It's already 3:00pm, so it's kinda pointless to eat lunch. Instead, Juliette gets us each a small bowl of fruit, and insists we talk more about anomalies.
She insists I ask any questions I may have.
"Did you seek out all these kids, or did they come to you?" I ask.
Juliette rubs her hands together and grins. "Get ready for a timeline, kids."
They groan, I assume they've heard these stories a thousand times.
"About 6 years ago, I had just moved out of my parents house, was living on my own for the first time, in a big city, about an hour away from here. Every day, I took a walk in the nearby park. One day, I heard some moms gossiping about this strange boy in the same apartment building as me. I was curious, so I kept digging, and I found out his apartment number. I knocked on the door, and a little 11 year old Nox answered. It just so happened his parents weren't home either. I didn't kidnap him or anything, just asked him about his special power. He happily showed me, but I could tell that he wasn't happy that his parents made him hide it. After an incident involving his anomaly, his parents put him up for adoption. I decided to take him in. I taught him how to control his power, and showed him mine. It occurred to me then, that there were probably dozens of unwanted anomalous kids, just because parents don't want to deal with their abnormality. I started to keep my eyes and ears open. The next year, I heard about another one. A girl they called "The Human Lightbulb". Unlike with Nox, however, Leila was already up for adoption when I found her. I introduced her to Nox. Later that same year, a little boy who could shrink and grow things ran away from home. After Oakley, it was Nora. The following year, Mercedes, Gray, and Ryith. Now, you," Juliette says, smiling at me.
"Okaaay, that's enough emotional reminiscing for the day. Come one Autumn, let's go try and find out what your power is," Nox says, grabbing my arm and leading me out back. The other kids all follow.
"Plus, we can practice our anomalies!" Nora says excitedly.
"While you kids are practicing, I'm going to run a couple errands, I'll be back in, say, a half an hour? Be careful while I'm gone!" Juliette calls out the door, before disappearing inside.
The obstacle courses are miraculously all gone, even though I didn't see anyone put them away.
Magic, I guess.
"Can I go first?" Oakley asks shyly.
I've never actually seen Oakley use his power, so I watch eagerly.
"Usually we practice them in fighting scenarios; if someone was attacking you, how could you use your anomaly to help you?" Gray explains, as Leila gathers up dozens of pebbles from on the ground.
She hands them to Oakley, who shoves them in his pockets.
"Okay, pretend I'm a bad guy," Leila says.
She clasps her hands together, leaving the index and middle fingers out, making a hand gun.
She advances toward Oakley, who acts quickly.
He throws a pebble at Leila, and halfway through the air, it increases in size.
Leila dodges the small boulder, and Oakley keeps throwing, even throwing several at once.
A shower of boulders rain down around Leila, and she falls to the ground, "dead".
The other kids start clapping, and I join in.
Nox goes next. "Oh Leila, you can't be the bad guy for me. Get a burlap sack of flour or something."
Leila looks like she's about to protest, but after thinking about it, she runs off. She comes back with a bag of ice.
"If you'd like a burlap sack of flour, I'd have to take a quick trip back to 1960, because no one has those anymore," She says, chucking the bag at Nox. He smiles, catches it, then sets it down on the ground.
He loosely points his hand at it, flicking his wrist up, and then down.
Synchronized with his hand, the bag goes up, and then down.
He starts doing it quicker, and soon the bag is getting tossed around in the air so hard, I'm sure Leila is more than glad she didn't fight to be in it's position.
For the "finale", he tosses it up much higher than before, and then slams it down on the ground, the ice audibly smashing.
"I'll go next," Leila says, and everyone immediately starts trekking to the shed.
I follow, confused. Gray reaches in, and grabs about a dozen pairs of sunglasses.
"Is that seriously where you keep the sunglasses?" I ask.
"We keep spare sunglasses, as well as noise-cancelling headphones, everywhere, in case Leila or Nora need to use their anomaly," Gray explains, handing out the glasses.
No one puts them on, they simply walk back to where we were before, holding them.
As soon as we're there, Leila starts to glow. She keeps going, glowing brighter and brighter.
Everyone slips on the glasses, and I can see why. Without them, Leila's light could surely hurt your eyes.
"Leila can actually blind people with that," Nox says to me, smiling at Leila. Aww, he's proud of her, how cute!
Mercedes goes next, with Oakley as the antagonist. She rains down large chunks of hail, and strikes lightning all around him.
The lightning strikes the bag of ice, setting it ablaze, before all the melted ice puts out the fire.
To "defeat" him, she makes a mini tornado, which sweeps him up into the air.
She smiles and takes a bow, Oakley still in the air.
I guess she loses focus, because suddenly Oakley comes crashing down.
Everyone gasps, and I'm the first to dash over to Oakley.
"I'm so sorry!" Mercedes cries, running over to him.
"Are you okay?" I ask.
He shakes his head. "My leg really hurts."
Leila inspects his leg. She touches it in various different spots, and Oakley says it hurts in almost all of them.
He can't bend or move his leg.
Gray looks up at me. "Go get a bag of ice and a phone to call Juliette."
Nox and I are the only ones standing, so we start towards the building.
"Wait!" Leila calls, looking up. "The bag I took was the last one from the machine!"
"I don't think this bag will be of much use to us now," Ryith says, nudging the wet, charred bag with his sneaker.
"There are more, but they're in the room across from the vending machines," Leila adds.
Nox sighs. The vending machines are pretty far away.
We start walking through the hotel.
"I'll call Juliette while we're walking," Nox says, pulling out his phone.
"Juliette? You have to come home, now. Yeah. Oakley hurt his leg. No, it was an accident. Leila thinks it's broken. No. Okay."
I listen in on the conversation, but then Nox ends the call, and we keep walking.
"The vending machines are up there, right?" I ask Nox. He nods, and we make it to the door.
I jiggle the handle, but the door doesn't open.
"Is it supposed to be locked?" I ask, confused.
"No," Nox frowns, jiggling the handle harder.
I can hear a weird bangy, clicking noise, and when I realize what it is, I visibly shiver.
"The door is dead-bolted," I say, looking at him.
"What?"
"Dead-bolted."
"You can't accidentally lock the dead-bolt," Nox says slowly.
"I know, and it also means that someone had to have locked it from the inside."
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. ...
