The Fifth Force

Chapter One

I looked around the barn when everything around me suddenly  went fuzzy, and the whispered words in my head grew louder. I closed my eyes, stuck my finger in my left ear and moved my tongue over the left side of my mouth, as if trying to itch my brain. That’s how my dad told me to do it when I was young.

 

The words sort of dulled, but they stayed.

 

I refocused on the barn surrounding me. I was grateful for the space---and loneliness---but it also concerned me a bit. It would be harder to control that... whatever it was that made me such a freak. I knew I would be doing lots of brain-itching.

 

The door suddenly opened behind me and I whirled around, trying my hardest not to think of anything in the barn. I clenched my fists and bit down on my tongue as my seven sisters walked into the barn, examining it.

 

“You’re so lucky,” Camellia said wistfully.

 

“You’re always the lucky one,” Jasmine said.

 

Oh yes, I thought. Because I’m so lucky that I hear voices in my head daily. Voices that aren’t my own. So lucky that I’m OCD, too, huh?

 

But I didn’t say that out loud. 

 

“So, have you seen their son yet?” Aster asked eagerly. Everyone in the room immediately turned to her in excitement, anxious to hear about our parents’ closest friends’ son.

 

“No,” Veronica said, sounding a little jealous.

 

I rolled my eyes at my boy crazy sisters and scanned the room for the ladder that lead to the loft as they discussed the son. I saw it in the corner and I looked up to the ceiling, seeing it was lower than a normal one. I headed for the ladder, picking my suitcase up again.

 

It was difficult to get the suitcase up the ladder, but I eventually did. I looked around at the second story of the barn in amazement. I certainly hadn’t expected this. 

 

The walls were a nice light purple with white dandelions growing from the floorboards. The bed was striped and dark purple. There was a desk in the corner with an Apple computer, one of those big fancy new ones. The best thing was the wall that was entirely made of windows.

 

There were tons of different windows, but they all fit together perfectly. There was a few inches of lavender in between them, but that was just fine. I set down my suitcase and headed for the window, looking over the beautiful grassy fields surrounding the entire place.

 

A sudden movement in the right section of the field caught my attention, and I looked over to see a group of people dressed in tan pants and black shirts walking towards the house. As thy got closer, I could distinguish that the were all boys, about the same age as me and my sisters. I continued to watch them, till they got close enough that they could see me too.

 

One of them looked up to the barn and saw me, then pointed and hit one of his friends on the arm. I immediately backed away from the window, climbing down the ladder to tell my sisters.