Prologue

A Chapter by Christen Owen

Prologue

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A baby girl, born with a head of snow white hair, and the brightest blue eyes you've ever seen. That's where this story starts. Nobody knew that this child was going to be extraordinary, a legend even. At that moment, the only unique thing about her was her appearance, nothing more, nothing less. They didn't know that she was going to have powers that you couldn't even imagine. These powers were glamorous, but come at the cost of loneliness, isolation. Nobody knew any of this.

That girl, is me. Elina Noelle Faith.

When I was first born, the doctor's all thought that I must have had some albino disease or something, but my skin was pink, just like any other baby. Nobody can explain it, my mother's hair was black, and my dad's is dirty blonde. Nobody could explain my eyes either, as both my parent's have dark brown eyes. I was a freak of nature, even before anybody knew exactly how special I really was.

They took me back to our old home in Arkansas that had been passed down for three generations in my mom's family, so it was incredibly old. My life was apparently normal for the first three years of my life. I was a normal baby, and everybody adored me, well until they had to baby sit me that is. I have always been told that I was a difficult baby to take care of, always crying for my mother and father. I guess it makes sense, I'm still very difficult as a teenager, but in a different, more stubborn way.

When I turned four, things changed drastically. It all started on my first day of preschool, and as you can imagine I didn't want to go, not at all.

"No!" My tiny voice said as my mother tried to take me out of my car seat with great difficulty. I had been screaming the whole car ride. "I don't wanna go!" I shook my head back and forth, my white pigtails flying all around me.

"Elina," My mother sighed. "You have too, mommy and daddy's both got to go to work." She tried to explain.

"No you don't." I argued. "I want to stay with you." Tears swelled up in my small, vibrant eyes.

"Here, let me try." I heard my dad say to my mom, and got in her place. "Elina, you have to go. You don't want to go to a boring office all day, no other kids, no other toys, you'll be so bored."

I had crossed my arms in a pout, and looked away from him. "No."

He then sighed and quickly unbuckled my seat belt and yanked me out of the car seat gently, holding me close to him as I flailed my arms and wailed. Yeah, I know, I was a brat.

It took me an hour to finally let my parents leave, causing them to be late for work. I was still sniffling when the teacher led me to a desk with some play-dough on it. I don't really remember much about her, besides her auburn hair and freckled face. She was young, probably mid twenties. I also don't really remember much about that day besides the crying as the teacher tried to help us make shapes out of the play-dough and tried to keep us all calm. What I do remember vividly, is this;

It was snack time, and I had refused to eat. As you can imagine, the teacher tried to persuade me to do otherwise.

"Honey..." She said once again. "You need to eat." She was loosing her patience, but was still trying to keep calm.

"No! I want my daddy." I said for the billionth time. She closed her eyes and took in a big breath.

"Your daddy can not come and get you right now, you have to tough it out and do without. A lot of times in life we have to do what we don't want to do, and this is one of those times." She said calmly, but I could tell she was angry. I can't really remember why, but I blew up.

"NO!" I screeched, and all at once, everyone's paper cups with juice in them and cookie's flew up into the air, spilling juice and crumbs every where, before they all fell to the ground, cookies exploding into tiny crumbs. That was the first time I had ever used my power, at that point I didn't know how I did it, but I knew it was me. I could feel it. I smiled happily, it felt like I wasn't so full of energy anymore, and it felt good. But my smile slowly went away once I saw the look on my teacher's face.

She had gathered all the children behind her, and they were all looking at me, wide eyed in terror.

"What are you?!" She said loudly, and I just stared at her in confusion.

She had put me in the corner, careful not to get too close and called my parents and shrieked at them to come and get me as soon as possible and to never bring me back. My dad arrived a few minutes later and she told him, no, more like screeched at him what happened. Of course my dad thought she was batshit crazy, and took me away from there as soon as possible.

On the way home my dad tried to ask me what happened, but all I did was shrug. I was happy despite getting yelled at by the teacher. Not just because I got to go home like I wanted, but because I didn't feel like a bubble ready to burst. I like to think that I was such a difficult child because holding in all that power for so long made me cranky. I mean that makes sense right?

My parents thought my teacher was crazy until one Saturday I was playing with the family dog, and he bit me, causing me to have an extreme burst of energy through my strong emotions of pain and sadness. I was told that I made all the cabinet doors and all the kitchen drawers open. My parents probably wouldn't have believed it was me if I hadn't had a faint shimmer of white and light blue around me when it happened. That's when they knew they had to keep me away from society, at least until I learned to control it, if I learned to control it.

At the end of that year, when I was supposed to start school, they kept me at home, bought all the books, and homeschooled me. I never got to make any friends, not even one. I was aloud to go with my mom shopping on some occasions, until, at the age of seven, I had an outburst in the store when a strange man tried to talk to me. For some reason, he scared me, and I knocked all the stuff off the shelves with a thought, thinking it would keep me safe I guess. The man became terrified and ran. Before he could tell anyone that he thought I did it, mom rushed me out of there, leaving our buggy without a second thought. She never took me shopping after that again.

I had a couple out bursts here and there of energy, but I wasn't able to use it on whim, it was only when I had strong, negative, emotions. Pain, anger, hurt, sadness.

On my eleventh birthday, something happened that would change my life completely.

My dad and I were sitting at the table, waitng for my mom to get home with my birthday cake. She was supposed to pick it up on her way home from work. A few presents sat on the table, waiting to be opened. My parents always tried to celebrate my birthday in the best way they could, but with me not having any friends and with us not having that much money, it was always pretty small. I always appriciated them though.

My dad stared at his watch as I eyed my few presents, dying to open them. "She's late... She's not usually late." He mumbled to himself. He then got out of his chair and paced around the room. My mom had called about forty minutes before that, and said she would be home in ten. I was also starting to get worried, especially since she wouldn't pick up her cell phone.

We waited around for another twenty minutes before there was a knock at the door. My dad let out a relieved sigh and went to open it, I just stayed at the table and watched what little I could see of the door. But who I saw was not my mother's black hair and soft brown eyes, it was a police officer. I looked at them in confusion as he said something hushed to my dad and led him outside.

I watched them for a minute or so before my dad's figure, blurry through the glass window on the door, put his head in his hands and I could hear him wailing. I had an idea of what was going on, but I refused to believe it.

It was a long time before my dad came back in with bloodshot, tear streaked eyes. He told me to go to my room and not come out until he got back, I know now that he was going to the police station. I felt like arguing, but with one serious look from him I knew not too. I did what he said and went and layed down on my bed. I ended up falling asleep.

I'm not really sure how long I was asleep before I felt my dad gently shaking me awake, his face full of a sadness that I'd never seen before. He ruffled my bright hair and pulled me into a hug.

"Where's mom?" I asked in a voice so small, afraid of the answer I would get. He pulled back from me and sniffed.

"Your mother... she uh... well, there was an incident..." I could see the tears swelling up in his eyes once again. "Your mother isn't coming home." His voice cracked and he brung me into a hug. That's when I started to cry too, long and hard.

When I asked what happened, after a lot of convincing, he told me that she was stabbed. Murdered. And that's when I lost it.

Objects were swirling all around me as I slammed them into the walls, my dad cowered on the ground in fear. He told me later that it seemed like there was a red glow around me, like nothing he had ever seen around me before. He said it looked like I was on fire, probably because I was so angry.

We stayed in that house only for a few months while waiting for them to catch who did it, but they never did. Once we realized they weren't going to find who did it any time soon we moved from that beautiful old house to a small condo in Washington state. I didn't want to leave, not at all, but I knew that my dad had to get out of that house. It was driving him crazy. My dad was never the same after that. He was sad most of the time, he had more of a temper, and he began to drink. I also changed, but in a completely different way. I could then use my powers on a whim.

That doesn't mean that I didn't still have outbursts and accidents, but I could use it to my advange after that, with a little practice. I can now use it for things, that you expect a teenager to use it for, making it load the dishwasher for me, cleaning up my room, when I drop my pencil, things like that. I have to admit, it can be pretty cool at times.

For the next four years it was just my dad and I. He never brought another girl home, we never had another dog, nothing. It was the same boring thing for four years, until something that happened just recently, once again changed my life for good.

A week and three days ago, on my sixteenth birthday, something changed. I was sitting on the living room couch, waiting for my dad to get home with a present that he insisted on getting me, when the clock turned to 12:04 pm. Apparently that's the time I was born. As the clock struck that minute, I felt something rise in my chest, something that felt like pure energy, stronger than ever before. I ended up blowing up all the electronics, cracking all the mirrors, breaking most the furniture in half, and causing a blackout for the entire neighborhood.

I just stood in the middle of the floor, breathing heavily, feeling terrified. Terrified of myself.

"What the hell happened?!" My dad exclaimed when he came in the door a few minutes later, and I was unable to answer. I just shook my head, at a loss for words.

"I don't know..."

I had caused heartattacks of all people within 20 miles with pacemakers, making three deaths. A lot of people were also injured from the sudden breaking of their furniture, mirrors, and windows.

When I heard about it, I ran into my room and hid for two days, not even coming out to eat. I had one glass of water the whole time. I just couldn't face the world. I was a monster. I am a monster.

That's when they found me, the Charmed Society. They came to my house three days after my outburst. They said that there are other's like me, other's with powers. They told me that human's like me are called "Charms". I couldn't believe it. For once I realized I wasn't alone, that I'm not the only freak in the world. They told me there is a school for kids like me, that help them control their powers. I was extremely excited until they told me where it was. Italy.

"No!" I shouted, jumping up from the couch. "Just. No. I can't leave my dad, no way." I told them, and grabbed ahold of my dad's arm. He's already lost mom, I'm not going to make him loose me too.

"You'll be able to visit once a year--" They started but I cut them off.

"I'm not leaving my dad alone." I stated bluntly.

They started to try and persuade me again, but this time it was my dad who spoke up.

"Elina... You have to go." He told me with a sad smile. "You have to learn to control this, it's dangerous. You know that."

"But... I..." I tried to argue, but I knew he was right. "Will you be okay?"

"I'll be fine, don't worry about your old dad." He gave me another sad smile and ruffled my hair like he always did.

I still didn't want to go, but I agreed. They said they would be back in a week to get me. They told me what I would be needing, and left without another word.

And that's basically been my whole life up until now. My whole, screwed up life is finally taking a drastic turn, and honestly, I'm terrified. I don't know anything about this new school, or the kids in it. Do they have the same Charm as me? Or are they completely different? Will they have wild hair and eyes too? Will they like me? Will I finally have friends? So many questions that are soon to be answered.

I guess all I can do now is watch, listen, try to do what I'm told, and hope for the best.

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Woo a prologue! I hope it didn't suck too bad. I promise you'll learn more about Elina's background story through out the rest of the book, I just wanted you to kinda know what's going on. And another thing I want to tell you is that, the whole story won't be in past tense, only the prologue because she's explaining what happened that led to her going to this school. I guess you figured that out but yeah. So, uh, tell me what you think? Thank you for reading!

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