Chapter One of 'Trusting in Shadows'
***(I can honestly say that everything in this chapter is absolutely my own creation, and I own it all. The places mentioned hereafter are purely fictional, and any similarity to anything real is purely coincidental. ^_^)
School had just let out somewhere in Germany, but one girl was already on the steps of the school. Her short, curly brown hair was pulled behind her ears, her eyes closed as she played a haunting blues melody on the harmonica. She was going on for a while before she felt a kick in the back, telling her that the rest of the kids were finally out, and that it was time to go home. She quickly got up her sky blue eyes now alert, shoving the harmonica in her jean pocket as she grabbed her backpack off the stairs, beginning the short walk home.
When she did arrive home, her mother was already busy at work in the kitchen cooking the night's supper, and her father was waiting for her by the front door. "Sabrah!" he called out pleasantly, then added in a conspiratory tone, "Go help your mother with the food, okay?"
"Yes father..." she answered back, the German words sliding easily off her lips. She loved being at home. At school, half of her classes were in English, and she hated the way those words tasted on her tongue. They were similar, but English seemed strangely—barbaric. Her father always said she just was lazy and didn't want to make the effort to learn it, but it appeared that she didn't have a choice in the matter. She stood on her tip- toes, leaning up and giving her father a kiss while setting the backpack down on the floor behind her back while her father was preoccupied. She was already into the kitchen when her father called out to her, "Sabrah! Pick up this bag!" She sighed resignedly, putting it away before going back to help her mother with the food...
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The three of them sat down to the kitchen table to eat about an hour later, hungry and exhausted from the day. After her father said the appropriate blessings, Sabrah grabbed the peppershaker and loaded it onto her food. She loved pepper, and put 'too much for your own good' on anything that was placed in front of her. Her mother, however, was allergic and hated it. After a moment, her mother went into a sneezing fit, hurriedly covering her face and eyes with her hands and napkin. As her father got up from the table to come over to her, Sabrah looked at her mother's hands. She could almost swear they were purple... She blinked a few times, and they were normal again, and her father was at her mother's side.
"Look at you, with the pepper..." he gently scolded Sabrah, "You worry your mother so much, you put silver in her hair!" Sabrah looked, and sure enough, strands of silver were laced about her mother's brown hair. Her mother gasped seeing the silver strands, and ran off to her room.
"Now look what you did!" Sabrah joked, looking to her father as she got up to go after her mother. Her father shrugged, letting her go, and when she was almost to her mother's room, he called out, "Hey—wait! Look what *I* did?"
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The next morning, her father stood in front of Sabrah's bedroom door, banging on it as hard as he could. "Sabrah! Get up, my little kitten! It's time for school!" he called out cheerily in German. A groan was the only sound he got in return to this lovely revelation. "Come on, Sabrah, it's time for school!" he added a bit more seriously. A louder groan. "Sabrah, get your lazy, softic butt out of bed!" he finally called, rolling his eyes. The door opened almost immediately, and Sabrah appeared, her blue eyes covered almost completely by the thick mass of brown curls that happened to be her hair.
"Did you just call me softic?" she asked incredulously, looking at him with wide eyes. "Yes, I did, my kitten. Now get ready for school," he said, walking away with a sigh, putting his hands in the air dramatically as if asking, 'Why?'
Sabrah closed the door after he left, and walked to the mirror. She was not fat! She was actually pretty skinny for her age... Her father had probably meant it as a joke—she never could tell with him. She sighed as she moved her eyes up, and then began staring at them. Were they—yellow? She blinked a few times, and they were green. Wow—did she need glasses! First, her mother is purple, then her eyes are yellow—how crazy was that?
She then furrowed her eyebrows. Wait a second—her eyes were green. Why were her eyes green? They should be blue! She looked back at the mirror, and was shocked to find green eyes still staring back at her. They flashed a yellow color, then turned a more startled shade of blue-green. She gasped, looking at her hands.
Her fingers were longer than normal—but that was normal, right? She was thirteen now, had been for 3 months—she should be growing—right? Her fingernails were almost two inches long. Hadn't she chewed them off the other night? She took a deep breath. She was remembering things wrong. She had been being good with her nails. She hadn't bitten them. So what if her eyes were blue green now instead of blue? That wasn't a big deal. The yellow flashes—that was just her imagination getting the best of her.
She sighed deeply again, getting out her brush and began brushing her hair. Everything was normal in her life for another five minutes—little did she know that those five minutes would be the last 'normal' moments she would ever have again.
She sighed again, shaking her head. "You're going mishugana, Miss Sabrah..." she said to herself in a mixture of German and Yiddish, "You're going crazy..." She looked to her reflection for support, and began to freak out at what she saw. Her hair had silver streaks throughout it, and she watched horrendously as another streak slowly appeared. She blinked a few times, shook her head and rubbed her eyes, but looked back and found her hair still silver. How was she going to go to school? Her eyes flashed yellow and then turned light green. "STOP THAT!" she shouted to her reflection, breathing very shallowly, beginning to hyperventilate. "VERDAMMT!" she added, slumping onto her bed.
"Sabrah Freud! I don't want to hear that again!" her mother called out from somewhere in the house. "Is that cat bothering you again?" she asked. Sabrah took a deep breath, and answered with calmness she couldn't believe she was achieving, "No, it's not the kaetzchen... There's just so many knots..." She felt guilty for lying to her mother, but figured that her mother would think she was crazy if she said, "Oh—no, it's not the kitten—its all because my hair's turning silver and I think I might be inhabited by a demon!"
"Well—do you need me to help you with it?" her mother asked. Sabrah could hear soft footsteps coming down the hall.
"No, mother, I'm fine..." she called out, now beginning to panic, stress audible in her voice. "Well, okay leibling..." her mother said quizzically.
Sabrah tied her hair back into a ponytail, then pinned it to her head, covering the whole silver-brown-curly-straight mix with a hat. She then changed into a pair of jeans and a nice white shirt before leaving the room. When she was just out her door, she glanced at the time. She was almost late for school.
~ HOW CAN I THINK ABOUT SCHOOL WHEN MY HAIR IS TURNING SILVER AND MY EYES ARE TURNING YELLOW?!?!?!??!?!?!~ She shouted inside her own head. Almost as if sensing her frustration, her father looked up at her. "All that stress from combing your hair? Maybe we should let her cut it, Miriam..." he said to his wife as he continued to look at Sabrah with furrowed eyebrows. Her mother smiled— Sabrah had been asking for months, and her father wouldn't let her. "Maybe..." was all she would say.
At any other time, Sabrah would have been ecstatic, but she wasn't in a very happy mood at the moment. Her mind was too busy reeling.
"Wow... That can't be just from her hair—can it?" she heard her father say as she walked past him. She looked back at him and said, "Ahm, yes, it is." He stared at her, now even more confused. "What, kitten? I didn't say anything..."
"She's been acting strange all morning... What's all this about?" he said again, though this time his lips didn't move. Sabrah took a deep breath, forced a fake smile onto her face. She heard some more dialogue, but didn't dare turn back. She began running, and was halfway down the road when her mother got to the doorway, looking sideways out it and watching her run. "All I asked was if she wanted fish tonight..." her mother said to her father, now more confused than ever...
She ran all the way to school, and sat down at her desk, feeling somewhat exhausted (and a bit cleansed).
"Good morning class, "the teacher said, clasping her hands together. Sabrah almost gagged in disgust. The teacher acted like one of those little anime characters, always doing those fake smiles, and being real cutesy.
"Guten tag..." Sabrah offered viciously as the other students all replied in English.
"Sabrah... English please. And take off that hat!" the teacher said. Sabrah panicked as the class watched. Finally, after 30 seconds of sitting and doing nothing, she got up and ran out of the room, running around the school until she found a bathroom. She sat in the bathroom, huffing piteously, her panic threatening to overtake her. 10 minutes later, she heard a voice—one of the teachers. "Sabrah? Are you in there?" the teacher called out sweetly.
"That little snot. Running out of a classroom, causing a scene..." the teacher continued viciously, and Sabrah furrowed her eyebrows. "I'll have her expelled for this... She's always causing trouble..." Sabrah quickly put her feet on the toilet and waited for the teacher to leave. "Sabrah? Please come out. Where are you?" the woman called out sweetly, almost making Sabrah gag.
Was that lady nuts? Did she really think that Sabrah would come out after what she had been saying? "Well, the girl can rot in here for all I care." Sabrah curled her lip in disgust, and listened as the woman left the bathroom, the door closing noisily behind her. Sabrah breathed a sigh of relief as she stood up. She walked to the mirror, taking her hat off. Her hair was almost completely silver, much to her dismay.
What was happening to her? It was as if some kind of—demon—had decided to torment her... Maybe she was possessed. Then again—if she was possessed, would she be wondering if she was possessed? Or maybe the demon would want her to wonder if wondering made her un-possessed because then she wouldn't know she was being possessed and would leave the demon to it's own riles? Or maybe she was just going nuts. That was the most likely of them all. Or this was a dream—even more likely. In a few minutes, she'd wake up, and her life'd be back to normal, and she'd be normal again....
She pinched herself, and when she felt her nails digging into her skin, she sighed resolutely. Okay—so it wasn't a dream... Heck—it was worth a try. She stared in the mirror a bit more, sighing. She must have slept awfully the other night, because her whole backbone hurt like crazy... She reached behind herself to rub her back, and looked back up at the mirror in alarm. She brought her hand down, feeling her backbone, until finally she gasped. Was that---- she turned around, struggling to see her back in the mirror. She gasped again, lifting up her shirt, and finding the beginnings of a tail forming. "Verdammt... Verdammt—I'm so screwed! Why is happening to me?" she began hysterically. "VERDAMMT!"
That's what it was—she was condemned. She was absolutely, utterly condemned, and for some reason, God or Fate or Whatever was deciding to play some huge, cruel joke on her. What—would she sprout horns next? She instantly took back the thought, not wanting to think it and have it suddenly be there. What was she going to do? She couldn't do anything like this! She was—she had a tail, if that's what it was going to be. What else could it be? Of course it was a tail! How could it not be a tail? How long would it get? Would she sprout fur or something stupid? Would she turn blue, or red?
She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. Then she laughed. Who in the world was she kidding? Why should she be calm? SHE HAD A TAIL!!!
She sighed again. She would wait it out, she would wait for school to be over, then she'd go home, and she'd tell her parents everything. Then, they would go out, and they would buy hair dye, and they would cut off her tail, and then life would be normal again. Wait a second. CUT OFF HER TAIL?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Was she crazy? Wait—she had already admitted that fact. She was crazy—this was all just a really strange dream, and any moment she'd wake up normal again.
Any moment.
Any moment now.
Any moment at all.
Okay—she could wait a few more minutes for the moment to come. She was going to wake up, and the tail'd be gone.
Then she got bored with waiting. It had been more fun to sit there and panic than it was to wait until she woke up. Okay—she'd play along until the dream was over—that's what she'd do.
She'd wait, and she'd play along, and pretend she didn't know, (or at least hope,) that this was all a dream...
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Some hours later—(it felt like years and years,) she heard the school bell ring. She got into a stall, and quickly hid her (now 3 foot long) tail by wrapping it around her right leg and covering it over with her jeans. As she left the school, no one paid any attention to the silver-haired girl that rushed past them all, (much to her relief,) so she was quickly out of the building and on her way home.
When she was home, her father was on the front steps waiting for her, her mother probably in the kitchen. When he saw her, his eyes gave away no sign of recognition, and her furrowed his eyebrows in confusion as she headed towards her house.
"Now who's this?" she heard, and his lips didn't move. Now—if any of this stuff stopped, that was what she wanted it to be. She wanted the voices out of her head. There was an undercurrent of people not near her, either voices, or thoughts, or spirits—whatever they were. She sighed, looking to her father. "Father?" she asked, looking at him. "It's Sabrah—something weird's happened! You've got to help me fix it!" Her father stared at her like she was crazy, saying, "What kind of treachery is this? Go away—I'm waiting for my daughter. Don't even try and pretend— you don't even look like her."
"Father!" Sabrah said, hurt. Could he really not recognize her? Was she really that different? Did she really look that different? Her father stared at her coldly, a look of anger in his eyes. "I don't have time for such games, "he said, beginning to grow impatient. Her mother appeared at the door, and gasped at what she saw. Sabrah was puzzled, as her mother happily said, "Come right in, dear. We'll fix you up something real quick!"
"Not her! Not my Sabrah! Is this some kind of curse I've given her?" she heard her mother 'say', her mouth not moving, and that same look of glee on her face, though Sabrah herself could feel distress radiating off of her like—she didn't know what.
"I will hear of no such thing! This—this demon—claims to be our daughter. I won't have her sit at our table after such lies!" her father said
Her mother's eyes were pleading, but Sabrah realized with a shock that her father's mind was already made. Tears began to stream down her face, and her mother's. "How about this? If you are my daughter, with pointed ears and yellow eyes and silver hair—obviously you've made a deal with the devil! If you are my daughter, I disown you!"
Sabrah was absolutely struck. She couldn't breath, she couldn't think. It felt like someone had shoved a dagger into her lungs and laughed as the blood dripped down. Her father—he had disowned her? That was it then. She was—she was screwed. She knew now that it couldn't be a dream—this emotional hurt—these feelings she was feeling—she felt too bad for this to be a dream...
There was a look of total shock and horror on her face, but eventually, Sabrah turned around. She heard her father walk inside the house, and she closed her eyes tightly. Her mother lingered on the stairs, and Sabrah could *swear* she could feel her mother tugging at the ends of her mind. Her mother knew it was her. Maybe— the purple hands, the silver hair— it all made sense! Her mother had been possessed, and it had been passed down to Sabrah by relation.
Okay— so it didn't make sense— but it was all Sabrah had to go on for now... The alternative was a lot worse— she was a mutant. She began to walk away, her mind reeling. Where would she go? What would she do? If her own father didn't recognize her, would her teachers? A fellow student? She doubted it. She shook her head, trying to clear herself of all thoughts, and began walking down the road— not towards any particular place— just walking...
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She walked a few miles that night, but came back to her house. By the time she reached it, it was just past midnight, and clouds were gathering in the sky— a foreshadowing of the rain to come. She walked around it once, looking in at the forms of her sleeping parents, giving them one last silent goodbye. She then began around again, but came to rest at the window to her own room. She tried to pull up on it, but finding it locked, she just stared at it.
She was in total mind-numbing confusion, her mind still reeling from the disowning of less than ten hours ago. As she stared at the things in her room, she suddenly lost all caring. She quickly broke the window, pulling back at the wood and the screen, not even noticing the sharp pieces of glass that jutted out from the sides and cut at her arms and hands. She climbed inside, and ran to her own door, locking it. It seemed that no one had awoken, but she wanted to make sure. She grabbed her backpack and emptied it, putting a few things back in as she deemed necessary, and grabbed other miscellaneous things, placing it inside. She put a few outfits in it, a sheet, and her harmonicas, and then looked up at a short, high-pitched noise. Her little kitten sat in front of her, it's head cocked to the side slightly.
Recognition formed in Sabrah's eyes, and just as suddenly, the pain in her arms began. She closed her eyes tightly, shutting out the pain, reaching out to her kitten. "Do you want to come?" she whispered hoarsely. The little kitten only mewed, looking to the door. Someone was slamming on it. Sabrah said, "Just come with me a little of the way, Kaetzchen? Please?" she scooped up the kitten in her arms, her own blood soaking into the kitten's warm fur. She shoved her backpack out the window, then climbed out herself. The last thing she ever saw in her house was her mother's face. For a second, they both stared at eachother, tears streaming down their faces, but finally, her mother said, "Goodbye, my little Sabrah..." and Sabrah herself turned around.
Thus, she began her second walk to nowhere as the rain began to pound onto her back. She shielded the little kitten with her own body, even as the rain turned dreadful. After about a mile, she climbed up in a tree, and began to talk to the little kitten, trying to keep it from getting wet. They watched the sun come up, and the rain begin to slow. Sabrah was to tears, and when it stopped, she climbed down the tree and let the little kitten go, sobbing. "Go home, my kaetzchen. Find mother and father and tell them I'm sorry..."
From there on, the cat and her went their separate ways.
***(I can honestly say that everything in this chapter is absolutely my own creation, and I own it all. The places mentioned hereafter are purely fictional, and any similarity to anything real is purely coincidental. ^_^)
School had just let out somewhere in Germany, but one girl was already on the steps of the school. Her short, curly brown hair was pulled behind her ears, her eyes closed as she played a haunting blues melody on the harmonica. She was going on for a while before she felt a kick in the back, telling her that the rest of the kids were finally out, and that it was time to go home. She quickly got up her sky blue eyes now alert, shoving the harmonica in her jean pocket as she grabbed her backpack off the stairs, beginning the short walk home.
When she did arrive home, her mother was already busy at work in the kitchen cooking the night's supper, and her father was waiting for her by the front door. "Sabrah!" he called out pleasantly, then added in a conspiratory tone, "Go help your mother with the food, okay?"
"Yes father..." she answered back, the German words sliding easily off her lips. She loved being at home. At school, half of her classes were in English, and she hated the way those words tasted on her tongue. They were similar, but English seemed strangely—barbaric. Her father always said she just was lazy and didn't want to make the effort to learn it, but it appeared that she didn't have a choice in the matter. She stood on her tip- toes, leaning up and giving her father a kiss while setting the backpack down on the floor behind her back while her father was preoccupied. She was already into the kitchen when her father called out to her, "Sabrah! Pick up this bag!" She sighed resignedly, putting it away before going back to help her mother with the food...
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The three of them sat down to the kitchen table to eat about an hour later, hungry and exhausted from the day. After her father said the appropriate blessings, Sabrah grabbed the peppershaker and loaded it onto her food. She loved pepper, and put 'too much for your own good' on anything that was placed in front of her. Her mother, however, was allergic and hated it. After a moment, her mother went into a sneezing fit, hurriedly covering her face and eyes with her hands and napkin. As her father got up from the table to come over to her, Sabrah looked at her mother's hands. She could almost swear they were purple... She blinked a few times, and they were normal again, and her father was at her mother's side.
"Look at you, with the pepper..." he gently scolded Sabrah, "You worry your mother so much, you put silver in her hair!" Sabrah looked, and sure enough, strands of silver were laced about her mother's brown hair. Her mother gasped seeing the silver strands, and ran off to her room.
"Now look what you did!" Sabrah joked, looking to her father as she got up to go after her mother. Her father shrugged, letting her go, and when she was almost to her mother's room, he called out, "Hey—wait! Look what *I* did?"
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The next morning, her father stood in front of Sabrah's bedroom door, banging on it as hard as he could. "Sabrah! Get up, my little kitten! It's time for school!" he called out cheerily in German. A groan was the only sound he got in return to this lovely revelation. "Come on, Sabrah, it's time for school!" he added a bit more seriously. A louder groan. "Sabrah, get your lazy, softic butt out of bed!" he finally called, rolling his eyes. The door opened almost immediately, and Sabrah appeared, her blue eyes covered almost completely by the thick mass of brown curls that happened to be her hair.
"Did you just call me softic?" she asked incredulously, looking at him with wide eyes. "Yes, I did, my kitten. Now get ready for school," he said, walking away with a sigh, putting his hands in the air dramatically as if asking, 'Why?'
Sabrah closed the door after he left, and walked to the mirror. She was not fat! She was actually pretty skinny for her age... Her father had probably meant it as a joke—she never could tell with him. She sighed as she moved her eyes up, and then began staring at them. Were they—yellow? She blinked a few times, and they were green. Wow—did she need glasses! First, her mother is purple, then her eyes are yellow—how crazy was that?
She then furrowed her eyebrows. Wait a second—her eyes were green. Why were her eyes green? They should be blue! She looked back at the mirror, and was shocked to find green eyes still staring back at her. They flashed a yellow color, then turned a more startled shade of blue-green. She gasped, looking at her hands.
Her fingers were longer than normal—but that was normal, right? She was thirteen now, had been for 3 months—she should be growing—right? Her fingernails were almost two inches long. Hadn't she chewed them off the other night? She took a deep breath. She was remembering things wrong. She had been being good with her nails. She hadn't bitten them. So what if her eyes were blue green now instead of blue? That wasn't a big deal. The yellow flashes—that was just her imagination getting the best of her.
She sighed deeply again, getting out her brush and began brushing her hair. Everything was normal in her life for another five minutes—little did she know that those five minutes would be the last 'normal' moments she would ever have again.
She sighed again, shaking her head. "You're going mishugana, Miss Sabrah..." she said to herself in a mixture of German and Yiddish, "You're going crazy..." She looked to her reflection for support, and began to freak out at what she saw. Her hair had silver streaks throughout it, and she watched horrendously as another streak slowly appeared. She blinked a few times, shook her head and rubbed her eyes, but looked back and found her hair still silver. How was she going to go to school? Her eyes flashed yellow and then turned light green. "STOP THAT!" she shouted to her reflection, breathing very shallowly, beginning to hyperventilate. "VERDAMMT!" she added, slumping onto her bed.
"Sabrah Freud! I don't want to hear that again!" her mother called out from somewhere in the house. "Is that cat bothering you again?" she asked. Sabrah took a deep breath, and answered with calmness she couldn't believe she was achieving, "No, it's not the kaetzchen... There's just so many knots..." She felt guilty for lying to her mother, but figured that her mother would think she was crazy if she said, "Oh—no, it's not the kitten—its all because my hair's turning silver and I think I might be inhabited by a demon!"
"Well—do you need me to help you with it?" her mother asked. Sabrah could hear soft footsteps coming down the hall.
"No, mother, I'm fine..." she called out, now beginning to panic, stress audible in her voice. "Well, okay leibling..." her mother said quizzically.
Sabrah tied her hair back into a ponytail, then pinned it to her head, covering the whole silver-brown-curly-straight mix with a hat. She then changed into a pair of jeans and a nice white shirt before leaving the room. When she was just out her door, she glanced at the time. She was almost late for school.
~ HOW CAN I THINK ABOUT SCHOOL WHEN MY HAIR IS TURNING SILVER AND MY EYES ARE TURNING YELLOW?!?!?!??!?!?!~ She shouted inside her own head. Almost as if sensing her frustration, her father looked up at her. "All that stress from combing your hair? Maybe we should let her cut it, Miriam..." he said to his wife as he continued to look at Sabrah with furrowed eyebrows. Her mother smiled— Sabrah had been asking for months, and her father wouldn't let her. "Maybe..." was all she would say.
At any other time, Sabrah would have been ecstatic, but she wasn't in a very happy mood at the moment. Her mind was too busy reeling.
"Wow... That can't be just from her hair—can it?" she heard her father say as she walked past him. She looked back at him and said, "Ahm, yes, it is." He stared at her, now even more confused. "What, kitten? I didn't say anything..."
"She's been acting strange all morning... What's all this about?" he said again, though this time his lips didn't move. Sabrah took a deep breath, forced a fake smile onto her face. She heard some more dialogue, but didn't dare turn back. She began running, and was halfway down the road when her mother got to the doorway, looking sideways out it and watching her run. "All I asked was if she wanted fish tonight..." her mother said to her father, now more confused than ever...
She ran all the way to school, and sat down at her desk, feeling somewhat exhausted (and a bit cleansed).
"Good morning class, "the teacher said, clasping her hands together. Sabrah almost gagged in disgust. The teacher acted like one of those little anime characters, always doing those fake smiles, and being real cutesy.
"Guten tag..." Sabrah offered viciously as the other students all replied in English.
"Sabrah... English please. And take off that hat!" the teacher said. Sabrah panicked as the class watched. Finally, after 30 seconds of sitting and doing nothing, she got up and ran out of the room, running around the school until she found a bathroom. She sat in the bathroom, huffing piteously, her panic threatening to overtake her. 10 minutes later, she heard a voice—one of the teachers. "Sabrah? Are you in there?" the teacher called out sweetly.
"That little snot. Running out of a classroom, causing a scene..." the teacher continued viciously, and Sabrah furrowed her eyebrows. "I'll have her expelled for this... She's always causing trouble..." Sabrah quickly put her feet on the toilet and waited for the teacher to leave. "Sabrah? Please come out. Where are you?" the woman called out sweetly, almost making Sabrah gag.
Was that lady nuts? Did she really think that Sabrah would come out after what she had been saying? "Well, the girl can rot in here for all I care." Sabrah curled her lip in disgust, and listened as the woman left the bathroom, the door closing noisily behind her. Sabrah breathed a sigh of relief as she stood up. She walked to the mirror, taking her hat off. Her hair was almost completely silver, much to her dismay.
What was happening to her? It was as if some kind of—demon—had decided to torment her... Maybe she was possessed. Then again—if she was possessed, would she be wondering if she was possessed? Or maybe the demon would want her to wonder if wondering made her un-possessed because then she wouldn't know she was being possessed and would leave the demon to it's own riles? Or maybe she was just going nuts. That was the most likely of them all. Or this was a dream—even more likely. In a few minutes, she'd wake up, and her life'd be back to normal, and she'd be normal again....
She pinched herself, and when she felt her nails digging into her skin, she sighed resolutely. Okay—so it wasn't a dream... Heck—it was worth a try. She stared in the mirror a bit more, sighing. She must have slept awfully the other night, because her whole backbone hurt like crazy... She reached behind herself to rub her back, and looked back up at the mirror in alarm. She brought her hand down, feeling her backbone, until finally she gasped. Was that---- she turned around, struggling to see her back in the mirror. She gasped again, lifting up her shirt, and finding the beginnings of a tail forming. "Verdammt... Verdammt—I'm so screwed! Why is happening to me?" she began hysterically. "VERDAMMT!"
That's what it was—she was condemned. She was absolutely, utterly condemned, and for some reason, God or Fate or Whatever was deciding to play some huge, cruel joke on her. What—would she sprout horns next? She instantly took back the thought, not wanting to think it and have it suddenly be there. What was she going to do? She couldn't do anything like this! She was—she had a tail, if that's what it was going to be. What else could it be? Of course it was a tail! How could it not be a tail? How long would it get? Would she sprout fur or something stupid? Would she turn blue, or red?
She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. Then she laughed. Who in the world was she kidding? Why should she be calm? SHE HAD A TAIL!!!
She sighed again. She would wait it out, she would wait for school to be over, then she'd go home, and she'd tell her parents everything. Then, they would go out, and they would buy hair dye, and they would cut off her tail, and then life would be normal again. Wait a second. CUT OFF HER TAIL?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Was she crazy? Wait—she had already admitted that fact. She was crazy—this was all just a really strange dream, and any moment she'd wake up normal again.
Any moment.
Any moment now.
Any moment at all.
Okay—she could wait a few more minutes for the moment to come. She was going to wake up, and the tail'd be gone.
Then she got bored with waiting. It had been more fun to sit there and panic than it was to wait until she woke up. Okay—she'd play along until the dream was over—that's what she'd do.
She'd wait, and she'd play along, and pretend she didn't know, (or at least hope,) that this was all a dream...
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Some hours later—(it felt like years and years,) she heard the school bell ring. She got into a stall, and quickly hid her (now 3 foot long) tail by wrapping it around her right leg and covering it over with her jeans. As she left the school, no one paid any attention to the silver-haired girl that rushed past them all, (much to her relief,) so she was quickly out of the building and on her way home.
When she was home, her father was on the front steps waiting for her, her mother probably in the kitchen. When he saw her, his eyes gave away no sign of recognition, and her furrowed his eyebrows in confusion as she headed towards her house.
"Now who's this?" she heard, and his lips didn't move. Now—if any of this stuff stopped, that was what she wanted it to be. She wanted the voices out of her head. There was an undercurrent of people not near her, either voices, or thoughts, or spirits—whatever they were. She sighed, looking to her father. "Father?" she asked, looking at him. "It's Sabrah—something weird's happened! You've got to help me fix it!" Her father stared at her like she was crazy, saying, "What kind of treachery is this? Go away—I'm waiting for my daughter. Don't even try and pretend— you don't even look like her."
"Father!" Sabrah said, hurt. Could he really not recognize her? Was she really that different? Did she really look that different? Her father stared at her coldly, a look of anger in his eyes. "I don't have time for such games, "he said, beginning to grow impatient. Her mother appeared at the door, and gasped at what she saw. Sabrah was puzzled, as her mother happily said, "Come right in, dear. We'll fix you up something real quick!"
"Not her! Not my Sabrah! Is this some kind of curse I've given her?" she heard her mother 'say', her mouth not moving, and that same look of glee on her face, though Sabrah herself could feel distress radiating off of her like—she didn't know what.
"I will hear of no such thing! This—this demon—claims to be our daughter. I won't have her sit at our table after such lies!" her father said
Her mother's eyes were pleading, but Sabrah realized with a shock that her father's mind was already made. Tears began to stream down her face, and her mother's. "How about this? If you are my daughter, with pointed ears and yellow eyes and silver hair—obviously you've made a deal with the devil! If you are my daughter, I disown you!"
Sabrah was absolutely struck. She couldn't breath, she couldn't think. It felt like someone had shoved a dagger into her lungs and laughed as the blood dripped down. Her father—he had disowned her? That was it then. She was—she was screwed. She knew now that it couldn't be a dream—this emotional hurt—these feelings she was feeling—she felt too bad for this to be a dream...
There was a look of total shock and horror on her face, but eventually, Sabrah turned around. She heard her father walk inside the house, and she closed her eyes tightly. Her mother lingered on the stairs, and Sabrah could *swear* she could feel her mother tugging at the ends of her mind. Her mother knew it was her. Maybe— the purple hands, the silver hair— it all made sense! Her mother had been possessed, and it had been passed down to Sabrah by relation.
Okay— so it didn't make sense— but it was all Sabrah had to go on for now... The alternative was a lot worse— she was a mutant. She began to walk away, her mind reeling. Where would she go? What would she do? If her own father didn't recognize her, would her teachers? A fellow student? She doubted it. She shook her head, trying to clear herself of all thoughts, and began walking down the road— not towards any particular place— just walking...
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She walked a few miles that night, but came back to her house. By the time she reached it, it was just past midnight, and clouds were gathering in the sky— a foreshadowing of the rain to come. She walked around it once, looking in at the forms of her sleeping parents, giving them one last silent goodbye. She then began around again, but came to rest at the window to her own room. She tried to pull up on it, but finding it locked, she just stared at it.
She was in total mind-numbing confusion, her mind still reeling from the disowning of less than ten hours ago. As she stared at the things in her room, she suddenly lost all caring. She quickly broke the window, pulling back at the wood and the screen, not even noticing the sharp pieces of glass that jutted out from the sides and cut at her arms and hands. She climbed inside, and ran to her own door, locking it. It seemed that no one had awoken, but she wanted to make sure. She grabbed her backpack and emptied it, putting a few things back in as she deemed necessary, and grabbed other miscellaneous things, placing it inside. She put a few outfits in it, a sheet, and her harmonicas, and then looked up at a short, high-pitched noise. Her little kitten sat in front of her, it's head cocked to the side slightly.
Recognition formed in Sabrah's eyes, and just as suddenly, the pain in her arms began. She closed her eyes tightly, shutting out the pain, reaching out to her kitten. "Do you want to come?" she whispered hoarsely. The little kitten only mewed, looking to the door. Someone was slamming on it. Sabrah said, "Just come with me a little of the way, Kaetzchen? Please?" she scooped up the kitten in her arms, her own blood soaking into the kitten's warm fur. She shoved her backpack out the window, then climbed out herself. The last thing she ever saw in her house was her mother's face. For a second, they both stared at eachother, tears streaming down their faces, but finally, her mother said, "Goodbye, my little Sabrah..." and Sabrah herself turned around.
Thus, she began her second walk to nowhere as the rain began to pound onto her back. She shielded the little kitten with her own body, even as the rain turned dreadful. After about a mile, she climbed up in a tree, and began to talk to the little kitten, trying to keep it from getting wet. They watched the sun come up, and the rain begin to slow. Sabrah was to tears, and when it stopped, she climbed down the tree and let the little kitten go, sobbing. "Go home, my kaetzchen. Find mother and father and tell them I'm sorry..."
From there on, the cat and her went their separate ways.