(copy+pasted from Google docs, so there are some missing italics :3) Okay, I didn’t know that would happen, I’ll just say that. Okay, maybe I kinda did. It wasn’t entirely my fault though! Not this time, at least. Maybe I should introduce myself. I’m Adhira Kastellanos, and I’m pretty sure I just became everyone’s least favorite person here. So let’s just say I’m kinda running from a bunch of people right now. Why, you may ask? I possibly may have just… learned what my abilities are. What are they, you might ask? Well, let's just say I can now create storms. At least, I think so. All that happened was a lightning bolt. Indoors. And maybe a bit of rain. Everyone definitely didn’t leave the lunchroom soaked. Nope. Totally not. Right, enough of five minutes ago. Back to the now! I probably shouldn’t be running in a school hallway, but I am. I stop for a moment—I actually end up sliding forward a few feet because of the momentum—and think about where in the world I should go now. I could go home, since there’s only an hour or two left in school anyway. Or I could stay here and just hide for a bit so no one comes and tries to kill me. Did I mention everyone has powers here? Probably not good things to give fifteen-year-olds who all hate each other. They’re all based on elements too, so basically any time we could have a flood, or find the lunchroom covered in vines. That totally wasn’t a real-life example. Anyway, not many people here have even the slightest control over their abilities, so it’s basically just utter chaos. At the end of this year—like, a month away now—we all get to go through a trial. It’s honestly pretty cool, because the smartest and most controlled of us get to move up a few grades and go to special colleges and things like that. The people who don’t get good marks on the trial don’t get to move on to better schools. Okay. Back. To. The. Present. Again. I go left, and… almost instantly collide with someone. I stumble back a few steps. “Sorry!” I say. I shake my head and look up. He’s tall-ish, with brown-blonde hair and emerald green eyes. I narrow my eyes slightly. I haven’t seen him around much. Without another thought, I go around him and continue running. “Wait!” I don’t stop running. I keep going until I make it to the school’s front doors, and I push through them and pause again. Now where to go? Maybe the park nearby. That would be an easy place to blend in. Or the forest beyond it, that would be nice. A quiet place where I can go see what in the world my abilities are. That’ll work, then. To the forest I go! I stop running, but I do set my walk at a faster-than-normal speed. Slightly gasping for air, I reach the park within ten minutes, which is pretty good, since it normally takes me around twenty. Maybe being chased by a mob of people helps. I pass the park with my head lowered, in case anyone else had the same idea I did. As soon as I reach the forest, I take in a breath of air. I’m hopefully safe here. I keep walking until I’m relatively deep in the forest before I stop. I sit against a tree and lean my head back, staring up. Then I close my eyes, just for a moment. I tilt my head back down, and open my eyes before bringing my knees up to my chest and placing my head on them. I don’t know what it is, but that entire time I was running, I felt like I had an abnormal amount of energy. No, I’m not talking about adrenaline. It was… some sort of buzzing inside me that just was like a huge reserve of energy. It feels like I’m walking on a wire. Like… it’s about to rain but it hasn’t yet. I guess that kind of makes sense, thanks to the ability, but still. It feels weird. ` With those thoughts, I sit with my legs crossed and look at my hands. Maybe I can channel that energy into my hands. Maybe that’ll allow me to control and… use the ability? I don’t know, at this point I just want to try something. I try to move the buzzing feeling to the tips of my fingers, and I see a tiny spark. I jump a bit, not expecting the flash of white-purple light. I smile a little. I try it again, pushing with more of that buzzing energy. A line of bright light flashes onto my skin and stays there this time, though it sometimes flickers. I jump to my feet and shake my hand. It feels almost like a spider or something skittering across my hand. I yelp when it flashes away for a moment before coming back brighter. I shake my hand again and it disappears. Okay, I know I said it felt like some weird bug on my skin, but it was also oddly warm, like sitting next to a fire. It will take some getting used to, but I think I can do that. It didn’t shock me, so I’m guessing the ability protects me from my own lightning, but I’m still wondering about the storm part.
I wonder if it depends on what I’m attempting to do. Like, if I tried to make a storm, if it would happen. So, I will. I think of just a small amount of rain, just a drizzle, really. I look up and… nothing’s happened. I glare down at my hands. “So, magic lightning from my fingers, but no storm?” I mutter to myself. “Hello?” I jump slightly and whip around, looking for who said that. It’s the boy I ran into earlier. Hopefully he’s not trying to hunt me down too. “Uhm, hi…?” I say, taking a step back. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” he says. “I’m Julian Grey.” he smiles a bit. “Adhira Kastellanos.” I say. “Is there a reason you followed me out here?” “Oh! Yeah, um, you dropped this.” he holds out his hand. The necklace that I always wore—it had been in my pocket, because I was too lazy to put it on this morning—was draped over his palm. I eye it skeptically for a moment before walking forward and grabbing it from his hand. As I take it, a small zap of electricity streaks from my hand onto his, and we both jump back at the same time. “Sorry!” I say quickly. “I don’t… That wasn’t intentional.” I take another step back and stare at the necklace in my hands. The pendant on it is simple, just a piece of blue topaz with flecks of citrine. I hold both ends and try to put it on my neck, but it gets caught in my way-too-long light honey-brown hair, which I want to and don’t want to cut at the same time. It’s wavy, and gets in my face all of the time, but I don’t think I could live without sitting for fifteen minutes brushing it every morning. I huff and try to hold my hair up and put the necklace on. Now you can probably see why I was too lazy to put it on this morning. “Do you need help?” I hear Julian ask from a small ways away. I drop my hair and drop my hands, letting the necklace dangle from my fingers. “You… aren’t here to try and kill me for soaking everyone in the lunchroom?” Everyone is always at each other's throats here. I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who at least tries to be nice at school. Everyone else is just trying to show off, flaunt their powers. “No.” he says. It surprises me a little. I wasn’t expecting it. “Really?” I ask. Just to be sure. “No,” he says again. “Do you want help?” “Uhm… sure.” I stand still for a moment. I’ve gotten used to doing everything on my own. He walks over and grabs the necklace from my hands. I turn around and hold my hair up. After he clips it in place, I drop my hair and turn toward him again. “Thanks.” He smiles a bit. “You’re welcome.” “So,” I say. “I haven’t seen you around school much.” “I’m a new student.” “Hmm.” We don’t get new students that often. The school I go to is for rich people’s kids only. My parents don’t like me, and we’ll leave it at that for now. I take a step back and sigh. “Well, we should probably go back to the school. I’m sure if it hasn’t already, class will start soon.” He nods. “What would we do without history?” he says with a small smile. “Live happier.” I smile a bit too. “Anyway, let’s go.” When we make it back to school, I walk to my locker—number 49—to grab my bag. Thankfully, I don’t pass anyone along the way, but that probably means I’m already late to class. Learning from earlier, I don’t run in the halls this time, but I do walk faster than I normally would. When I reach the classroom, room 204, I open the door and step inside. Some of the talking stops for a moment before picking back up. I walk over to my seat and set my bag down, looking over at the teacher’s desk. Strange. She’s not here. She always is, and usually has the list of things we have to do written on the board. Nothing’s there. I look at the groups of people around the room and look down when I see most of them glaring at me. Some of them are still wet. I smile a bit at that, it serves them right. I sit at my desk and pull out a sketchbook. If we’re not going to do anything, I may as well draw, right? I draw something pretty random, just a fish. Then I look around the classroom again. Everyone’s gone back to what they were doing, and I look back down at my sketchbook. I draw a cat now, just sitting there on the paper. It looks kinda boring. I tap my pencil against my desk, wondering what I could add to it. “Could you stop that?” someone asks. I look up, wondering if they are talking to me. Sure enough, Brooklynn Caddel, the school’s biggest snob, is looking at me. I stop and look back down at my sketchbook. “Are you not capable of speaking, Kastellanos?” she asks. I hate when people use my last name. I ignore her and draw a tiny star. I hear footsteps walk closer and look up, again, slightly annoyed. “I asked you a question.” she says. <--- go to project T-T(press space) (next chapter: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1130916728 )
