Struck

~ Chapter 4 ~

As some of you might have noticed, I unpublished most of the chapters on this story. I felt like if I was going to finish this story, I wanted to fix all the plot holes and make it into the vision that I originally had for it, which kinda got lost the first time I wrote it. 

This story is gonna be A LOT darker than it originally was, which is mainly because I really enjoy dark and fucked up books. One of my favourite books I have read is one where the protagonist was a villain. Not saying that I'm gonna make Ember a villain, but she won't necessarily always be good. As seen in this chapter. 

So, with that all said, I hope you enjoy the new story!

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I awoke to an alarm blaring in my ear and for probably the first time in my life, I felt wide awake. For some reason, I felt chalk full of energy. The doctor said I would be feeling tired and sore for a few days, but I in fact felt the exact opposite. Sitting up in bed, I stretched my arms and cracked my elbows. There was no lingering stiffness or aches and if I was being honest with myself, I felt better than I had in a long time.

I heard my brothers downstairs getting ready for school and knew that they were expecting me to stay home today and recover. Any other day I would jump at the chance to skip school, but today I felt like I had too much energy to stay cooped up. So with one final stretch, I climbed out of bed and entered the bathroom. Since I usually slept naked, I immediately began inspecting my body for wounds from the lightning. The front of me looked relatively normal, save for a few scars that looped around from my back and onto my ribs, looking like claws.

When I turned to look at my back, I was surprised to see that the bruises along my spine had faded immensely, now just a faint blue. The scar still remained there, but instead of being a irritated red colour, it was now the colour of my skin.

Seeing the scars reminded me of the lightning, of what it felt like to be a part of it. It should have scared me, the fact that I so easily accepted what had happened, but when I thought about it I couldn't help but wish to have that feeling again. The feeling of such complete and utter power.

In a daze, I swiped my finger over one of the scars and a sudden feeling of energy rushed through me. The scar, once the colour of my skin, was now a bright white, looking like bolts of lightning blazing down my back. Grey swirled like clouds in my iris's, turning darker and more threatening like a storm consuming the horizon. My fingers began to ache and tingle, and when I looked down at them, the veins in my wrist had the same white light in them as my scar. It seemed to pump through my veins with the beat of my heart. I flexed them, feeling like with the snap of my fingers I could tear the world apart and nobody could stop me.

The sound of something breaking downstairs snapped me out of my daze. I blinked repeatedly, staring at myself in the mirror as the light slowly faded from my wrists and my eyes lightened up to their regular lighter grey. 

I was breathing heavy, heart pounded in my chest, both things that I didn't seem to notice in my daze. My eyes flickered back down to my hands as I clenched them, still feeling as though that ache was there. 

An ache for desires darker than I could let myself admit. 

Another crash echoed from downstairs, reminding me of my task to get ready for school. I cast one more look in the mirror, staring into the grey depths of my eyes and recognizing for the first time one of the emotions building in the pit of my stomach. 

Fear. 

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I had no idea rumours could spread so quickly. Sure it was only a school of 180 students, but apparently everybody and their grandparents knew that I had been struck by lightning.