The Experiment

Chapter 1

My whole life I thought I was normal. Average. Not anything extraordinary. But that all changed.

Hold on, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start from the beginning.

Anyways, my name is Electra Boone. I know, it's sort of a weird name. My mom says it was some Greek princess with a really messed up family or something.

Besides that, I'm fourteen and a freshman in high school. I moved from Pennsylvania to New York at the end of my eighth grade year. I went to school at Lincoln High.

It was a pretty normal first half of the year, especially for me. I get kicked out of schools a lot. I went to two different middle schools and three different elementary schools. I have ADHD and dyslexia, so school is a challenge.

Yep, ADHD and dyslexia. I'm one of those kids where the parents are like, "No, there's nothing wrong with you, you're just different. Just special." But I know the truth. I'm fricking mentally handicapped.

Anyways, my year changed when a new boy moved to my school. He moved in down the street from me.

On his first day of school, he plopped down right next to me in first period. He was a tall boy, with wispy dark hair. He had a crutch, for his left side, that he needed to walk. He always seemed to hobble when he walked, like there was some incurable injury done to his legs.

"Hello," he said, in quite a loud voice. "My name is River."

"Um hey," I said, not used to people at school just walking up to me. I wasn't shy or anything, but not many people seemed to like me. I didn't really have any friends. I was perfectly fine with that, however. "I'm Electra."

"Such a cool name. It's from Greek Mythology, did you know that?"

"Yeah, I did," I answered, trying to stop this conversation. I looked down and started scribbling in my notebook, pretending to write something down.

"Are you into Greek Mythology?" River asked, struggling to continue the conversation naturally.

"No, not really," I answered, hinting him to stop talking to me. I looked up and glared at him.

"You should be, it's actually really interesting."

Finally, the lesson started. It was English, and I really struggled in English, because of my dyslexia. Words that she wrote on the board always got scrambled up, into something weird. Sadly, I had a D in that class at the time.

When the class ended, I collected my things and ran. I didn't want River to follow me, but by some weird coincidence, we had the same schedule, so he was in my next class too. And the next class. And the next class. And every class after that.

I thought I might get a break from him at lunch, but I was wrong. I usually sat at a table far in the back, by myself, just how I like it, but River decided to plop down right next to me.

"This seat taken? No, okay," he said, not bothering to wait for an answer.

A big tall guy came up behind him. "What's up cripple?" He asked, thumping River's head.

River did nothing, just stared down at his plate, like if he didn't make eye contact with the bully, he would go away.

"Stuff it, Dan," I said, standing up to try and match his size, but I was a foot smaller.

"Woah, the weirdo is defending you, I'm so scared. Somebody help me!"

Anger built up in side of me. My eyes narrowed. My face heated up. I did not like being made fun of, and I was not going to let someone like him push me around.

"You're just a girl, you can't do anything," Dan scoffed.

"Same to you," I muttered. We were standing right next to a window, the sun shining through it, piercing the January air.

Now I was really mad, but so was he. He didn't like me talking back.

Suddenly, I felt a weird pull in my stomach. Then a thunderstorm started.

A giant crack of lightning exploded across the sky, surprisingly close to the window. It was closely followed by a giant boom of thunder.

There were screams, and the power went out. The lightning must have hit a power line. There was a chorus of more screams. Someone grabbed my arm protectively.

The emergency generator powered up, lights came on, flooding the cafeteria in dim light. I could still barely see, but it was better.

I looked down to the hand attached to my arm. I traced it back to River. "Umm," I muttered awkwardly.

He murmured an apology and released the death grip on my arm.

There was another pull in the bottom of my stomach, and lightning cracked through the sky again. It came so close this time, it hit the window. The window exploded across the cafeteria.

Pieces of glass went flying all over the room. A piece hit Dan in the leg, and he dropped to the ground screaming.

My anger calmed, and the storm resided immediately, as if I was controlling it. People were still screaming and running all around us. I could hear emergency sirens closing in. Everyone was freaking out, but I wasn't scared. Not at all.

I just calmly sat down next to River and continued eating my food. River was nervously munching on a napkin. I gave him a weird look.

"Sorry," he said, setting the napkin down.

"It probably tastes better than the cafeteria food," I shrugged it off.

River let out a laugh, but it sounded forced. For the rest of the day, he was preoccupied and distant. At least I had a break from him.

When the day finally ended, River and I walked out of the school and down to the buses. He insisted on walking me all the way up to my bus.

"Be careful and good luck," River said, in the place of a goodbye. I scrunched my eyebrows in confusion. What did I need to be careful of, and why did I need good luck?

Then I was whisked into the crazy world of my high school bus ride, and I forgot about the weird occurrences of that day, for the moment at least.

But when I laid in bed that night, everything came flooding back. It really had felt like I was controlling the storm. Had it come out because I was angry? No. No, it must have been a coincidence.

And what about River warning me to be careful? Maybe he was just deranged. I decided that that must be the answer, and went to sleep.