Chapter 3 (new version)

“So… what do you want to do?”

It was July. Nina, another friend of mine, decided to come over on a whim. We were now in the usual hangout spot, a treehouse that my dad and older twin brothers built as a summer project. Our house was surrounded on almost all sides by trees, so they had some good choices of where to build it. They chose a huge willow tree that stood conspicuously in the corner of our backyard. Its sturdy branches stretched higher up in the sky than most of the trees around, which made it the best choice, and the treehouse was a good 35 feet up in the air. Nina and I were sitting on the roof, our legs dangling over the edge. Her legs may have been dangling in just thin air, but mine were grazing a thick syrup that was becoming my self guilt. It had consumed me so much that it had risen nearly 35 feet.

I shrugged absently, my mind elsewhere. Besides feeling as low as a crushed soda can at the bottom of the ocean, I had been plagued with nightmares for the past month, and always woken up either tied up in my sheets, on the floor, choking myself, or the worst, all of them combined. At school, I had isolated myself, and even some of my good friends had stopped talking to me. When school ended, I secluded myself in my room, only coming out to eat, mainly wasting my life away in the bowels of the internet, my mind always swimming with should of’s and what if’s. It drove me to insanity. Sometimes I became so hysterical that I would tear up my room in pure madness, flipping over my desk, throwing clothes, tearing pages out of books. And when I was done, I would sit in the ravage, my guilt swallowing me just a bit more. Finally, after a month of this, and what I thought was rock bottom, my mom came in and told me Nina had called and intended to come over. I didn’t really care. We didn’t know each other that well, but I didn’t mind the company, and so, there we were, sitting on the treehouse, bored out of our minds.

Despite my feeble attempts to forget about it, push it to the back of my mind, shove it down my throat as I fried my brain on the internet, I couldn’t stop thinking of the incident that had happened at the track meet. I was consumed with guilt at what I had done, although I wasn’t sure what I did. I was confused and angry at myself, constantly telling myself that Morgan’s kidnapping was my fault, I should have stopped her, I should have fought the officials, killed one if I had to. These thoughts now surged forward like a dark tidal wave in my brain, at its crest, it’s shadow stealing away all light. My hands started to shake and a cold sweat overtook me. I shut my eyes tight, trying to ward the living nightmares off but failing. They still came on me.

“Are you ok?” I could hear Nina say. I ignored her, my mind racing with what I should do. I could only see one option, and I was scared of it. What if it didn’t work… what if they came back? I almost ignored this outcome, pushed it out of my head. If it could make the nightmares go away… forever…

Almost discreetly, I pushed myself off the roof.

The next thing I remember was the soft grass. I felt different again, but this time, my legs had pins and needles running through them. “Mandy!” I could hear Nina run up to me. “Are you ok?!”

I stood up, brushing grass off my shorts. “Yeah…” I said, still uncertain of myself. What just happened? I dropped 35 feet and survived? How was that even possible? And the strangest thing: I had come out of it completely unharmed. Was there something wrong with me? Was I a mutant like Morgan? It scared me a little, and I shuddered. “C’mon, we should go inside,” Nina said. I numbly followed her.

The air conditioning was a welcome change from the sweltering summer air outside. My mom greeted us as we walked into the kitchen. Somehow, she had nothing to do, especially in a house with 6 crazy kids running around all over. Being the middle child and also very independent, the family ignored me for the most part, sometimes even forgetting I lived with them, but I didn’t care. I preferred doing my own thing.

The other rugrats my mom had to take care of were 2 adopted pairs of twins and another boy that my parents acquired out of foster care. Sami and Nicole were the two younger twins, and you could never go without a day of them either arguing, fighting, or somehow breaking something and blaming each other for it. Even after a couple years of living with them, my family still couldn’t tell them apart, so we just called them the twins.

The other set of twins, Cody and Nathan, couldn’t be any more different. Cody loved sports or anything where he could be active, while Nathan enjoyed calmer activities such as cooking and science. The two were actually famous at their high school, Cody being one of the most popular kids and Nathan being known as a child prodigy. Nathan was diagnosed with ASD at an early age, and while having trouble in school, he was very smart. Being associated with Cody, he became popular and was able to show people his talents and amazing intelligence. When I was in 5th grade, he made a nuclear reactor that supplied energy for our house that won 1st place in every science fair it went to. My parents even gave him the attic for his personal lab. Despite the fact that he had ASD and preferred to be alone, Nathan was actually friendly when you talked or hung out with him. I preferred Nathan over Cody any day.

Brad was sort of the odd man out. He was a couple years younger than me, and always acted weird around the family. He was snappy and a bit stuck up. I didn’t really like him. He had a friend named Johnny that he always hung out with. Johnny was friendly, I didn’t know too much about him, but I was too caught up in my own little world to bother. Besides, I didn’t like to associate with them. They were annoying.

“What did you guys do outside?” my mom asked us as she passed us water.

“Mandy jumped off the roof of the treehouse.” Nina said it so casually and calmly that I almost choked.

“You did what?”

“She jumped off the roof of the treehouse,” Nina repeated.

“I wasn’t hurt!” I protested.

“You jumped off the treehouse,” my mom said.

“Yeah…”

My mom frowned, and left the kitchen. A couple minutes later, I could hear her talking on the phone with someone. “...no, that’s all… we don’t know yet, maybe you could get someone to talk with her?... yes, that would be great… thank you.” She came back in, looking a bit flustered. “Why don’t you girls go do something outside,” she said.

With nothing else to do, we went out into the driveway and played some foursquare with the twins. Despite always arguing and fighting, you would never see the twins away from each other. They did everything together. They also made a pretty good team, when they cooperated. Sometime later Brad and Cody joined us and we started a foursquare tournament. Being the crazy kids we were, it was a tournament made up of lots of trash talk, cheating and crazy stunts. Cody cherry-bombed a ball so high it took out a branch in a nearby tree. After that, we agreed that the winner could claim the branch and parade around with it, talking smack about the losers.

Nina and I were winning when a shiny black car that looked pretty official pulled into the driveway. Mom came outside to greet the man who stepped out and they began to talk. We ignored them, continuing our game, until I accidentally hit the ball too hard and it hit the man’s car. It made a visible dent.

The two adults looked at me like adults do sometimes, that look of sheer and utter disapproval. The rest of the kids froze. “Mandy, come inside with us,” mom said. Cheeks burning, I made my way to the front door. “You too, Nina.” I could almost hear her confusion behind me as she followed me in. The adults took us to the living room. “Now Mandy, I have to go into the kitchen and do something,” my mom said. “This man here needs to talk with you.”

I gulped. I would think that my mom would stay and try to defend me while I’m getting chewed out for denting a car! But that wasn’t the case at all. When I blurted “I’m sorry I wrecked your car” to the man, he simply waved it off. “That’s not what I’m here for,” he said. “I’m here about that… little incident you had in the backyard earlier.”

Nina and I exchanged confused glances.

“So,” he continued, “describe what happened, in as much detail as possible.”

“We were just sitting on the roof of the treehouse,” Nina said uncertainty, “And she just slipped off, like you would if you were at a pool and you wanted to get in. And when I got down there, she was just sitting there in the grass, like nothing happened. It was all strange.”

“Mmm hmm,” the man mumbled. “And what about you?” he said, pointing to me.

“Uh, I kinda just fell off the roof,” I replied. “All I remember was when I fell into the grass and I wasn’t hurt. My legs were kind of tingling.”

“Anything else?”

“Well, I felt weird after, I guess. Maybe a little different…”

“In what way?”

I hesitated. This guy was really prying. “Uh… I dunno, more aware, stronger, I guess?”

The man nodded, and stood up. “Can we talk more in private?” he asked me.

Nina and I exchanged glances again. “Uh… sure…” I replied, and led him to my room.

I had completely forgotten how trashed my room was. I didn’t even warn the guy as I opened the door. For a moment, he stood there in shock at the door frame. “How did this happen?” he asked.

“Older brothers,” I lied.

“I see.” He weaved in and out of the ravage, eventually making it to my bed. “So, describe that feeling you got, when you fell off the treehouse.” He sat on the bed.

I didn’t answer. Why did this guy want to know so much about me? It ticked me off. “Tell me,” I said instead, somehow calmly, “What makes you so interested in my feelings?”

“Not everyone can fall 35 feet and simply walk away from it.”

I huffed, indignant. There was no way I was getting rid of him until I told him. “I guess more happened than the fall. One time I was standing across a football field, and I could read a piece of paper like I was looking over the person’s shoulder. And it got louder, too.”

“Anything else?”

I showed him my hands. “I don’t know what happened, but I just bunched my fists together and I pierced skin.”

The man nodded. “Thank you. That’s all I needed to know.” He left the room, and a couple minutes later, I heard him talking to my mom in a low voice. “The interview shows that she is in fact a mutant, but she doesn’t show enough power to be recruited right off the bat. If anything else strange happens, give me a call.” I heard loud footsteps and a slamming door, and as a dented black car left the driveway, I snatched my bedsheets and crumpled them up in confusion and fury. The sound of the car’s engine eventually faded.

After a few minutes, I went back outside to play foursquare.

Agent Bishop’s footsteps echoed loudly off of the empty hallway. It seemed as if every step he took, he was getting closer to his doom. He shouldn’t have been that nervous. Having a meeting with the Leader wasn’t supposed to be nerve-wracking, but for some reason he was scared, and he didn’t know why.

Gulping, he took a seat in front of the Leader’s office. The Leader’s bodyguard, Jason, as he preferred people to call him, stood outside the door in stoic silence.

“Reporting,” Bishop said.

“Leo’s in there right now,” Jason replied casually. “He should be out in a moment.”

Dr. Leonard Smith, playfully called Leo by the staff, was the head of research. Him and the Leader were having long, drawn out meetings lately, which probably meant something like a breakthrough. Bishop ignored it, though. He would never understand what Leo and the rest of R and D did behind those closed lab doors.

Adjusting in his seat, Bishop took a deep breath and attempted to calm his nerves. He was on patrol, when he was called to a house reporting strange activity from a possible metahuman. At first he had been excited, but when he got to the scene, he was only disappointed to see a kid that had jumped from 35 feet and survived unfazed. He could tell she was metahuman, she had the distinct poise, but jumping off a treehouse? That was nothing. On top of that, she had dinged his car. He had just gotten it fixed, too, after that car chase through Coma City.

The door to the leader’s office opened, and Leo stepped out, still in the middle of a sentence. “... yeah, we can have another GM set up by November. Have Wanda start putting out ads.”

Jason turned to Bishop, who gulped. “Your turn.” Apprehensively, Bishop rose out of his seat and entered the Leader’s office.

His expectations were always exceeded when he walked into this room. Gregory Linn, the first Leader, had vouched for only a humble office-space to make interactions with officials and metahumans as personal as possible, but the current Leader, Richard Oswald, had taken things to a whole new level. From the outside, it looked like the humble entrance to an office, but on the inside, it was beautiful. The Leader sat at a large desk in the center of the room, hands folded neatly on its surface.

“Agent Bishop, reporting.”

“Ah yes, take a seat.”

Bishop didn’t hesitate.

The Leader shifted in his seat, as if bored. “Describe your report.”

“I was on patrol when I was called for SMA,” Bishop described. “The call took me to a house a couple miles away from Riverside Middle School, where there were reports of a teenage girl jumping from 35 feet. The reports said she was not injured or harmed in any way. I suspect she has vertical impact immunity, but it wasn’t enough to apprehend�"”

“Stop right there,” the Leader suddenly said, sitting straight in his chair. “This was a teenage girl, you said, with vertical impact immunity? What’s her name?”

Bishop handed the file to the Leader, who opened it and studied it. “Mandy Gardner, 13 years old, adopted at age 2…” He stopped suddenly, and his eyes widened.

“Is something wrong?” Bishop asked nervously.

The Leader glanced up, and quickly closed the file. He pressed a button on his desk, the master button for communication. “Shaun Kerr, if you are in the building, please report to my office immediately.”

Bishop’s heart leaped to his throat. Shaun Kerr was the head of security. Was he going to take him away… for a report? “Sir, is this something I need to be concerned about?”

“Oh, no, not at all,” the Leader replied, waving him off. “It’s just this… Mandy you speak of might be someone that I have been looking for a long time. You are dismissed.”

Bishop sighed in relief, and stood up. As he turned to leave, he heard the Leader behind him say, “Thank you for your report. It was most useful.”

When Bishop disappeared out the door, he muttered as an afterthought, “More useful than you would think.”

“Wake up, Mandy, you’re gonna be late for your first day of school!”

I woke up to a pillow smacking me right in the kisser. Groaning, I shielded my eyes and tried to roll over, but promptly fell off the bed. I groaned again, in routine of my morning schedule, which was sleep through my alarm, get woken up by one of my older brothers, and fall off the bed. I heard him make his way towards the door, snickering like he always did. It was Cody, the twin I didn’t prefer. He was well built, with hard features, and tall for the age of sixteen, but also the cockiest dude I would ever meet. Not even the jocks at school compared to Cody. Somehow, I got by even living in the same home as him.

My eyes quickly adjusted, and I realized I was tied up in my sheets again. Five minutes passed before I wriggled free, and I slammed them on the ground in anger and stormed out of my room as usual. I quickly ran a comb through my wild curly hair in the bathroom, got dressed, and went down the hall to the kitchen.

It was normal pandemonium. The twins were running around the kitchen yelling and screaming as usual, Brad was running after them, trying to get them to shut up, Nathan was cooking eggs on the stove somehow calmly amidst the ensuing chaos, and Cody was standing next to him, waiting for the first share of food. I couldn’t blame him. Nathan made the best eggs in the house. Dad sat at the head of the table, reading the daily paper, and Mom was scurrying around the house yelling things like “Cody, get away from the food!”, and “Brad, have you made your lunch yet?”, or “Girls, I buy that cereal all the time, I’m sure you’ll find another toy in there!”. She somehow got us herded to the table every morning.

Dad set down the paper and took a sip of coffee. “First day of eighth grade, how’s it feel?” he called across the table to me.

I shrugged. “Normal,” I said remotely, swiftly stepping in to grab some of Nathan’s eggs before Cody stole them.

Dad stood up and passed towards the garage, tousling my hair as he went by. “Well, have a good day at school,” he said, disappearing through the door.

The rest of the morning went by in a blur. I scarfed down some eggs and toast, rushed to the bathroom to brush my teeth, grabbed my things, and quietly slipped out the back door.

I walked to school in sullen silence. The forest was quiet, no birds singing in the trees, and the only noises I could hear were the wind and my footsteps. When I sulked through the field, no bugs attacked me, as if I had scared them off with my angst and brooding. I greeted the waving tall grass as I came through with a glare.

Through another forest, across the dew-laden football field, and through double doors with the words Riverside Middle School proudly mounted above in huge metal lettering. Inside, a huge commonspace that doubled as a cafeteria greeted me, normal middle school gossip bouncing off its high ceiling. A balcony leading to the library and some other classes upstairs was to my right, and beyond that was an enormous mural depicted of the school’s mascot. It was a typical modern-day middle school.

The bell rung, and the students that congregated the cafeteria began to slip away to their first period. I headed to my first period as well, no one noticing me as I pushed through the slow crowd. 8th grade had brought on growth spurts, especially on many of the boys, and many bodies loomed over me. I was still short for my grade, barely over 5 foot, and to many people I had become virtually invisible, especially after the track meet incident last year. Eventually, I made it to my class, and took a seat near the back. As the class started, I could already tell something was amiss.

Men in black suits, not much different than the man whose car I dented, had slipped in before the bell had rung. They stood at the back of the classroom, writing things on clipboards. As one finished, he noticed I was watching him, and instead of ignoring my attention, he looked me straight in the face. Right in the eyes. And then I realized all the officials were staring at me.

Stifling a shudder, I turned away towards the front of the classroom, trying to ignore the laser set of eyes pointed at the back of my head.

Class started, but I was so consumed with my own thoughts that the whole lesson went over my head. Pulling out my computer, I absentmindedly bypassed the school’s firewalls and browsed through a gaming website, playing a cool game for a couple minutes, then getting bored and moving to a new one. I thought about the summer, that day when Nina came over and I jumped off the treehouse, the crazy dreams I was having, the strangely familiar officials… it was like Morgan running at the track meet had set off a chain of events that was going to alter my life…

My phone vibrated. It was Kyndra. I was wondering where she was.

hey, how’s it going?

I quickly tapped out a response, keeping an eye on the teacher and the officials at my back.

im doing pretty good. where r u? its the 1st day of school

sick *cof cof*

I smiled. lol

hey could you tell me if we have any 1st day of school hw?

yeah, i dont think we do. youre skipping, arent you?

what? me? never. ok so maybe i slept through my alarm and missed the bus and couldn’t get a ride. or maybe i’m at the movies, watching the new movies that are out, youll never know

lol i dont blame you for skipping. theres some really creepy official dudes stalking this dump.

yikes glad i stayed away. think anyone is going to unveil any new superpowers today?

no its only the 1st day

hey have u heard anything from j? i havent seen her since morgan disappeared

i’ve heard a couple rumors that she disappeared, other than that, im not sure

The bell rang, and I rushed to gather my things and dart out the door before the officials could follow me. I blessed my invisibility in the hallways, and with all the big people around me it would be easy to blend in. Nina greeted me as we came out of the hall and into the cafeteria, and we crossed to another section of the building together.

“How was first period?” she asked me.

“A bunch of those creepy official dudes were staring at me,” I replied, looking around the hallways just in case.

“Yeah, what’s the deal with the extra security?” Nina said, frowning. “It’s so annoying with all the adults breathing down our necks 24/7.”

I didn’t get the chance to reply, as I was shoved from the side, falling into a row of lockers. I heard a couple chuckles from passerby, and an evil laugh I knew too well.

It was Brendon Darcell, the licensed and official butthead of the school. He was nearly 6 foot, with a big build, with BO so bad it brought tears to a 6th grader’s eyes. A wet sliver of wood that used to be a toothpick always lolled of the side of his mouth. Cold eyes were plopped right in the center of his fat face, like some craftsmen had intentionally created him to terrorize a middle school.

Pretty much everyone in the school hated him, even teachers, but they couldn’t get rid of him. Usually he ignored me, but after the track meet he began the nasty habit of picking on me. Just shoving in the halls, or calling me short, and the occasional cuss-off, but it wasn’t enough to get my attention. This was his first actual confrontation.

“Hey there shorty,” he sneered. “How was your summer? Pretty lonely? Too bad S.W.O.R.D didn’t take you away like your best friend.”

I pulled myself away from the lockers, bunching my hands into fists. Word travels fast in this school. “Too bad they didn’t take you away. I bet they have a place for jerks like you.” By now, a small crowd had formed around us.

Now Nina stepped up. “Lay off, Brendon. Stop being a jerk.” She wasn’t much of a sight, though, only a inch or so taller than me, so it was useless.

“And what are you gonna do about it?” He clipped Nina into the crowd.

I was suddenly angry. “Leave her alone!” I shouted, my voice cracking.

“Little baby,” he teased. “Are you gonna hurt me? Jump off a roof and get me?”

“She said lay off!” I yelled, and I pushed Brendon as hard as I could. I only expected him to hit the wall, but instead, he went through the wall. And a couple more walls after that. I heard crashes and screams as he went through classrooms. He finally stopped when he had made it completely outside the building, and I saw his unconscious body disappear below the huge hole he had made. That I had made.

I took a step back, eyes wide. Was this another one of my vivid dreams? How had I done this? This couldn’t be real.

My delusion was interrupted as an explosion sounded behind me. There were more muffled screams. I was thrown towards the hole in the wall, but I realized it wasn’t from the shock wave. Someone was attacking me.

I tried to lash out, but the attacker was too quick. We fell through the hole and he landed on top of me, pinning me to the ground. I screamed and tried to call for help, but he covered my mouth with his hand. He was about to pull something from his belt when there was an explosion behind us that was dangerously close. It was like a thunderclap, and a fire blossomed on the back of the man attacking me. Howling, he rolled to the side, and I jumped to my feet.

As if cued by the explosion, the school erupted into utter pandemonium. Students leaped up from their seats, abandoning their belongings and sprinting out the door. There were screams and more explosions, each boom shaking the building with tremendous force. The classroom I was in began to go up in smoke. I stepped through the hole in the wall, covering my face and ears. “Nina?” I shouted. “NINA!” The explosions had started from the hallway. Was she even alive now?

“Mandy! Over here!” I whipped around, expecting Nina, but it wasn’t her.

Or whatever she had become.

She was in the middle of the hall, amidst the flames, smoke and chaos, and she was burning. Or rather, she had caused the burning. Her body was like a pyre of flames, like the human embodiment of fire. “What happened to you?!” I shouted above the chaos.

“I don’t know! I got mad, and then I caught on fire!” she shouted back.

“We should get outta here!”

“Good idea!”

But suddenly, before she could even move, a net hit her from behind. She tumbled to the ground, the fire around her extinguishing. ”Nina!” I shouted.

“Mandy! Help�"” But her cries were cut short by a pop. A bright feather blossomed in her back, and she went limp.

“No!” I tried to run to her, but someone grabbed me from behind, stopping me. It was the man that had attacked me earlier. His suit was barely intact, it came off his back in chars. He pinned me to the lockers, a half scared, half grotesque expression on his face. He pulled a small gun off his belt and held it to my neck.

“Listen girl,” he said, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. You can come with us, and I won’t hurt you, or�"”

“NO!” I shouted, kneeing him in the groin. He recoiled, grunting, and I darted out the hole in the wall before he could grab me again, heart pounding against my ribcage. Out in the field, I could see the students lined up by their classrooms in the field for the evacuation protocol. Kids were screaming, teachers trying in vain to calm them down. Some new 6th graders were crying. My stomach dropped to my knees. Officials swarmed the place, badgering teachers and students, almost as if they were looking for something. Or someone.

I swallowed hard. They were looking for me.

I couldn’t go back the way I came, there was a fire there. And I couldn’t run across the field without being seen. I was trapped.

Someone in the midst of the crowd pointed at me and yelled, and I froze. All the heads on the field turned to me. And then they appeared.

They were like something straight out of my nightmares. Their skin was blacker than the moonless night sky, and their eyes were an eerie pasty white that looked glazed over. They had sharp, yellowing teeth that stuck crookedly out of their mouths that drowned in a sea of white foam drizzling from the corner of their lips to their chin. They were shaped like a human, but weren’t human an any way.

I took one look at one of them and shrieked, making a run for it around the school. But they were fast, and they came from every side, like the shadows had materialized into them. They chased me under a flaming balcony and around to the parking lot, yelling at each other with primitive grunts and growls.

Panting, I darted into the parking lot. I could lose them here. I was short, and could easily hide in a truck bed if they came by. My pace slowed as I went around a black SUV, and if I my stomach hadn’t already been at my knees, someone had probably just downright buried it. There, waiting for me, was a crowd of them.

I had walked right into a trap.

My eyes widened, and my heart bounced wildly against my ribcage. “No…” The ones that had been chasing me slowly came up behind me, panting. I could feel myself becoming different again. And then the crowd parted, and I saw someone I thought I would never see again.

“MORGAN!” I cried, and ran to embrace her. The tidal wave of emotions that I had suppressed over the last 2 months came back in full force. “I missed you so much,” I whispered, on the brink of tears.

“Mandy?” she said in disbelief. “Did you do this?”

And then, as quickly as the tidal wave had come, it dispersed.

She wasn’t hugging me back. And she was surrounded by them.

I pulled away from her, backing away slowly. “Morgan, is something wrong?”

The demons around Morgan started to close in. She didn’t answer. “Morgan?” They sprung, pinning me to the black SUV. “Morgan!”

She gave me a quizzical look, and then suddenly, her features changed. One of them now took her spot. It pulled out a small gun, and pointed it at me.

“It’s not Morgan anymore. It’s Swift.”

Then everything went black.

Author's Note

I couldn't really think of a name for this chapter that would give everything away, if anyone has suggestions, that would be great!

I kept the old chapter 3 because it's in a different character's POV. The chapter after this (which I am currently writing) will be in that character's POV.

More character development on Mandy. How do you think I did on the mood? Did I make it as teenage-angsty as it needed to be? (Crazy Dragon Lady and Jay, I will not take your answers into as much consideration because you guys have been reading this and probably have read it more than once.)

Reviews

[Locke Redwyne (night sy..]

Oh come on
I was going to give you a title and feedback a good rating but nevermind now

[Peregrinator7]

i didn't mean you didn't have to write it
i just need more opinions

[Locke Redwyne (night sys)]

nope nevermind you missed your chance