Blood Bender

Prologue

When I was five, I nearly drowned.

I was playing with a football in our back garden when I accidently kicked it too hard and it rolled into the pool. I stretched my little body, trying to grab it but when I touched it with the tip of my fingers that just seemed to push it out into the pool even more. Next thing I knew, I was engulfed in the water. I was panicking, splashing around trying to keep my body up above the water but it wasn't working, I was too weak. I tired extremely quickly and in no time at all, I had to breathe again, swallowing a load of water.

To my surprise, nothing happened.

I looked around the pool, my eyes wide, wondering what was going on. I took a deep breath just to make sure I wasn't going mad. I could breathe under water. I pushed myself up from the bottom of the pool and made my way over to the stairs to get out. I was shaking from the shock, not fully realising what was happening. I took one last look at the pool before going inside to find my parents. They were in the front room, arguing like always. When they saw me in the doorway, they both froze.

"Coventina, what on earth happened to you?" My mother shrieked, rushing over to me.

"I fell in the pool!" I burst into tears, feeling her warm embrace surround me.

"What were you doing, silly girl?! You could have drowned." I could hear the panic in her voice.

"I'm sorry." I cried. I wanted to tell her. I wanted to ask her about being able to breathe under water but something inside me was telling me not to. I had been told countless times about drowning and that we couldn't breathe under water. But for some reason, I could.

Not long after that, anytime I could, I would go swimming and breathe under water. It was a fascinating new discovery for me and any chance I got; I would be in the water. I was always a good swimmer, but with how much I started to be in the water, I became even better. I could also hold my breath for a long time as well, which came in handy whilst swimming with others. My mother mentioned me entering competitions but I wasn't interested. I had an unfair advantage and it just didn't feel right.

I isolated myself at school. I didn't have any friends and that was the way I wanted it. For the most part I found people to be obnoxious and shallow minded so I didn't want to have to deal with them. I know that's not the case for everyone but I didn't have the energy to work out who wasn't like that. Plus, there was no way I could tell people about these... Powers that I had. It would have been a secret I would have had to keep from them and that just sounded like a lot of effort.

Because of this, I became a target for the bullies. There were a group of girls in my class that would push me around, say mean things to me and would just generally be vile. Because I was their punching bag, I wouldn't have been able to have any friends any way, not with them there scaring them off. I didn't really care about being picked on. In a way, I understood why they did it, they had their own demons they were fighting with.

One day, it was particularly bad. I only had a few hours' sleep as my parents had kept me up most the night from arguing. The girls cornered me when I went to the toilet and started kicking and banging on the door and walls. When I came out, one of the girls grabbed a fist of my hair and threw me against the wall making me cry out. I felt white rage build in me for the first time. They were all shouting, calling me names but I wasn't listening. I was so angry it was almost like I was vibrating. A girl stepped closer towards me making my head snap in her direction. She froze mid step, her eyes going wide. It looked like she was about to stay something but the sink behind me burst spraying water everywhere. The group of girls jumped, some even screamed. I stood up and took a step closer to them and when my foot touched the floor, the next sink burst as well. The girls all stepped backward, grabbing onto each other. With every step I took, another sink would burst and water would spray across the room. The girls screamed, falling over each other as they tried to run out the room. When they left, I breathed a sigh of relief and almost instantly the water stopped spraying around the room.

I looked down at my hands then around the room. I don't know how, but I knew I was the cause of this. Later that day when I went home, I was swimming in the swimming pool and I tried to control the water, get it to move somehow but It wouldn't work. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get it moving like I did at school. I was trying for weeks, months even, but it just wouldn't work. I had a lucky break one day. I was sat watching TV when my parents started arguing again. My dad had just come home from work and mentioned something that seemed to upset my mum. I felt my temper flare up at the constant noise that was our house. Even more so at the fact I was trying to watch a film. The second my temper spiked; I noticed my glass of water on the coffee table shake slightly. My eyes zeroed in on the movement. After a few minutes of focusing and nothing happening, frustration shot through me. The glass then fell on the floor without me touching it making me smirk.

I continued on 'training' like this every second I could. Any moment I was left alone I would try and move water on its own. I found that sometimes if I moved my hands it would be easier to get it to do what I wanted but I wanted to be able to move it without so much as a second thought. I felt like Matilda but with water. As time went on, I could control it more. As I got older and started walking to and from school, I would walk through the little forest near our house. There was a lake that went through it so I practiced on more water than what I could with the swimming pool in our garden.

On the way home from school one day, it had been raining so in the afternoon I tried a new trick. I closed my eyes and imagine all the water that was on the floor, on the trees and leaves, floating in the air. When I open my eyes, I looked around amazed. It was like it had stopped raining mid-air. I did it. I actually did it. I became obsessed with these powers that I had. Any opportunity I had to use them, I would. Even if it was something as simple as knocking someone's drink over. As the years went on, I got better and better at using and controlling my abilities. It was like an elastic band that just needed to be stretched and the more I stretched it, the further it would go. Manipulating water soon became as easy at breathing. Sometimes it was like I didn't even have to think about the water moving, it would just do it.

My parent's relationship deteriorated over the years. My father was hardly ever home and when he was, my parents would just argue the whole time. When I was eleven, I remember an argument being particularly bad so my father stormed out and never came back. I didn't mind though. I was already use to his absence. My mother however, it hit her hard. She would just stand looking out the window for hours on end as if she was waiting for him to come back. It wasn't long until she tried to fill the void with alcohol. It started with a glass of wine here or there and then it turned into a bottle.

She would leave for days at a time and when she was home and sober, she'd ignore my existence completely. When she'd start drinking, I made sure to stay clear out of her way as she wouldn't say the nicest things to me. Once, she even threw her bottle of whiskey at me. Luckily I dodged it in time. It was sometimes hard not having any real parents but the more time I spent on my own, the more I got to use my powers. I was very aware this wasn't the normal way for people to grow up, but I adjusted to it quickly. I liked spending time on my own and being in my own company. The only time this really bothered me was on special days, like today.

Today is my sixteenth birthday.