Drowning

Chapter 2

The water swayed around Kiara as she opened her eyes and saw she was at the bottom of the river. 'How is this possible?' She thought as she watched the water flowing above her, the light rays trying to penetrate the deep ocean water to fail just short of hitting the bottom. The island that technically made this chunk of water a river instead of just straight ocean held tall fir trees that helped shade the straight even on the sunniest of days.

Kiara raised her hand to her face and saw her blue tinged skin and fingers that had started webbing together. How long had she been down there? What happened to her? How did she get here? Her memory was a haze and it was hard to recall anything.

"She's been asleep for too long, the bad will start to come" a quiet voice floated to her ears but she couldn't tell from which direction it had come from.
"Good let her remember, it will be easier for the first feeding" a harsher voice whispered in response and a chill ran down Kiara's spine, she didn't like the sound of that answer but a throbbing in her head made her stop thinking about anything but it. It came so quickly and it almost took her breath away as the mind shattering pain hammered against her skull. Kiara could only let out a low guttural moan as she grabbed her head. Giggling errupted around Kiara but she couldn't concentrate on it as she launched herself back onto the sea floor trying to keep her head from splitting but she wasn't strong enough and she fell unconscious, a defence mechanism her body gave to her to hopefully help the terrible pain she was experiencing. It took her from a physical pain to a mental one as her psychosis drifted to visions of her childhood, well maybe more like terrible teen hood.

"Oh god this is so embarrassing" Kiara said as she grinned into the sun visor, showing off her shiny new braces as she checked to make sure she had gotten all of her breakfast out of them.
"You should be lucky, some kids don't have parents that can afford them these luxuries" Kiara's mother snapped, offended for some reason. "Some kids will be walking around with teeth half turned sideways looking like malformed weirdo's" Kiara tried to stop herself from laughing as she tilted the sun visor up a bit. Her piercing blue eyes were locked behind thick black frames as glasses were the cherry on top of her summer 'glow up'. When she agreed to go get her eyes checked she was hoping to get cute girly glasses not the cheapest bulk bin pair her mother wanted to pay for, not that she was ungrateful but she did hope for something a little more flattering then the 3-D glasses you could get at any theatre.
"Of course mom, I am very thankful that I don't have to walk around looking like a freak" if only Kiara could put all the sarcasm she yearned to into that statement but she didn't want another fight with her mother especially as they pulled up to the high school first day. Kiara felt lucky that her mother worked in the south part of town so she dropped her off at the edge of school so she wouldn't have to do a big loop-de—loop around the school.
"Don't get into trouble!" Her mother laughed before speeding off to get to work.
"Yeah looking like this I'm going to get into soOoOo much trouble" Kiara muttered under her breath before walking up the hill to school.

Each step Kiara took into the main hall were all the other eight graders were supposed to start to get their classes, get shown to their home rooms then shown around the school was terrifying. It felt like every person she paused stopped to stare at her like a spotlight was shining over her, her braces shining like flair lights and her ugly glasses were the only thing people could see. They would stop, look at her then turn to their friends and start whispering to each other. Were they talking about her? Were they making fun of her cheap second hand clothes? Her ridiculous braces? Her frizzy hair? What if in the ten minutes it took to walk into the building she had grown ten pimples, all over her face that she didn't know about. Each step was a stab in her chest as her anxiety built.
'God, everyone here is so cool. I'm probably the only one whose feeling this way' Kiara thought as she let her head drop down, it was easier to walk if she kept her gaze focused on the ground and not at everyone who was clearly talking about her.

As Kiara walked down the hallway, no one cared, no one paid her any attention or talked about her in any way. She was just letting her anxiety control her reality.

Kiara stood nervously at the back of the big group of grade eight's, it was almost time to start the introductions and to get divided into groups to start the tour.
"Man this is crazy" Luke said scaring Kiara out of her thoughts.
"Yeah.." she said, she hadn't noticed him walk up to her.
"I was wondering..." Luke started but a muscular arm wrapped around Luke's shoulder, cutting him out of his thoughts.
"Yo bro, let me give you the real tour and leave these nerds to the teachers" Angelo said, sneering at Kiara when he said nerd. She couldn't help the scowl form on her face when she saw Angelo. He had moved into the neighbourhood a couple years ago and he made quick friends with Luke, they both were into the same sports. Basketball, soccer and hockey during the winter and were the elementary schools best players until Angelo graduated from elementary school and went to high school. Kiara and Luke were a year younger then him so now that they were here Kiara knew that it was only a matter of time before Luke ran off to go join the jocks and Kiara became one more nerd sitting and eating lunch by herself in the library.
"Have fun" Kiara said to Luke shortly before turning away from and placing her attention to the teachers gathering on stage. She didn't know what Luke wanted to talk about but Angelo took that moment to steer Luke away from the crowd and quietly out the backdoor.

The first week of school was the worst, she only had one class with Luke and when she tried to save him a spot beside her when Luke walked in he chose the seat behind her. 'Maybe his new friends wouldn't like it if he hung out with a loser' Kiara thought as she slinked down in her seat. She made no new friends, sat quietly in every class, spent lunch in the library in between book shelves and walked home by herself every day. She thought highschool was going to be the same of elementary school but oh boy was she wrong. Any time she tried to say so much as a hello to Luke, there Angelo would be, ready to throw her dirty looks or make fun of Luke for having a girl for a friend. Eventually she took the hint. She was an embarrassment to him, especially in front of his friends.

"School sucks" Kiara mumbled to herself as she leaned against a bookshelf, digging a granola bar out of her backpack. This was supposed to be a time of new adventures, making new friends but Kiara has lost her only friend and was too shy to talk to other people that by the time she felt that maybe she could start speaking up everyone had already formed cliques that had no room for someone like her. 'What had changed? Why did Luke not like her anymore?' She asked herself as she played with the ends of her frizzy curly hair. Maybe this was just her curse, braces, glasses, out of style clothes, frizzy hair. She never really had any girl friends to teach her how to be a girl and her mother didn't really care about her, if she wanted new clothes all her mother would do is hand her money and tell her to go to the thrift store. No one was there to help her or guide her through this mess of a life. She truly felt alone in the world, like she had no one to lean on but herself.