Metawin

2. Sun Through the Palms

Queenie didn’t realize what was wrong until she stepped out of her house to wait for her promised companions. Her room was still in shambles, as was the rest of the house, but she was used to living out of boxes. Metawin High also had uniforms, which made getting ready for the day easy enough. She still took her time to pick out her accessories. They had to be just perfect and something that would grab everyone’s attention.

She pulled out her cell phone as she stepped outside of her front door, fired off a quick message to James to make sure that he didn’t forget. The sun glared into her eyes and she held her hand up like a sun visor and looked up at the palm trees that stood against the orange sky. “What the hell?”

Turning and looking at the sky at a different angle did nothing to change the color of the sky. She had heard that the color of the sky was subjective to individual's perspective, but it had been the normal blue yesterday.

“We had hoped to get here before you came out,” James said. He strolled up to her, looking about as strange as the sky above her. Still a t-shirt and worn jeans, but over that he had on a strange robe that was unbuttoned and went down to his shoes. His hair was the truly odd part, a bright pink styled into spikes.

“You look like a porcupine,” Queenie blurted out. “Halloween's still half a year away.”

“It’s just how I look in this shift,” James said. He spread his arms out and twirled around, his robe flying out behind him. “You don’t like it?”

“What is going on here?” Queenie asked. She was almost reluctant to look over at Merit. Could he have changed away from his gorgeous looks like James?

Merit looked just the same as yesterday, with his conservative black and white clothes. Except, instead of a jacket, he wore the same kind of robe as James. Even Sloan was wearing the horrid robes and acting like they weren’t a bad fashion choice.

“You look fairly normal even after the shift,” James commented, sounding fairly disappointed. He looked Queenie over, evaluating her the same way that she had done with him. “I was hoping for some horns or a tail or something like that.”

Queenie scowled and crossed her arms. Had she really been that transparent? “Would you please explain what is going on? What is this shift that you're talking about?”

“Your parents didn't explain it to you?” Merit asked. His voice was soft and inquisitive.

She shook her head. “They didn't say anything.”

“Pearl thought that might be the case. It’s rather hard to explain, Sloan?” Merit turned to her.

“You really should ask your parents for a better explanation, but essentially the town of Metawin isn't like ordinary towns.” Sloan pushed a strand of her even brighter red hair behind her ear. “Not many people talk about it, but the government does special tests here. There’re so many stories about how this came about, but either something went wrong or they meant for this to happen. But, the world around us changes every day.”

“Is that what happened to the sun?” Queenie asked. The world still looked like she was wearing orange tinged glasses.

“No one knows why, but that’s just how the shield seems to work when it runs with magic,” James said.

“Did you really just say magic?” Queenie put her hand on her hip. “It’s really not fair to ramble on at me in a drug induce haze without letting me in on it.”

“No drugs, no lie,” Merit said. “As strange as it is to believe, a third of the time in this town things like magic exist. In fact, that’s what we’re being taught in school today.”