"Hey who are all those people ups- woah, Autumn, are you okay?" Leila asks, first looking in the windows, and then snapping her head towards me.
"What do you mean?" I ask, looking down at myself. I look completely normal...
"Yeah, what's wrong with your eyes?" Nox asks, looking at me funny.
"Nothing! What are you talking about?" I cry, getting frustrated. Juliette guides me inside, and to a mirror.
Looking in it, I scream. My pupils are completely gone! My eyes are completely white, no pupils, no iris, nothing!
"What if I go blind?" I start to panic, and Juliette grabs my shoulders. "You're going to be fine, just stay calm, we'll get you help," She says, walking over to a phone.
"Wait!" I say, looking back in the mirror. My eyes look...normal. Two pupils and two hazel irises are accounted for. Maybe I just imagined it? No, because the others saw it too.
"Well that was weird," Nox says, before shrugging and walking to the elevator. He just dismissed it like that? That is what's weird.
Juliette mumbled something to Leila, and her own eyes grew wide.
"Autumn, I thi-" Juliette begins, but I cut her off.
"I think I'm just going to go up to my room for a little while, and be alone," I say, getting in the elevator.
I flop down on my bed, staring at the footprints on the ceiling, lost in my thoughts. I know this incident was a little different than the others, (in being that it was possibly my fault) but there is still something weird going on here, and I'm done waiting for answers. I haul myself up, and grab my keys from the dresser. While Gray was hiding the cars from my mom, he was kind enough to get me my own car, from the driveway at home.
I avoid people in the hall, quickly hopping in the elevator.
I walk briskly past Juliette in the lobby, calling out an explanation as I go.
"I'm going to town to pick up some eye drops!" I call, walking straight out to my car.
I pull out and turn right, where the next town over is. I drive for about 3 minutes, before parking my car on the side of the road. I run back down the road, until I can see the hotel through the trees. I sprint through the trees, around the back of the hotel. The obstacle course is still up, but the Holiday Inn sign, the green lights, and the chandelier are back in their proper place. I slip in through a back door, and I find myself in the hall with the stairs. I can hear voices coming from farther down the hall, not upstairs. I head down that way.
I don't really know what I'm hoping to find, maybe just an explanation. They keep trying to hide things from me, but why would they if they thought I was gone?
The voices are coming from the conference room. I peek in, and my jaw nearly drops to the floor.
Okay, focus on one thing at a time. On the far right side of the room, Leila and Oakley are searching under a couch, except Leila's whole body is lit up like a candle. She's not holding a flashlight or anything, the yellowy light is coming right from her.
"Oakley, you've got to keep an eye on your things, I can't always be fishing out your tiny toothbrushes and t-shirts. Is this the toaster from the kitchen?" Leila frowns, pulling an ant-sized toaster out from under the couch.
Oakley nods sheepishly.
Before I faint, I try to keep my eyes moving to the next pair. In the middle of the room, Nora is standing on a stepladder, holding a box of light bulbs.
Nox is...standing on the ceiling. He's completely upside down, his feet planted firmly on the ceiling. He's got a lightbulb in his mouth, and he reaches a hand out, indicating to Nora that he needs a new one. She gives him one, and while he's fiddling around with the light fixture, the power goes out in that room.
Even though the lights are out, Leila's not.
"Nox!" She groans, her yellowy hue dimly lighting the right side of the room.
"I've got it," Ryith says, snapping his fingers. Like magic, the lights come back on, even though Nox hasn't even screwed the lightbulb in yet.
I keep looking, until I see the last three.
Gray is sitting with Juliette and Mercedes, on the far left side of the room. He's got a cut on his forearm, and Juliette slowly examines it.
"Well, first of all, you'll need to wash it," Juliette says, nodding at Mercedes.
She holds her hand above Gray's arm, and little droplets of water sprinkle down like rain. Once the blood is washed away, the water coming from her hand changes to rays of sun, drying up the rain.
She steps back, so Juliette can take over. Juliette presses both hands onto Gray's arm, and when she takes them away, the cut is completely gone. I mean, gone. No sign of it ever being there.
I stumble back in the shock of it all, and the floor creaks.
Like robots, all 8 of their heads snap towards me.
My jaw is still wide open, but before they can say anything, I take off running down the hall. I sprint out the sliding doors, booking it through the forest. I get it my car, and hit the gas. My tires squeal, and the car zooms off. Before I even pass the hotel, the kids all come rushing out, their weird "quirks" still on full display. Leila's light hasn't gone out yet, and what's more, she's holding a rope that's tied around Nox's waist. Nox is about 20 feet in the air, upside down, as if gravity has been switched off. Gray runs out in front of the car, and puts his hand out.
Suddenly, my car stops, and I stop too. I can't move, I'm frozen, as if time has stopped. The kids rush towards me and my frozen car. I watch Leila extinguish her light. Shortly after, Nox falls out of the sky, like gravity's been turned back on. He lands unharmed, and I black out.
When I wake up, I'm back in the conference room, laying on the couch. I sit up, and all the children are in front of me, looking completely ordinary.
"I assume you'll want some answers," Gray says.
"Just please, don't run away again. That's why we didn't tell you, we knew it would scare you away," Leila says.
"Our kind are what's known as anomalies. Everyone here was born an anomaly, and has one anomalous parent. We've been around for centuries, but we've kept our powers well hidden. That's why we live in places like this. Safe houses, where anomalies can freely practice their abilities." Juliette explains.
"What exactly...are your anomalies?" I ask slowly, trying to come to grips with this whole thing.
"Well, Leila's is quite obvious, she's luminous. Nox can "switch off" gravity, for himself and others, Ryith can manipulate electricity, Nora's scream can deafen, and shatter glass, Mercedes can create weather, Oakley can shrink and grow objects, Gray can stop or speed up time, and I can heal," Juliette says proudly.
"You have an anomaly too. We just haven't figured out what it is yet, but we think it has something to do with your eyes," Leila explains.
"That's why you came to me? Because I'm like you?" I ask.
They all nod.
"It has to be my dad, then. There's no way my mom is anything but normal. Easily angered, but normal," I say.
I'm actually taking this better than I expected. I give myself an imaginary pat on the back for handling this so well.
"Well, it's completely your choice, but...will you stay?" Gray asks.
That's a tough one. Maybe I can. Maybe I can get used to this. This kids aren't that weird, are they? No, they're totally weird and insane.
But they're my friends.
I nod, and everyone comes over to give me a big group hug.
YOU ARE READING
Anomalous
Teen Fiction{COMPLETED!!} Autumn is ordinary. Completely ordinary. She goes to school, gets yelled at by her mom, comes home, gets yelled at more; normal. One day, the chain of mundane breaks, when she comes home to find two teens with a pitch in her house. ...
