet and finally turning around; when she looked up, the woman's smile was wiped clean and she stood up with a startled expression, since the albino girl had tears streaming down her cheeks. "I... I..."
"W-what's wrong?" the old woman stammered, leaving the desk when Lyra's face scrunched up and she clutched the front of her skirt. "What happened?"
"The whole world knows I'm a freak now!" the girl stammered, trying to fight back the ache in her chest. "T-the newspaper... I'm in the newspaper! That jerk put me in a newspaper!"
"Oh, that? I know..." Miss McKinley stated soothingly, stopping in front of her and setting her weathered hands on the girl's shoulders. "I know, sweetheart, I read the paper every day! What you did doesn't make you a freak, it makes you a hero! And don't you ever forget it! I've lived for sixty five years, child, and in this day and age... it's a rare thing to meet a girl as sweet and honest as you are."
"Eh?" Lyra whimpered, slowly turning around and staring at her with dazed amethyst eyes. "What do you-?"
"Shhh, don't talk," the woman soothed, staring into her eyes with a warm smile. "Even if the whole school starts to think you're strange, that doesn't mean it's true! So, you've got a little more to you than others... does that make you bad? Not at all! Even as a mutant, I still think you're a sweetheart... especially considering the environment you live in. Lord have Mercy, you're a very strong girl indeed to be able to smile while living with such a horrible woman."
That was what did it.
For the first time in a long time, Lyralianna couldn't keep her mask in place and began to cry: tears slowly welled up in her eyes and started trickling down her pale cheeks. The girl's face scrunched up even further and she let out an involuntary sob... then choked back another... but eventually, she couldn't hide it.
In that moment, she abruptly burst into tears.
Lyra slowly clenched the front of her pleated skirt with shaking fists and tilted her head back, hiccuping and choking as the first wail escaped her lips.
"Come here, honey," the librarian soothed, spreading her arms. "There, there..."
Lyra didn't even think: almost mechanically, she found herself stepping forward, willingly walking into the librarian's grandmotherly arms in spite of the threat her son had made. Miss McKinley rubbed her back and sighed when her shaking fists grasped and tightened onto the back of her floral-print dress.
"There, there," the woman murmured again. "Go ahead and let it all out."
"It hurts..." the albino choked, bawling like a child. "It hurts! It hurts! Everything... it just..."
She couldn't even finish.
Her words devolved into hysterical, raw-throated sobbing.
Veronica McKinley was one of the few who was aware that Lyra had been alone not out of choice, but as a result of her differences: she had been completely alone... unloved, harassed... empty... it came as no surprise that a little bit of kindness had made her cry. After all, kindness was something she'd been given so little of it was sickening. The woman couldn't do anything but rub the girl's back, so that's exactly what she did.
For ten minutes, she soothed Lyra until she stopped crying.
Then, the old woman pulled away and patted her cheek before handing her a tissue box.
"Thank you," Lyra mumbled, rubbing her puffy eyes and blowing her nose. "Please don't tell anyone that I cried..."
"I won't, dear," the woman chuckled, planting a hand on her hip before she patted her graying curls. "Would you like a cup of hot cocoa before class?"
"That sounds nice," the albino mumbled, hiccuping again and rubbing her puffy eyes. "Thank you."
Still, somehow... there was a part of her that had gone completely numb. She knew she was in trouble... if Miss McKinley's son ever found out that she had been talking to his mother again, he would probably do something to ruin everything. He was more than a little intimidating, after all... she could see him using violence.
Neither the librarian nor the student noticed that a familiar girl with long brown hair was peering through the door with a stunned expression.
However, five minutes later, the bell rang.
Lyra instantly looked up and sighed, downing the last of her hot chocolate.
"I have to go now," she murmured, hiding her eyes with her hair. "Miss McKinley... thank you."
"You're very welcome," the old woman giggled, but just as Lyra turned to go, she gasped. "Wait! Wait! I almost forgot!"
Lyra turned around and waited, watching as the old woman dug around in her bag: after a moment, she pulled out a small wrapped box and hurried over, gently pressing it into the albino's hands. Lyra stared at it in confusion, then looked up at the librarian.
"What's this?" she asked, blinking. "A gift?"
"Yes," the woman chuckled, giving her a wink. "I think it's a shame that you never wear make-up or do anything with your hair, especially since you're such a pretty girl. So, I took it upon myself to do a little research on your albinism in order to get you that. It won't irritate your skin, and its waterproof, so I truly believe its perfect for you. Think of me when you wear everything, eh? I'd love to help you apply it and do your hair up into pigtails or something, but you really do need to scoot! You'll be late if you don't rush!"
Lyra nodded and gave a small, very rare smile of thanks before hurrying out the door and rushing to her locker.
After stuffing the package inside, Lyra ran to her first class and bolted inside just as the second bell rang. When school started, Lyra had to deal with even more stares than usual, and things became difficult since more people sneered at her, more people talked about her, and more people harrassed.
But hey, this was typical for her school.
The only thing she could do now was deal with it.