Thank you to my very first reviewer: Brent Holcombe! Yes, I suppose you're right. I do kinda like leaving people hanging. Now we're jumping back a few years, so I guess you could think of the first chapter as more of a prologue.
A Big Mistake
Two years earlier:
"Wake up, Nikki. Isn't it a wonderful morning? Hurry and get up, it's time for school," a melodious voice droned cheerfully. Nikki blinked sleep from her eyes and rolled over, expecting to see Ben standing beside her bed with the usual grin on his face.
Instead, all she saw was her alarm clock. Yawning, Nikki turned it around and narrowed her eyes. Ben had somehow recorded his voice on their answering machine and hooked it up to her alarm clock. Sometimes that kid was too clever with electronics for his own good.
Gritting her teeth as the message continued to replay, Nikki smacked the alarm button. Then she dragged herself out of bed and carried the contraption into her brother's room.
Ben was sleeping soundly. Smiling mischievously, Nikki reset the alarm from 6:55 to 7:55 and put it on Ben's nightstand. Then she walked into the kitchen.
Her cereal tasted extra delicious this morning as Nikki thought about her little payback joke. Ben's elementary school started and hour later than hers, so by the time he was awake and furious, Nikki would be long gone.
Being an older sister did have some advantages.
Nikki got to school early. Sneaking up the stairs to the chemistry room, she cracked the door open and peered in.
She was in luck. Dr. Camdon, the chemistry teacher, was nowhere to be seen. With a quick glance behind her, Nikki slid inside.
She hurried over to the counter that lined the wall on the opposite side of the room and began rummaging through a pile of plastic trash bags. They held dead rats that her biology class had been dissecting this week. Nikki finally found hers and looked about for a spot to work.
The room was cluttered with rats, but Nikki finally found a spot in the corner. Apparently Dr. Camdon had already been there that morning. A group of test tubes holding multicolored chemicals were set up.
Nikki carefully moved all this to the side and set down her rat. Then she went to hunt through the closet for some gloves and tools. She didn't notice one of the tubes tip over slightly and begin slowly spilling its bright blue contents onto the counter.
As soon as she returned, Nikki opened the bag and dumped the rat into a tray. "Yuck," she muttered as she got a whiff of formaldehyde. The stench made her cringe slightly, especially when she remembered why she was sneaking in to do this in the first place.
On Monday, their whole class had been assigned lab partners. Nikki had gotten paired with her latest crush, Josh. It had all been just fine until Wednesday when the biology teacher was sick and they had been moved into the chemistry room.
Josh had left early that day for a baseball game. His voice still rang musically in Nikki's ears. "You'll be able to finish this on your own, right? This is kind of a big part of our grade."
Nikki sighed dreamily as she thought of him gazing romantically into her eyes. "Okay, well maybe it wasn't exactly romantic, but so what?" she muttered to herself. Her mind far away, she set the tools next to the tray, including the sharp scalpel – directly into the blue puddle.
Nikki began working hurriedly. She could almost feel the chemistry teacher breathing down her neck and every tiny noise from outside the room made her jump. Nikki knew how much trouble she'd be in if she didn't get this done by time school started. However, she also knew how much more trouble she'd get herself into if she got caught in here, alone and unsupervised.
The dissection was supposed to have been completed yesterday, but she had spent the entire class period talking with her friends. So now she found herself in here, hurrying so she didn't have to face Josh and look like a total idiot.
The pressure to finish now rested on her shoulders like a lead weight and Nikki never once noticed the growing pool of blue liquid. She reached distractedly for the scalpel blade and let out a yelp of pain as it sliced through her right hand. Nikki yanked her injured hand back and stared at it in growing horror.
The blade had cut a clean half circle on the top of her right hand, directly over her thumb. Blood began pouring into the glove as though some one had just turned on a faucet inside her hand. But the worst part was that the blue chemical that had once coated the scalpel was now smeared into and all over her wound.
Nikki darted to the back of the room and flipped the tap on. Plunging her hand under the water, she frantically ripped her gloves off and began futilely scrubbing at the deep cut. Nikki bit her lip to keep from crying in pain as she felt the chemical begin burning inside her hand and quickly beginning to make its way up her arm.
Even as she reached for the soap in an attempt to wash the mysterious liquid out, Nikki realized that the gash had already begun sealing up. The edges of the cut were now stained a pale blue as they fused together. The frightened girl now attempted to pull the wound open again so she could wash it properly, but it was too late.
In less than forty-five seconds, the scalpel cut appeared to have healed entirely with nothing but a blue half-circle scar to prove that anything had happened. Puzzled and scared, Nikki stared about for a moment at a loss. She suddenly became aware that the noise outside was growing louder and feared discovery, knowing that the teacher could walk in at any minute.
Her body seemed to switch on auto pilot and quickly cleaned up the mess. Nikki felt as though she was watching herself from a camera on the ceiling. Everything was hazy. At last, Nikki fled the room.
Only upon further inspection later that day did she realize that her fresh scar was glowing blue.