Future

Chapter 8: A lot of feelings

I didn't know what to do. Black spots danced before my eyes, and a flood of memories attacked me. I had thought that getting my memories back would feel good, finally being able to remember my past, but it was excruciating. My head felt like it was splitting in two as it tried to process the scraps of memories that floated past me.

Sitting on the playground, other kids yelling and having fun, me sitting by myself. None of the other kids want to play with me because I'd had a vision in front of them, my glowing hands and rolled-back eyes had frightened them.

In an empty classroom, being beat up by sweaty idiots who thought I'd been looking at them in the locker room. I hadn't been looking at them. I'd been looking at Caleb, who asked people to call him Kail, and had blue hair that grew naturally, the same way mine grew pastel pink.

Getting pushed out of the men's bathroom in the mall because I was wearing a skirt.

Crying and confessing I was gay to Kail, my best friend, who kissed me full on the mouth in response.

Getting slowly happier as more people began to accept Kail and I's relationship.

Getting my happiness torn down as more people began marking us as freaks yet again, but this time for a different reason. So what I saw the future sometimes? So what Kail got a little possessed when he was angry? We were people too! Other countries started hunting freaks like us, sending throngs of colored haired people here looking for refuge, until the U.S couldn't handle it and started building the robots. That's when the world really went to hell.

Watching colored haired people getting killed on TV, clinging to Kail for safety in our little security bunker.

Screaming as panic shot through me when the roof was ripped off of our bunker by a robot. They had found us, our safety had only been an illusion. The excruciating pain as the robot's bullets sliced through me and the world went dull. Becoming aware that I really was dead, almost moving on, until I was laid on a table and heard Kail's voice, asking for a woman to heal me. She described the conditions: she couldn't just bring me back to life, she'd have to borrow some of Kail's life force, so we'd be bound for life. If he died, so would I, and vice versa. If I remembered who I was, she warned, I'd be at risk of dying again. Kail set up a hoax as a precaution, purposely landing his team in jail, telling Pipe and Holli to act like I'd been an asset to be obtained, someone to work for the team who's rescue had landed us in prison.

My eyes opened to the inside of the bathroom again. I was laying on the floor, somehow. My head was pounding in time to Kail's thudding on the door, it sounded like he was throwing himself against the door. And, just as quickly, memories took over again.

The terrifying moment when I got to see Kail's powers up close and personal, his eyes choked with something dark and evil as he killed the soldiers flooding our apartment with just one touch. His voice scraping and dark as he laughed about the way they had fell. Him crying afterwards when he realized what had happened.

Kail was shaking my shoulders, screaming at me. Never had I heard such raw fear and desperation in his voice, or any voice really.

Meeting Holli and Pipe for the first time, the only other two "freaks" in our neighborhood. When we were forced to go on the run, they were the only ones who knew where we went. They promised to come running with their guns blazing whenever we needed them. And yet, when the robots ripped the ceiling off of our bunker, they had come too late.

Sitting on my mother's lap, her soft voice telling me that I should never have to hide who I am. Telling me that I am an individual, and anyone who doesn't get that doesn't deserve my attention, not even for a second.

The world was spinning. It was hard to tell what was real and what was a memory. And then, finally, blessedly, everything went dark. 

Note: I am pretty sure that "So what if Kail gets a little possessed when he's angry?" Is one of my favorite lines I've ever written. That is all.