The Spirits of the Sun

1

"Don't let it collapse! DON'T! JUST DON'T!"

Natasha Emerson gritted her teeth in concentration, and willed the curving tower of sand in front of her not to fall. It was bending in ways that defied the laws of gravity and yet it was oddly balanced. A furry body brushed by her, and her concentration wavered, and the sand scattered everywhere over her bed and her laps. "Oh Luna," she said, with a hint of irritation in her voice. 

At that moment, a shrill nasal shrieking filled the air, "KIDSSSSSSSS, WAKE UP OR YOU'RE NOT GETTING YOUR BREAKFASTTTT." Natasha sighed once and gathered up the stray grains of sand into a glass jar quickly and hurried to the dining room, where about 15 other children were also gathering. None of these children were her siblings, but yet now she was living under the same roof as them, since a couple months ago. 

She closed her eyes for a moment as she remembered the night of her horrors. She envisioned the orange-red flames, licking at the edge of her bed as she woke up in shock breathing in the foul smoky air. She had ran, in a panic to her parents bedroom, to warn them to get out, but the door to her parents room, was already burning ablaze. Out of desperation, she had willed the door to fall away so she could go and help her parents, and amazingly it did. She ran inside coughing in the black smoke, only to find that her hopes had been in vain and all that remained was a set of blackened corpses. She wanted to just collapse there and die there along with her parents. But her survival instincts took over and she lurched unsteadily to the window. The heat had made the glass expand and it now bulged in its place. She had tried to shove it open, but it didn't work and at the last moment she had pleaded for it to open and suddenly it popped outwards. She jumped out the window glass shards landing all around her as she hit the ground hard. She looked back at her burning home as her vision blurred and blacked out.

"Natasha... Natasha... NATASHA!" 

She opened her eyes and shook her head.

"Are you ok?" asked one of the boys around her. He was about her age and he stared at her now with concern written over his face. A few other kids stared at her, their eyes echoing his concerns.

"I'm fine," said Natasha wiping away the single tear that had gathered in the corner of her eye, hoping that no one had seen it, and quickly sat down.

That had been the day she had discovered her abilities. She could move things just by thinking it. She had to hide this from everyone or risk being an outcast. 

She stuffed the food down her throat as fast as she could and started walking to school before any of the other kids in her orphanage could notice how puffed up her eyes were. She tried to shove the feelings that threatened to overwhelm her, down deep, as deep as possible but even as she arrived at the gates of her old, age-weathered school, she was barely keeping herself in check.