Going in the next day felt like tiptoeing barefoot over barbed wire. I knew I could have feigned a temperature if I wanted, but the act of staying at home would only increase suspicions, and encourage whisperings to spring into life beyond my ears. There was a blunt edge of excitement there too; I wanted to see how they'd react to me now that they knew I wasn't the scrawny weakling they'd once believed me to be. A tiny arrogant fraction of myself wanted to stroll in and dominate. To be someone that people would fear, and therefore respect. I was quick to scold myself on such thinking, and just focused on making it through the day unnoticed. And then the day after that, and the day after that.
So that's why I found myself limping amongst a crowd of school kids the very next morning, a dull, thudding ache pressing into my ribs as a reminder of the thick purple band of bruises circling my stomach as a memento of yesterday. A new bag bounced against my back with every step, the old one having been abandoned on the pavement as nothing more than an ashy rag. I tried to control my gait, to walk smoothly so as not only to divert attention, but also to make the point that they hadn't hurt me when deep down I knew they had mortally wounded me, and once society saw the bloodstains they would come for me with jagged teeth and flaming eyes.
The ring of melted tarmac was still there to be seen by all, and had drawn quite a crowd, people peering over each other's shoulders to gape without ceremony down at the reformed ripples and footprints that now cut into the pavement, and the molten dribbles of tarmac that now hung over the edge of the curb like icing on a cake. I stood amongst them and made the appropriate gasps of "Ooh!" and "Aah!", instead already regretting coming in, and fighting the urge to be sick.
School wasn't much better. The teachers looked shifty and distracted, and ended up whispering anxiously with colleagues instead of teaching us at all, which unfortunately left us free to whisper too. I sat stock still with my head bent, looking for all the world as if I were midway through a particularly difficult maths problem, whereas I was straining my ears, turning them this way and that like satellite dishes in the hopes of picking up a faded radio signal that might feed me some news.
A boy across from me claimed that his brother had seen a mutant with fire blazing out of its eyes, incinerating everything that stood in its path much to the disbelief of his neighbour. Another swore that he heard screams and saw a wall of crackling blue flames. Everywhere, whispers of mutant and fire and death, but not a glance my way. I could almost have laughed at the irony of the very thing they feared being seated right in their midst, a fox smuggled into a chicken coop. And very soon, feathers were bound to fly.
The teacher returned, but instead of returning to quadratic equations, he wearily announced that five boys had been found the previous evening in quite a bad way, and had been taken to hospital, with two of them immediately being placed in intensive care. "No one knows what happened," he announced, eyes scanning the host of worried faces before him. "If anyone happened to see the event, we strongly urge them to step forward and give evidence. This is a serious matter that must be resolved as quickly as possible." As if sensing the oncoming storm of panic, he continued hastily. "Naturally, steps will be taken to keep students safe, but I feel I need to make it clear now that this wasn't the work of... of these supposed mutants."
Liar. I could practically smell the staleness of his statement, and it was clear that no one else bought it either. Sure, there was no definitive proof that mutants actually existed. They were the stuff of garbled nightmares, monsters that had somehow stumbled out of someone's dreams and into the real world through word of mouth, and 'genuine' sightings were few and far between. Hopefully, for my sake and all the others I believed were hidden out there, that streak would continue unbroken, so that we might find peace within the ranks of our enemies. That was the one thing that kept me driving forward, a dream that hung at perilous heights that I might reach if I were to struggle hard enough.
Perhaps, in the end that's what made the truth far more bitter to swallow.