Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
THE LIBRARY WAS silent. Even Archer Hagan, who rarely ever kept to himself, had his lips pinched shut in thought as he scribbled across his page.
Amelie quietly dropped her books on the bench in front of the empty seat of the small table, her bag slipping off her shoulder and landing against the floor with a soft thud. Archer, Steve and Nancy looked up, all sending her gentle smiles, before looking back at their studies: all except for Archer. She sat next to the blond.
"Have you decided on who you're going as tonight?" He asked with interest. Amelie started unpacking her work and setting herself up, sparing the boy a single glance as she did so. His hand was tucked beneath his ear as he leant his elbow against the wooden table, watching her with a spark of jest in his right iris. His pencil was held in said hand with disinterest, dangling, forgotten, between his fingers.
"I never said I was going," she smiled while moving her History books around.
When she was admitted into the orphanage three years ago, she'd struggled to make friends. She could barely speak English, let alone any other language, and knew nothing about anything. She'd been taken, cleared of every thought, and discarded of identity. She spent her years there alone in a room, finding what she'd lost. She found herself.
While going through this process, she found a passion she'd yet to fully understand. Learning. Because she didn't learn much in the lab, other than the powers she'd forcefully hidden since, everything hit her like a truck speeding along a freeway. Wars, riots, protests, chemical meltdowns, serial killers. Everyday in that orphanage, while the other kids played and the supervisors watched with concern, Amelie hid herself in a corner with a book. She read hundreds, countlessly, and while she became advanced in knowledge surrounding almost every subject, she still struggled with History.
"You're going, I've decided for you," Archer said as he let his hand fall back down to the table, fiddling with his pencil. Out of the corner of her eye, Amelie silently studied the few hand-woven bracelets littering his wrists. "I'm going as Robin Hood, because . . . y'know, we're basically the same person." Amelie looked up at him with a raised brow. He grinned. "You could always be Maid Marian."
