Carnivore

ii) Rancor Ignota

ONCE IN THE PAST, ZINNIA COULD HONESTLY SAY THAT SHE ADORED EVERY SINGLE MEMBER OF HER FAMILY. Once, she used to be able to look up at each of her siblings, laugh and play. Once, they had been so scared she was going to die, and she herself was terrified that she would never see them again.

Now, she didn't know if she felt the same, anymore.

She knew that they certainly didn't feel just the same, either.

The Kennedy family was a painfully modest family, one where Birthdays were precious, Christmas was a small, indoor picnic of sandwiches and cordial with not a single decoration or present in sight, and beyond those two events, money was carefully rationed as if it were the most precious commodity in the world.

In Zinnia's family, she stood as the youngest of four siblings, and she herself was the black sheep of the family, for more than just one reason. Her siblings were all well-built, with chocolate brown eyes and raven-black hair and a moderate tan to their complexions. Her youngest sister, Claudia, was a buxom and overly flamboyant girl just turned eighteen, while her brother and eldest sister were twins, Dimitri and Faye respectively, just shy off nineteen years old. All were equally as confident, equally as proud in their views of the world, and equally as attractive, in the physical sense.

Zinnia's mother was a woman who was not only bright and confident in personality, but her features as well. A woman born in Kentucky in America albeit with prominent Chinese heritage somewhere along the line, either grandparents, or great-grandparents Kennedy Kali was undoubtedly the person Zinnia's siblings got their self confidence from. And Zinnia's father was a true-born American, called Cassidy. Both her parents were with the same raven hair and chocolate brown eyes, both outspoken and confident.

However for Zinnia, who not only had the opposite personality to everyone and the wrong appearances, she was also the only one in her whole family to possess something else.

She was the only person in her whole family, grandparents, cousins, extended family and further, to actually possess a quirk.

One could claim that her family was strange, being that so many members failed to have superhuman abilities that were deemed common now, but in Zinnia's world, she was the one that was strange. She was the one in this whole family who had been born "wrong", and while her parents praised her with every ounce of their being for her unique and rather terrifying ability, her siblings and extended family appeared particularly displeased with her.

Though in the case of her siblings, displeased probably wasn't the best way of looking at it.

The morning was, as always, dark when Zinnia awoke, filled with a chill that sunk deep into her bones and an edge of what felt oddly like spite in the air. Her body ached from the cold that had frozen her body, and as she looked down at herself, she found herself immediately recognizing the reason why.

Her blankets had vanished entirely, and instinctively, Zinnia knew they had been "forcefully relocated" while she slept.

A heavy sigh escaped her as she lifted herself out of bed, and proceeded to get herself dressed, albeit much earlier than she usually would. Scarves, gloves, even a fluffy hat to try and insulate herself at least a little against the December air. And as she gathered her belongings and emerged from her room, she found herself looking down at the floor to find her bedding.

Dropped carelessly onto the floor in front of her door, the three blankets of varying green hues were stained with the distinct mess of honey, flour and what she immediately recognized to be a pint of pigs blood.

Again, Zinnia heaved a sigh as she carefully gathered her bedding so that the mess wouldn't spill out from the material and wandered out the back, where an outside laundry room stood as a stand-alone building in the back portion of the back yard. She didn't hesitate to carefully deposit the material into the washing machine, didn't spare a thought as she set the machine up to try and wash out at least some of the mess.