Argenia

The Change

wake up with searing pain through my back. I scream and twist around, writhing in agony as the pain grows in intensity. This is worse than Mr Intag had described, worse even than what Ashleigh described!

I vaguely hear my mom rush in and scream my name. “Cass! Cassandra!” I can hardly tell what is going on.

Sweat rushes down my face. It feels as though metal spikes are being pushed through my skin in between my shoulder blades. I scream and scream as Mom tries to grab me, but I can’t stop thrashing.

My mother screams again, but I notice it is not directed at me. “Oh Aeris, oh Crysos, oh Argenia no!” She shouts.

I am confused, but I don’t dwell on that as the pain grows and grows. It’s too unbearable, I can’t do this, make it stop, what power is worth this agony... I scream one more time and the world fades to black.

I wake up stiff and sore, dry sweat caked all over my body. I shiver. I get up and hear a crash. I turn to see what happened only to hear another crash. I see that the first crash was my lamp, fallen over onto the ground.

“Funny,” I say, considering I was nowhere near it when it fell. I turn to see the second crash only to hear a third. I whip around wildly to work out what was going on, only to hear more and more crashes and see more and more stuff lying on the floor.

I cry out. “Mom!” My mother rushes in, and pales when she looks at me. “What’s wrong?” I ask her, confused. “And what’s happening with the stuff?”

She shakily point to my mirror. I turn to look into it, hearing a few more crashes as I go.

“Oh no...” I whisper, as I stare into my own terrified eyes. The sides of the mirror are full of white feathers. I crane my head left and right to see long, pure white wings, stretching across the room. “I’m a pure blood...”