Marked

Chapter 15

His words created an echo in my head, every syllable, and every letter. They resounded a thousand times and when I thought it was over the resounded a thousand more.

Human, he had said, I was not human.

How could he know what I was and wasn't? How could he be so sure?

Fear began to fill me up, choking me. If I wasn't human, what was I? I looked human, I acted like a human being and most of all if I weren't I would have noticed, I would have known. I still had one final question, one I bet he saw coming and it was the one he and I feared the most.

"Then what am I?" my voice trembled with each word, I could feel my body beginning to shake, I was scared, terrified, but I needed to know.

He looked at me in the eyes and tried to take my hands into his but I couldn't allow myself to fall into him, once I did I wouldn't be able to stand on my own and moments like these aren't the ones where you let yourself fall behind. Marcus had a hurt look in his eyes, but he still answered as if nothing had happened.

"You are a morpher"

-

I was running again. The wind would wrap me up in it's delicate touch and then it would pass right through me in so many occasions, like a soft caress. Tree vines and roots would get caught in my feet but they didn't slow me down. There was this feeling of strength inside me. Everything I saw was so beautiful.

And that terrified me completely.

Minutes earlier I had told Marcus that I needed water, so he left, and the moment he did I snuck out a window and just started running. I had no destination; I just needed to wake up from this bad dream. I wanted my parents to not be dead, I wanted everything to go back to the way it was.

I was in complete denial.

Although I still had the smallest hope that this moment would just be a dream and that I would wake up and go to school like any other day; that I would go back to being just plain old Skylar. For the moment the only thing that gave me the slightest feeling of peace was the way the world looked like. It was so full of life and beauty.

The sunrays that escaped the tree's branches and leaves created a beautiful spectrum; there was something about how the wind rushed through bushes and flowers giving me this feeling of peace.

Maybe things as beautiful as this only existed in dreams.

Maybe I was dreaming.

Minutes later, I found myself in an all too familiar place. What was once a perfectly mowed lawn was now nearly five inches tall in some places and shorter in others, it was no longer lively and green but yellow turning light brown. The mailbox, generally empty was overflowing with what was most likely letters from school and people I had no idea existed expressing how sorry they were for my loss. And then there was the front door, plastered with DO NOT PASS signs.

I walked up to the front door, dark brown, same as always. I took out the key from my back pocket, ever since the incident I didn't have the heart to throw it away, and stepped in. It was dark and cold, even though it was plain daylight. I could sense all the sadness I felt in that moment of grief.

As I walked across the main hall, the entire house felt eerie and dark, I reminisced, how many times had I looked at the pictures and smiled? How many memories had I hung on these walls? But now as I glanced at them I could only see the moments that will never come back, I only saw the reflection of my own sadness, and at the end of the hall I saw it. The blood. It still remained; dry, on the beige carpet.

That was when I knew that I wasn't dreaming. Whatever had happened to me until now had been real.

I rested my back on the nearest wall and slid down to the floor in a fit of silent tears and as my body shook and trembled I felt something in me change, both spiritually and physically. I felt a burning sensation on my right shoulder and after that my whole body began to glow. My breath hitched at my throat as I saw my hands, strange swirls began to appear and form on them and on my arms and legs.

I stood up abruptly and went farther into the house and found a mirror on a wall. At first I saw that I was still wearing my blue sweater, now torn and bloodstained; my hair was tangled and unruly and then I saw my face, my eyes, usually gray were a mix of color as if I the image you see through the kaleidoscope were plastered in them; around my eyes there were swirls and marks and there was a combination of faint twisted lines running down the right side of my face.

I rubbed my eyes, convinced this wasn't real and maybe only a figment of my imagination or a hallucination due to blood loss but every time I did it, it all remained. I took a step back and then another as I shook my head in denial; maybe I was going crazy maybe I had been slowly losing my mind.

My breathing spiked. As I walked back I stumbled and fell and as I tried to get up I saw my hands and began rubbing them as if to cleanse myself from those marks. My skin began to turn red but the marks gave no sign of fading away, they were like brand or tattoos on my skin. I gave up relentlessly and curled up in a ball.

"What is happening?" I said to myself in a trembling whisper, "what is going on?"

There was a moment of silence. And then the front door burst open.

"Skylar!"

He had that awful habit of always being everywhere.

"It's all going to be fine Skylar" He wrapped his arms around me, trying to soothe me, "I'm here for you, until the end of the line, even if you don't want me to"

I could feel his heart beat through his T-shirt, calm and steady. I could feel my own heart beat matching his and my breathing coming back to normal and as my mind uncluttered itself, new thoughts replaced the new ones. My fear was never gone, it was just calmed and distant like a faint whisper in my ear.

"I need to know everything, I need you to explain what I am and why this is happening to me" I said in a low voice, almost a whisper.

He unwrapped his arms and sat in a crouch in front of me, with tense crease in his brow and a thoughtful look in his green eyes.

"Ok" he sighted "can you stand?"

I nodded and stood up, as he did, and he led me into the kitchen. We sat on the kitchen table and I stood guarded, preparing myself for the worst.

"You" he began "are a morpher" he gave me another glance, focusing on my confused face, a morpher? What is that? But like the undeclared mind reader he was he answered my question before I even asked it out loud "a morpher is a magical creature that has the ability to transform into other creatures, there are different kinds of morphers, animal morphers, fire morphers, earth morphers, sky morphers, water morphers and retinentia morphers" he paused, "it's common for there to be a combination of kinds in one person, the maximum is two, but that is limited to only a few. The thing about you is that you are an animal morpher, a fire, water and sky morpher and also a retinentia morpher"

I sat there frozen in thought, there can only be at least two kinds in one person, but there were five kinds in me, now a not so plain old me. "But that's three more than average" I stated out loud.

"Yes it is," he stated, "and that could put you in grave danger, and it makes it a very important reason to not tell anyone about this"

I sat there shocked, me, a sort of magical creature??

"But how? How is it possible? Marcus I was human or whatever about less than a day ago!!" I said with exasperation, how could things be all right one second and then a complete mess in such a short time?

"That" Marcus paused, "is something that would be explained better if you saw this"

He stood up and headed deeper into the house, like he had been living in here for years, my senses told me something was off but my brain craved answers and became oblivious to it. Minutes later we were standing in front of a blank wall. He walked towards a family portrait and moved aside slightly, only enough to find a button, which he pushed, and as he did there was a clicking sound. That sound made a part of the wall pop out.

He had opened a secret door.