The Swords of the Strange

The Outrés

Daniel's POV

Look, I didn't want to be the way I am. If it were up to me, my life would be the most average life you could imagine. A home to go back to every day, loving parents, mostly Cs, maybe even an annoying younger sibling. But no, I had to be an outré.

Outré is an adjective of French origin, meaning very strange, unusual, or shocking. In this instance, however, it is a noun used for someone like me. "Outrés are people who have something fundamentally wrong with them" according to the scientist credited with their "discovery", Pierre Dubois. It's in our biology. We can to things, unnatural things, things that make us a danger to ourselves and others.

The "tic", or ability, of an outré varies from person to person, but it is usually the result of a chemical reaction caused by the person coming into contact with some substance or other. This substance is referred to as a catalyst.

Sometimes the substance is specific, like goat milk, or daisies, (those are stupid examples). When this is the case, the outré will avoid the catalyst, e.g. goat milk or daisies, and keep their tic secret from everyone. They can live fairly normal lives, claiming to be allergic to their catalyst, and putting a check mark next to "no" in the outré section of their college application. (Why anyone would check "yes" I have no idea.) Boy, are they the lucky ones.

Then there are outrés like me, who have really general catalysts. Metal in my case, any sort of metal triggers my tic. Which wouldn't be so bad if I had a tic like X-ray vision or something that was invisible, (Ooh! Invisibility would be a pretty cool tic.) unfortunately my tic isn't so subtle, or safe. Mine is fire. When I come in contact with metal, my cells erupt into flames, which is just as painful as it sounds.

Luckily it doesn't cause permanent damage to me as, for some reason, fire is actually a curative substance to me (I know it doesn't make any sense, but that's the way it is for some outrés), but I can't say the same for um... everything else.

Outrés are somewhat similar to mutants from Marvel's X-Men. Unlike mutants, however, outrés react with their catalysts from birth. And are registered, by law, immediately after the first time they tic. ("Tic" is both a noun meaning an outré's ability, and a verb meaning the accidental use of said ability. Using one's ability on purpose is referred to as "illegal" and/or "stupid" depending on the situation.)

I tic'd very shortly after my birth when they tried to weigh me on a metal scale and I nearly set the whole hospital on fire. It took a ridiculously long time to find out exactly what my catalyst was, considering.

You may have noticed at this point that I know quite a lot about outrés, even for someone who is, themselves, an outré. Well, having such a general catalyst, and such a dangerous ability, I was kept isolated most of the time. You know, homeschooled, no friends, solitary confinement. I got lonely. I spent all of my time doing research, looking for ways to counteract the reaction, but to no avail.

You see, no one knows exactly what causes people to have these reactions. There is no medical, genetic, biological, or chemical explanation. A tic is not an inherited trait. DNA tests show no irregularities in outré DNA. And cellular studies haven't gotten any definitive results either. They know how it happens, but they don't know why. Most professionals equate being an outré with having a really severe allergy for no good reason. Like "I'm allergic to metal, I break out in fire. That makes sense right?