Lost In Time

Clock Won't Stop

It's amazing how fast time flies by. As a Traveler, I understand the flow of time better than most, and it still goes by too fast for me to see sometimes, especially when I'm busy. A month had gone by, and all of a sudden it was the night before we all were departing for school. A whole month. Gone in what felt like a blink of an eye. I could barely hear the murmurs and laughter of everyone downstairs, eating and celebrating our 'freedom'. Freedom? Since when was school freedom? I glanced at my barely touched sandwich and chips as I paced frantically back and forth, throwing a tennis ball up in the air in an effort to try and settle my nerves.

What will the teachers be like? Will they be like in the movies? Wait, are they teachers or professors?! What if they have funny names?! Or no wifi? Or I have to share a room? What if it's like college, and there's those dorm moms, will we be doomed to every day check-ins?! Round and round the crazy thoughts spurred on by my panic zoomed around my head. I swear, I wasn't going to last the night at this rate. I'd go completely psychotic. The thing was, my father had always homeschooled me. I had never wanted anything more. These last few years, all I had done was worked, because I had already graduated before I had moved. I had never experienced public school, or boarding school, or any school with other kids. That was fine by me, I wasn't willing to try it out. I had given college some thought, but determined that later in life I would go. I just didn't feel like it right now. And yet, here I was.

"Ok, ok. Eli, let's just go through our list again." I soothingly said to myself. Soothing didn't work this time as it hadn't worked the last twenty times. I picked up the tattered list again, manhandled into near-death by myself all day.

Clothes? Check.

Toiletries? Check.

Makeup? Check.

School supplies? Unfortunately, check.

TV? Check.

Consoles? Check.

Games? Check.

Books? Check.

Laptop? Check.

And so on and so forth. I went down the list to every single one of my belongings, glancing at each of the correlating boxes as I did so, just to make sure. My room, once my sanctuary, was now barren, a medium pile of boxes stacked neatly in the middle of the wooden floor. Even my sheets were packed. I had had them since I was thirteen, I wasn't going to leave them behind. They were one of the few things I still had from my home. Tonight I was sleeping on the barren mattress with a cozy blanket. So this was it. I stared at the list, feeling my heart jump in my throat again. This was my life, all packaged and crossed off neatly on a list. Once again moving. To go to a school. With other people. I took a deep breath, carefully setting the list down as I tried not to panic once more.

My emotions had been haywire all day, starting at work this morning when I snapped at Peter for his usual snarky comments, and a coffee maker had nearly nailed him on the back of the head when it flew out of the kitchen. Simon had sent me home, saying I needed to chill. It had just gotten worse here. Frustrated, I had barricaded myself in my room, with a chair locked under the doorknob for good measure. I had been pacing all day, trying to calm down as what was left in the room did a twirling air dance around me. Marie and I had been working together almost every night for the last month, trying to get this power under control. I could use it now, with concentration, and not do anything drastic, but it always responded better when it was under spontaneous reaction. Like my emotions. As mature as I was, I was still just seventeen. A hormonal teenage girl who cried at random things. I was just better at hiding it than most. At least, until this power managed to get out of that box I had locked it in, deep in my subconscious. I was starting to really regret accepting this Heir business. I had played that video game, nothing ever good comes out of it. Real life wasn't video games, but they both had the same messages. Either way, it was going to suck.