Pandemonium

Chapter Four

   Porter headed home the long way. Hopefully he could get to bed while his mother was still sober, so he wouldn’t have to hear her complain about her mentally retarded son. He wasn’t slow in that way; he was socially awkward. Some might even call him autistic, but it wasn’t that severe for him.

   “Screw this,” he said, turning around and heading back towards the woods. He had enough on his plate. Being chased by the SWAT team. The stupid girl trapping him for hours. He wasn’t going to go home and be verbally abused by his mother.

   But there was something about that girl that held his interest.

   Her eyes. It was her electric blue eyes that held every single emotion known to man.

   Pandora was glad she could create and manipulate fire with her hands, or she would’ve never been able to get a fire going out in the woods. She had spent the last few hours setting up a force field around a ten feet circumference of her campfire. Those with the intent to hurt her could not pass through.

   Now she sat, exhausted and ready to go to sleep. But she couldn’t. Something was coming. She could feel it.

   And besides, who was to say that the force field was to work?

   Several hours later, Porter came across a light, most likely caused by fire. He stepped around a tree and cautiously looked forward. In the middle of the clearing, there was a campfire, with a limp body sprawled on the far end of it. Black locks covered her face; ivory arms held her head up.

   She looked lifeless.

   Porter crossed into the meadow. He passed the fire, warming his body, which was frozen to the bone.

   He held the girl’s head in his lap, then brushed her curls away.

   He was looking into the open, sapphire blue eyes of Pandora. The girl; the freak!

   Pandora’s eyes narrowed and she sat up, pushing herself away from him. “What are you doing here?” she growled.

   “I saw—I didn’t—I’ll leave now.”

   Porter stood, brushing the dirt of his khakis.

   Pandora sighed and took his arm. “You can stay,” she whispered. “I need some sleep, and I can’t—” She trailed off. She had known something was coming. It wasn’t an attack. It was a boy. This boy. “You can stay,” she said again. “You can stay.”

   Porter nodded and moved to the other side of the fire. He was gracious of Pandora’s offer, but he still didn’t trust her. He didn’t like her, either.

   He lay down in the grass across from the girl, but she simply started at him, studying him as if he was a science project.

   “What’s your mother’s name, Porter?” she asked.

   He was taken aback, but he sat up and looked at her. “Marie.”

   Pandora smiled. “That’s a pretty name. Was she always an alcoholic?”

   Porter rolled his eyes. “Enough with the questions. What’s with you? You’re crazy, you know.”

   “But what’s the exact definition of crazy? Of insanity?” Pandora crossed her arms. “I’m not like you, Porter. I’m not even sure if I’m human.”

   “Stop speaking in riddles and answer my question.”

   Pandora smiled. “I wasn’t made in love. I was made in a lab, in a robotic womb. My parents donated the egg and the sperm, of course, but I wasn’t made in the act of sexual intercourse.” Pandora stood, her face perfectly illustrating her pretty face. “Early into my embryotic development, I was given an injection of DNA from those to have claimed psychic powers on their being. Seems that most of them have been telling the truth. The result? Well, pandemonium.” She chuckled to herself, as if it was an inside joke.

   “Then why is the SWAT team, or whatever, chasing you?”

   “Because I escaped.”

   “How did you know about my mom if you were in a lab your whole life?”

   Pandora smirked. “You’re scared of me. Yet at the same time you’re fascinated.” She held her arms in front of her and slowly spread them apart, causing the fire to part like the red sea. She stepped through, then dropped her arms, letting the flames return to their original place.

   She dropped down in front of Porter, placing her hands in her lap. “I have twelve powers, one for each year of life.”

   “You’re only twelve?” Porter was surprised. She seemed older than that. She looked older than that. Fourteen at the most.

   “Thirteen tomorrow.” So he was a year off. But the date of her birthday surprised him.

   “I’m turning fourteen tomorrow!”

   Pandora smirked. “One year apart. Exactly.”

   Porter smiled. “Tell me about your powers.”

   “My oldest one came when I was a year and six months. I call it sound shaking.”

   “Sound shaking?”

   A voice sounded from behind the two. “Yes, sound shaking,” it said. Porter turned, but no one was behind him.

   “Did you do that?”

   Pandora giggled. “Yeah. It’s not really a psychic power, but it sure is cool.  I can imitate people’s voices and throw them places.”

   “That is cool.”

   She shrugged. “My second I got on at two years and three months. Psychometry. It’s the ability to obtain information about a person.”

   “That’s how you knew about my mother.”

   “Precisely. Anyway, my third I got a three years old. My third birthday, exactly. Transvection, the scientists called it. Body levitation. Flying, by another name.”

   “You can fly?”

   Pandora laughed. “Yes, I can. Within the laws of psychics, that is.”

   “Dude, come on! You gotta help me fly!”

   Porter took Pandora’s hand but, with a gasp, she pulled back. “I—I can’t. I can only support my weight.”

   Porter frowned, upset. Ever since he was little, he’s always wanted to fly. And now that there was an opportunity to do it, he couldn’t. He looked at Pandora. Her electric blue eyes scared him. They were so understanding; they were so full of life. But they also had fear. Deep, gut-wrenching fear.