Nothing made sense to Cleo. Not right now. She was used to being confused from all the moving around and starting on lose ends and forgetting other ones, but this was by far the weirdest one yet. And the best. She hadn't been so trusting of the girls, giving any opportunity for her paranoia to set in; were they her friends or did they not know each other well enough? Was the guardian thing enough to keep them together? What if she had to move away again? What would happen to all of this? What was this?
'Stop it-' Cleo muttered to herself. She was walking to school from the bus stop. A crowd of people passing her by with each step, the different bodies shifting around and changing the feeling of the air. Cleo had always felt it – how the movement in the air changed. It was odd to her because now she knew why water always appealed to her, but the air thing? She couldn't do anything with it, but of course she was certain she felt the falling of air.
Yesterday, Cleo had tried the mind control theory on her little sister Lola. The two were sitting on the couch, drinking soda and watching some dumb quiz show whilst their parents went out to buy some groceries. Lola had left the remote on the small coffee table in front of the couch and forgotten the power within it – to spare them from the idiocy of people on TV. Cleo was about to reach out for it, but instead feigned stretching and fixing her side braid by tugging on the hair bubble. Lola didn't even blink. Cleo then leaned back and sidled into the couch and started chanting in her head. Give me the remote. She said it in her head over and over. After the third cycle Lola suddenly came to life and grabbed the remote from the table and presenting it to her sister.
'Here.' Then Lola sat back limply like before; she showed absolutely no recollection of what just happened. She didn't even notice Cleo had the remote in her hand. Cleo stifled an ecstatic grin trying to break out across her face, but she managed to let slip a little giggle. Lola turned slightly and then back seemingly disinterested. This is awesome, Cleo thought.
The doors of the classroom opened up and a stern faced teacher walked inside. He was bored by the requirement of making an appearance all these years, each year a group of students coming in and then walking out and him being stuck there. Cleo was sitting down next to Natalia, who was trying to solve some mini many sided rubix cube which was pretty much rainbow coloured and didn't make any sense at first glance. The pair were the only girls from the group in that class; Kara, Mei Lin and Ashley were in history next door. This was geography, study of the Earth. How ironic the girls were learning about their own planet when it should really be about Meridian. When were they even going to see that place anyway?
'Good morning class, please turn to page twenty.' And so it began, another day of torture before they could switch their boring lives for something exciting.
Next door, Kara and Mei Lin sat hunched over their desks passing notes to each other, Ashley a couple of rows behind the two. The lesson was somehow making the clock tick slower. At the end, Ashley was the first one out the door, making a b-line for her locker. She forgot all about her other books which was beyond unusual for her organisation was practically perfect. And her attendance record. Maybe it was the skull splitting headache she had acquired over the course of the morning. Why did it hurt so much? It was like a million bees were playing chase whilst carrying static radio signals. It was unbearable and Ashley wanted to scream. Next class was math, an awful way to go with a headache. Surely she could go to the nurse's office for some painkillers? Or would that be dumb? She'd have a lot of catching up to do if she did that. Maybe at lunch? Yes, it seemed a better idea. Ashley then relaxed a little and sauntered off to the math classroom.
As she walked the headache seemed to start dissipating, the bees were taking a time out or something and suddenly she started hearing a strange whispering; it was faint and far away but also very obviously real. She looked around and saw that there was no one directly close to her. More like there were huge crowds of people in the corridors and they were all shouting about something or the other. This was different. It was in her head, she could swear. What the heck? Was she going insane or something? The closer Ashley got to the math room, the clearer the whispering got; something about…math. Then a snide comment about Carly Robert's awful outfit choices. What? Where did that come from? Ashley walked through the door and the whispering turned to quiet talking, she spied the outfit in question as Carly was sitting at the front and chatting to a friend, then she saw Natalia sitting down on the right. She turned to Ashley and as soon as she did, Ashley heard the thought – Oh Ashley's here, about time! It was Natalia's thoughts. But how?
'Nat, shut up.' Ashley sat down next to her friend cradling her forehead a little with a weak hand. Natalia looked baffled and the quiet talking turned to louder more confused and almost incoherent speech.
'But I didn't say anything.' She replied. Ashley shot her an annoyed glance.
'Fine then stop thinking or whatever, you're splitting my head open.' She complained.
'What?' the speech was between blurred and flying off to outer space.
'I can hear your thoughts, I think it's a-you-know-what thing.' Ashley rubbed her temples in attempt to massage them but nothing was helping the pain that came with it. She was trying to shut it down or control it but this was way harder than flying or using her fire powers. The pain was easing a little bit now that Natalia was trying to shield her thoughts from Ashley; barricading a high wall between herself and her friend's innocent intrusion.
'Well I hope that helped, now get out of my head, Ash!' Natalia was fascinated by the new found power but also a little angry that it had to be her head first.
'A little, I think that it'll be easier if we work together rather than you trying to force me out. Also, do you think I could hear the others?' Ashley frowned for a second and forgot that she hadn't opened her mouth just then. Did she say it out loud or in their heads? Natalia's eyes widened as she realised too what they had achieved.
'Wow, okay you're in my head!' Natalia was confused whether this was cool or just annoying for the moment. Cool, she decided.
'And you're in mine, but you can only hear what I want you to hear. I think I'm starting to understand how this works? I'll try the others.' Ashley nodded to the bushy haired girl next to her and the two left a small thread of consciousness keeping them together. There was silence but each knew the other was there. It was as if they were in a dark room with nothing in it but their voices. There was nothing quite like it. The lesson rolled by quickly as the girls were busy trying to understand how the mind thing worked. Ashley couldn't reach the others yet but she decided it was because they weren't close enough or because she hadn't heard them before to just find their mind. It didn't work on anyone else but guardians luckily, otherwise Ashley's head might have exploded by now.
Meanwhile, Kara was battling her lab partner, the tall and mysterious Will. The two were the eye sore of the class. Both dressed in dark clothes, momentarily hidden by white lab coats, dark hair messily tied back and held by their goggles' elastic, and each sporting a deep frown on their face. Kara was holding a conical flask full of a clear liquid; a perfectly neutralised solution with just enough acid and alkali to make the pH an outstanding 7. They had done this first, but now there was a different task to get on with and the two weren't exactly agreeing. Will wanted to get on with it, but Kara wanted to plan out their results table and sort out the 'paperwork' as she called it. They had enough time to do both, so why not?
'You know, we could just waste our time arguing if you'd like?' Will snapped pointedly. Kara rolled her eyes and put the solution down before she could smash the glass flask.
'Or you could try to do things logically?' she countered. The experiment wouldn't matter if they didn't write it down. Why wouldn't he just see reason?
'Because logic is stupid. It's not difficult anyway. Let's just do it.' Will disappeared to find some of the equipment they would need. Kara glared knives at his back. It's not that she was used to getting her way, it was that she wanted to have control over how things went. She realised that's not how it's going to go this time or any time and physically slouched over the desk. It wasn't even about the dumb experiment any more, it was about not being able to keep things from happening. Her parents were a prime example. Whatever she tried, she had no control in keeping them together.
Will came back in a minute, carrying a couple different liquids and a Bunsen burner underarm. He put down the flasks and then started to put the rubber tube onto the gas tap. Kara watched him, the fight in her gone, leaving her with a helpless feeling which was intensified by the glare Will threw over his shoulder. He did a double take when he saw her face – she had given up and something looked a little broken even from the outside. His face softened and he pretended not to have noticed how she looked like she was about to cry. Something about him ignoring it made Kara feel better however she still waited for the gloating. Instead Will pulled the stool from under the table and sat down with a piece of paper.
'So…how does this table even work, huh?' he shrugged at paper in front of him. Kara felt a pang of affection for the boy; he had seen her defeated and didn't make a big deal of it. It was a nice thing to do, but Kara didn't want to dwell on it. She still didn't like Will, but maybe she hated him a little less now.
'We need to make a list…' and so the two worked together on the assignment, the temporary ceasefire starting to look like a permanent thing. Kara even found herself laughing along with Will at his failed attempt to draw a straight line. The line was crooked just like Will's smile and Kara shook her head in disbelief. Just half an hour ago they were ready to murder each other or something.
'What?' Will asked meekly.
'Nothing.' Kara smiled. It was nice – getting along was working.
'Okay.'
The end came soon and Kara was packing her things when she noticed footprints on the sleek floor. They were faint and quite dusty but there was something odd about them; they were only around the back of the table and maybe a little beyond that. Red alarm bells were going off in Kara's head – she recognised the prints with heavy hearted dread. Speaking of which the Heart was now resting on her skin, keeping itself somewhat concealed by not glowing like usual. She fingered the pendant's metal point in thought, then let it drop on her t-shirt.
Will was momentarily back at their desk, packing his own things away, his face no longer as frowning as before. Kara stared at him. It couldn't be- No. It was just her imagination. There was no way. No way. She shrugged it off and finished packing, turning to leave and running into Will who was going to go her way. The two were startled – would they ever stop running into each other? Will's eyes did not fall to Kara's throat where the chain hung and the Heart was on full display. She hoped against hope he wouldn't look at it.
'Nice necklace.' Will stepped back and walked away. Kara's eyes snapped down to his feet. Oh no. The boots, it was him. The air puffed out of Kara's lungs as the realisation dawned on her. Or was it her imagination playing tricks on her? If Will was there yesterday, was it him in the old rail station too? Wait till she tells the others…
