Hello World

Chapter 13 Hecate

I sat quietly in the hallway, my eyes were fixed on the text in front of me which I did not absorb. I looked up slightly to observe the people around me, hoping that they would not reciprocate my gaze. I listened to their murmurs, and not for the first time I wondered what it would be like to be one of them. 

I had spent countless hours watching people. I had once believed that should I watch them enough I may one day become one of them. Somehow their likeness should wear off on me, and I would no longer be an outsider. I had often wondered what it would be like to not feel so completely out of place and alone. 

I was no longer alone, I whispered, thinking of the girl who was essentially my sister, out in a camp somewhere. Now I wondered if she felt as alone and out of place as I had all of my life. For a moment, I closed my eyes and wondered what she looked like.

"Hey, its the freak!" someone shouted, and I knew it was directed at me. My heart began to sink as my perceived invisibility vanished. I stared down at the book, this time actually making an inefficient effort to read it.

"Freak, freak!" chanted the girls around me. "Freak!"

I remained silent, wishing they would go away. I continued to stare down at the page in front of me, which was weaving in and pout of focus.

"I bet your parents got you off of the discount rack!" someone shouted.

"Someone call 9232474!"

Laughter echoed from the walls, filing the hallway. I could now feel all eyes upon me. I still fixed my gaze on the textbook, or the place where the textbook had once been. Now it was merely a block of particles that almost slithered in my hand. I watched as the book turned from solid to liquid to gas in a matter of seconds. Suddenly, the chanting faded into whispers.

Slowly, I looked up and watched as everyone stared towards me.

"Freak," someone whispered.

"Do you think we should call the GEC clinic?" whispered someone else.

"Shh! Don't let it hear you..."

"It's dangerous!"

One by one, they backed away as though afraid that they too may evaporate into nothing. Then, the bell rang but instead of heading to class they began exiting the building.

"Someone call the GEC clinic!" Someone said.

I wondered if they believed that I had somehow caused the phenomenon. It was as though they did not realize how easily the world could fall apart. On day, you were a girl who liked to play with her little brothers outside. Back then, the sky would rise to infinity, and the leaves would glow in the sun. And all day long you would play make believe, and you yourself would believe and your worries could be cast aside under the pretense of escape. In those moments I had been free of the echo of taunting voices and the world had held wonder.

 I could not pinpoint the exact moment it had all changed. But one day it had. And the torment of my peers had  become more important and inescapable. And playing with the people who had been called my brothers had become taboo and neither they nor Samantha and Ferdinand had seemed to approve. All because...

And I dared not think the reason.

But I knew the reason anyway and as I sat in the hallway as though still holding the textbook, the thoughts began to creep into my mind.

Had I caused the book to disappear? Perhaps I had, just as I had inadvertently caused my world to change. Perhaps...

Because I was a certain way but not the way I was supposed to be...

Because...

Because of that day with the swing set.

But I had only thought it. How could that do anything..

If it had been Kativa it would have never happened.

Freak.

Joel's Scream.

But I had only thought it.

Joel flying through the air as...

I had only thought it though. Imagined it...

You were supposed to look after your brothers Hecate. You should be ashamed.

But it had been an accident.

Or had it?

But I only thought it, I did not do anything at all.

What are thoughts? 

"Freak!" Someone shouted.

And last summer...?