As I got into my room, I let the image of my room sink in. There was my cello in the corner, next to my bed. My bed is smallish, has flawless white sheets and a black pillow. I don't have any stuffed animals, but I have action figures accompanied by a TV on top of a short shelf. My room is small with deep green walls and I have a window right beside my bed. Of course, I have a desk with a white laptop. Though I only use my laptop for writing and watching movies. (I listen to music on there too) The shock of what happened finally ebbed away and I could feel again. I felt scared. It was all weighing down on me, but I was not angry with my dad. I felt happy though, knowing my dad is a mutant too. But I kept thinking and thinking and the feeling of fear kept growing in me. In an effort to divert myself from thinking, I went to my mirror in my room and looked at myself. I have medium long, curly blonde hair. I have no acne on my face, (well today at least) but my lip was bleeding. My eyes are blue and I am wearing thin blue glasses. I am not skinny, but I am not fat. I am… thin. My jeans are still clean (thank God) and my white shirt is still clean. My grey sweater is old, but still looks good. My shoes of choice: flip flops.
I suddenly remembered why I came here, to pack my backpack. I took out all of my folders, books, and note books out of my orange backpack and put two jeans, two tank tops and two button up blouses. I couldn't forget about underwear, so I packed two, of course. Last, but not least, I put my pocket sized journal and pen into my backpack. My cell phone was in my left pocket, and my ipod in my right pocket.
The stairs were wooden and bare. My feet made noises that I have yet to find a word to describe. I ponder on that for hours sometimes. Weird, huh? Mike was waiting for me at the door. But first, I had to go to my dad who was in the kitchen.
"I am not mad at you daddy. I never was, I just wanted you to know that." I hugged my wonderful father.
"Well I am glad sweetie." He smiled, then signaled for me to go with Mike. I was obedient and followed Mike out the door.
It was partially cloudy outside, and it was chilly outside. Like I said before, my neighborhood is secluded and there is just land between us and the city up north, and miles of land to the south of us. However, there are stores and hospitals close to us. Mike headed towards the south, and I just went to the right of him and I felt safe around him.
"The grass is tall around these parts, eh?" Mike was lightening the mood. He looked at me with his hands in his pockets and I looked at him with my hands holding the straps of my backpack.
"Yup, I never get tired of it. Though it is scary when you play hide and seek at night here… do you mind if we stop for a second so I can see how my 'ability' works?" I asked nervously. Mike chuckled a bit and nodded. We slowed to a stop and I set my backpack to the ground. Mike was squinting and scratched his head. I took my hand and thrust it into the air in and upward motion. The backpack went flying upward into the air at least a hundred feet, then came hurling towards the ground. I panicked and came up with a plan. I made my palm face up right when the backpack was going to hit the ground, but the backpack stopped and hovered over three inches over the street.
"Thank God no cars come here until the morning." I smiled. Mike walked to me and gave me a high five. He had the smell of Axe and mint on him. He took me by the shoulders and put me in front of him.
"Now, this is dangerous, but you gotta trust me." He decided.
"You don't mean…." I moaned. He slowly nodded, his eyes big. I couldn't resist saying yes, "You've gotta be kidding me."
His face was straight, and I could see a storm cloud behind him. My heart started to thud, but not because I was afraid of killing him. Maybe I like him more than a friend? I pushed the thought away and focused. I concentrated and breathed in and I noticed that I could feel air going into my veins. Mike's face was contorted and the color of his skin turned a sickening blue purple color. He crumbled to the ground as he gasped for air. The sick feeling of fear crept into my stomach when he closed his eyes and I automatically stopped and bent down to him, cradling him as he was coughing like he was sick. Quickly I took him and my backpack to the grassy land to the side of us, and continued to hold him. His deep green long sleeve shirt was dusty from his fall as well as his long jeans. Fear had taken hold of me by then, my eyes were watery and I felt as if I could not breath; as if my fear of killing one of the only people that I trusted by accident was replacing the oxygen in my lungs.
"Come on, wake up. Wake up!" I murmured desperately. Sweat slid down my smooth face and I tried to think what I could do to increase the oxygen he was taking in. But how? Five minutes passed and he still was not conscious. I had one idea: since I can make air, maybe I create more air for him to breathe in. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but it didn't work.
"Maybe this will work." I thought out loud. Though I have no idea what I am actually doing or let alone how to do this, I am going to do this anyway. I set him down in the long grass and put my hand near his nose, making sure that I was not covering it. I took a deep breath to think this through one last time, then I focused on giving out the air that I had in me. Ten seconds passed, and the air seemed to be getting thicker. Twenty, then thirty seconds passed, and I could not breathe. Five more seconds passed and Mike opened his eyes. My eyes closed and everything went dark.
"Renee." A voice boomed in my ear. The voice sounded familiar, but slow, and I did not understand what the voice was saying at first. Did I die? My question was answered with me having a coughing fit, fighting for air to breathe in. When my eyes opened, I saw a handsome face in front of me, sick with worry, and there were even tears making their way down his face.
"Your… awake." I smiled, but a cough shook through my body. What I did not notice was that Mike was now cradling me and was smiling. His smile was really the smile of an angel to me.
"Course I am. What did you do? I haven't figured that part out yet." He had that questioning look on his face. I stumbled as I tried to stand. The only way that I succeeded in doing so was because of Mike's helping hand. The only thing that I saw was colors because of the blood rushing to my head. I leaned backwards a bit and held my head, but I got over it.
" You were still unconscious after ten minutes, so I tried to create air for you to breathe in, but that did not work. So, of course, I decided to take the air from my lungs, and transfer that into you…. I guess that is how you explain it." I replied.
"That was brilliant. I never thought you would come up with that so soon!" Mike admitted with a chuckle. Surprisingly, he hugged me as if I was a good friend that he has not seen in years. I didn't hesitate to wrap my arms around him to make the feeling mutual. He was warm, and he was lean with a bit of muscles. My heart swelled and a light smile appeared on my face. I felt light and relieved. Sadly, that moment did not last forever. We both pulled away like a sloth from his tree limb and sighed.
"We should continue walking." Mike reminded me.
"Wait... Did anyone see us? I know they were not seeing us before you passed out, but—" I was cut off.
"Strangely enough, no one has been out since school ended." Mike put it. And so we walked with the light breeze blowing against our faces. We talked about what we liked, and just got to know each other.
"Hey, you play an instrument, right?" Mike pondered.
"Yeah, the cello? How did you know?" I questioned him.
"Your fingertips are…How do I put it…. Indented?" He tried putting his words together.
"You are like Sherlock Holmes! I love Sherlock Holmes!." I exclaimed.
"I am just observant." He joked around, putting his head up in the air and exaggerated his words. Then the inevitable question found its way out of his mouth.
"Why did June try to beat you up?" He looked at me.
"Well, it all started a month ago. Her old boyfriend dumped her for me, but I did not like him as a boyfriend, just as a friend. She blamed me for 'stealing' him away from her." I echoed my memories.
"Have you ever had a boyfriend?" Mike dared to ask with his face turning red a bit. I did not judge him at all because I was turning a bit red in the face as well. I sucked in a deep breath and told him the truth.
"Nope. I have been asked out like once, which was a month ago." I breathed. I looked at him, but he was looking at the rocky road.
"Well, what about you? I am sure you have had a couple, I mean you are seventeen." I poked about.
"You're seventeen too and you have never had a boyfriend." Mike pointed out.
"Oh yeah. Good point. Hehe." I realized. I did not know if this was my anxiety talking to me or not, but I felt tension in the air. It was like I offended him or something. Hoping him to talk and not be mad or offended, I held my breath.
"I have had one girl friend about a year or two ago. She was horrible. I think you know her. Her name is Macy. She would threat girls who showed the slightest expression of liking me, even my best friends who are girls. I never knew about it until three months after we started dating. There was no way anyone could tell what was going on if they never heard of it. From then on I have been single. It might take me awhile to get back into asking girls out on small dates again." He slowly blurted out. To be honest, I didn't have that feeling of disappointment at all. It made me feel a bit better, but I do not know why.
"Yeah, I never really liked her. She seems nice until you get to know her." I tried lightening the mood, and it seemed to have worked. More time passed as we went on with our talking, our jokes, and our stories. Then we stopped to look around. Everything was dark all of a sudden. I had the urge to gasp, but it was taken away from me.
"Mike?" I whimpered. I heard him calling for me, but there was nothing but bitter, cold darkness cloaking the sky and ground, even my heart. There was nothing there, nothing there at all, except for the black abyss I was faced with. I panicked, I could not breathe, my eyes widened and I just stood there, numb. My arms and hands started to shake and I felt my blood pumping through my veins slower and slower.
"Stop it! JUST STOP IT!" I screamed on the top of my lungs. I closed my eyes, and re opened them to find Mike was calling my name too. I called back, but he could not hear me. I tried blowing him down with air, but he did not react either.
"Get away! Get away now!" a girl's voice whispered in my ear. Air whirred in my ears as I whipped around both ways. No one was there. That voice. That voice seems familiar. Memories gently floated through my mind and engulfed my vision. Memories of the elementary lunch table, classes, and orchestra. A higher pitched version of the girl's voice echoed through my mind: "Hey! We got the same room for the orchestra trip!" The pieces of the puzzle clicked.
"Ice cream! Ice cream! It is me, Renee. Don't you remember me?" I yelled through the dimming of the horizon. A thud was felt on my left shoulder, but I could not see anyone.
"How do you know those names?" the faceless girl whispered in my frozen ear once again, without leaving a trace.
"Come on! You've gotta be kidding me. I can't look that different from three years ago! Serenity, I am a mutant too… Now…" I stammered. I looked at my watch all of a sudden. Six in the evening! I need to text my dad I will be back a bit later. I snapped my head to Mike's direction; he stepped out of the illusion and stared at me. I looked, only with my tired eyes, to my right: Serenity.
"See?" I showed her.
"No, no, no. You are not her!" She raised her soft voice. Serenity stood there in a stance, just like she did when we were younger when we were horsing around. Her face was roundish and looked… Experienced. Her eyes are a dark, dark brown, and now the mimics the pain and fear of a tortured person. She was wearing all black, her hair was a shiny black color. One moment she was there, and the next my lip was bleeding from a punch in the face and she was back again, but you could not see her doing that. Confused, I turn around endlessly, trying to figure out what should I do. Mike could not do anything either, but was not sharing the same pain; Serenity would just run through him. He really could not do anything to protect me, and I wouldn't let him anyway. I let my surroundings sink in and let my brain work. Finally, I got it.
I put one hand up, then my index finger up and twirled that one finger around and around. At first, a circle of air was forming around me and the grass flew everywhere. After a couple more seconds, the circle became a small twister, forming around me like a cocoon. Air was screaming in my ears making me cover my ears tight. Nothing touched me. I let the tiny twister die down to a wind barrier instead. What I saw in front of me was my best bud; her eyes free of the pain and torture and filled with love and joy.
"Renee! I am so sorry I thought you were one of them, not you." She tried to explain clearly. We ran to each other, tears streaming down out faces. Mike was stunned.
"You can explain it all later. I missed you so much!" I mumbled with my face buried in her shoulder, tears stinging the cut on my lip. Mike came over and decided to join in to make a group hug.
"Awwww. Group hug!" He exclaimed.
"Mike, you goof!" I nudged him, and of course, my elbow went through him. We were all together, and all warm because of this group hug.
"Who is this might I add?" Serenity asked, trying to deduct what he was like.
"Can that hold on for a sec? I need to get home to my dad, he is probably worried sick!" I looked at my watch.
RING RING RING! I pushed the doorbell three times, my usual thing to do. No one answered. I glanced at Mike, and then to Serenity. Sighing, I get my house key on my Sherlock Holmes keychain, out of my pocket. There were some clicking noises, soon followed by the creaking of my white door opening.
"Come, make yourselves feel at –" I stopped dead.
"DADDY!" I screamed.