Morph [EDITING] || Wattys 2017 Winner

~TWO~

~amelie~

The rest of the day has me wondering if I just imagined the whole thing. I can't have an ability - my Testing said otherwise. I was pretty tired when we got back, and it could have just been a sleepless fantasy. I come up with a million excuses why what I think happened... wasn't what happened.

So, the next day, I wake up early. The first thing I do is go straight back to the mirror, wondering if I just imagined the whole thing last night. And when I attempt to change my eyes, they stay brown. No amount of trying can alter their colour. I exhale shakily in relief, more confident in my theory that my supposed ability wasn't real, and a sense of happiness fills me. I don't know why I was making such a fuss over - it was just a mistake. Just a misunderstanding, an overreaction.

It takes effort to silence the niggling feeling in my head telling me otherwise.

A few hours later, I'm walking away from my house, walking by the edge of a few crisscrossing roads, making my way towards the Starfall Centre. Starfall used to be just another normal shopping centre, until the Explosion happened right inside it. It got completely destroyed in the blast, but someone saw a business opportunity and rebuilt it, bigger and better. One year after Starfall fell, it reopened with instant fame.

Now, it's the most well-known centre in the world, and it's almost always heaving. Izzy and I go there quite often - not to visit the huge marbled memorial there, but simply because it's near to both of us, and it's a great place for window shopping.

I look around as I approach the bench outside the centre where we usually meet, a weathered oak seat that's inscribed with the names of a family who died in the Explosion. The towering memorial over my head, a huge marbled pillar with thousands of names immortalised on it, casts a shadow over the bench as I sit down. I can see some of the shop windows at the very front of Starfall, and their displays range from clothes to accessories to furniture to decorations.

Starfall has a huge number of different shops, and every one is selling something unique, but all of them have the same small, rectangular posters plastered all over their windows and walls - signs about recognising superhumans, what to do if you spot one, safe areas to go to if something like the Explosion ever happens again. Many people swear by those signs, and even buy their own to hang all over their homes. Izzy's one of them - she's absolutely terrified by supers, and she's petrified she'll die in a superhuman attack, even though there hasn't been one for sixteen years.

I, on the other hand, am pretty relaxed about the whole thing. My father's job means he, and the rest of my family, are among those prioritised to be taken to safe houses if there's ever an attack.

Footsteps sound to my left and I turn my head, catching sight of Izzy walking towards me. She raises her hand and waves, and I do the same, grinning, and get up.

"Hey," I say.
"Hi!" she beams, looking excited. "How was yesterday?"
"The same," I tell her, biting my lip. "Glad it's over."
"Yeah," she says quietly, her mood shifting as she looks down.

Izzy lost her grandparents in the Explosion. It's why she's so scared of superhumans, and even though she never met them I know she misses them.

I try changing the subject, and say, "You want to go inside?"
She looks up, smile returning, and says, "Sure!"

We walk along, chatting, as we enter the Starfall Centre. Twin guards are positioned at the entrance, as they are in most major tourist attractions. They nod at us as we go past, and we smile back. We spend almost an hour window shopping, strolling along, peering at all the displays and colourful posters scattered around, and occasionally falling silent in respect when we pass any of the Explosion plaques placed around Starfall. It's only once an hour has passed that I realise the weather is changing, and we should head home.

I squeeze my arms together and shiver slightly. "Ugh, it's getting cold."
Izzy frowns at me as we walk. "Really?"
"Do you not feel it?" I say, confused. For me, the temperature's just dropped to icy. How is Izzy not cold?
"Nope," she says, shrugging. "Just you."

Right then, my eyes widen as I realise that she's right. It is just me. And everything from last night comes back to me - the cold temperatures that appeared right before my eyes changed. Suddenly, a blast of clarity punches me in the gut. I wasn't wrong last night, and it must have been a fluke that I couldn't change my eyes this morning. I have an ability.

And it's about to happen again.

Izzy frowns at my silence, and knocks me out of my thoughts, saying, "Amelie? You alright?"
"Yeah," I mutter. "I need to go. Sorry."

I hear Izzy's faint exclamation of surprise and confusion as I suddenly turn tail and hotfoot it out of the Starfall Centre, and then I'm almost running as the temperature drops again. I'm getting closer to the guards, and I try with all my strength to stop my eyes changing before they see me. I have to get out. My pace quickens as I speed past them, and luckily they don't come after me. But Izzy does.

She grabs my shoulder and spins me around just as we get out of the earshot of the guards, and I see her concerned face as she asks, "Amelie, what's wrong? Don't just run off like that!"
"I'm not running off," I say quickly, trying to turn around again, because the cold is getting colder... "I just remembered I need to get home, that's all."
"Oh, right," she says, face lighting up with relief. "I thought something really bad had happened."
I give her a grin and say, "I better go."

And then I feel my eyes flicker and change, and they go back to normal almost immediately, but as I gasp and Izzy recoils I know for certain that she saw them. She knows.

"What was that?" she asks, eyes wide. "What just happened?"
"It's not what you think," I plead. "It's just..." I fumble for a reasonable lie, but I come up blank.
Izzy's face blanches. "Was that an ability? Do you have an ability?" she says, panicked. "Are you a superhuman?"

She's shrieking now, and I can see the guards' attention being drawn to us, so I hold my hands out placatingly.

"It's okay, Izzy, you've known me for ages. I'm not going to hurt you. I promise."

But she's not listening. She's not seeing me, just my power, and she's completely beyond reasoning.

She says breathlessly, "I can't trust you. You're a superhuman. Oh my God," she says uncontrollably. "Oh, my God, where are the posters? What do I do?"

She's almost screaming now, and the guards are starting to walk over, she sees my glance towards them and turns her own gaze, and then she's shrieking at them, and I know I have to stop her, so I reach for her hand to pull her away and just run, and then something swoops out of the sky.

I get one single, lightning-fast glance at the face of the boy who drops out of the sky as he grabs Izzy and disappears, and I let out a scream.

I stare out into the idyllic sky. It could be a dream if it wasn't a nightmare. I'm motionless as the moment replays over and over in my head, the unfamiliar teen snatching Izzy away in a couple of horrific seconds. I slowly sink to the floor as the guards yell and start rushing towards me. One of them runs over to me and starts shaking me, talking to me, but I feel like I'm underwater and nothing is real. His voice is muted and dull as he asks if I'm alright, over and over and over again. I try and concentrate through the haze of utter shock, and manage to catch snippets of what the other guard is saying.

"Kidnap... hostage...superhuman..."

I slip into a woozy fog just as they both turn to me and I slump to the ground.