Acid +rap

Five

         

That towel wasn't the only thing corroded in the middle.

The drive to school right now is positively debilitating. A foreign tension had settled in the car the moment we stepped in, and it threatened to choke the life out of me. It hung like a fog and was so obvious and explicit that even Gordon and Karina looked massively uncomfortable.

Karina kept glancing out the window, desperately avoiding any form of eye contact with us and wringing her fingers nervously as if she was afraid. Poor Gordo looked so frightened - squirming in his seat, with his eyebrows knitted together in worry. The poor thing looked like he was ready to burst into tears.

I couldn't help but feel queasy as a new wave of saliva flooded my mouth making my skin crawl in response. I swallowed uneasily, feeling a slight burning as it slid down my throat. It really sucked that my throat was so sore, even though I'd done everything in my power to avoid getting sick this week. My stomach lurched and I grit my teeth, preparing to ride out my third bout of nausea in the last fifteen minutes.

Mother and father looked the most uneasy of us all - their eyes were glued to the road and they did not speak. On other mornings, their happy chatter filled the car while the twins rattled on about their dreams and the things they wanted to do in grade school today.

They made no sound this morning.

My eyes found mother's in the rear-view mirror, but she quickly averted them. Father's knuckles grew whiter as he gripped the steering wheel and all around us, the houses and apartment buildings we passed blurred into a slurry of brown, green and black.

The tense, deafening silence grew so heavy on my chest that I opened my mouth to complain.

Karina beat me to it.

"Something's wrong!" she wailed while fidgeting nervously. She bucked and kicked on my right, straining against her seatbelt. On normal mornings, the father would have barked a warning, but he didn't have the heart to. Whatever was scaring the twins was clearly unnerving him too.

"What's wrong, Karina," I asked anxiously. She swallowed, a deep frown carving itself into her face.

"It's too heavy!" she screamed, her golden skin reddening as she twisted and turned while pressing her face to the window.

"It's just too heavy in here and it's making my head spin!"

The car was left silent, save for the sounds of her efforts to peel herself away from the seats. Gordo's form curled fetal and soft whimpers left his lips. Unsure of what to do, I rolled the windows down and rubbed their heads in an effort to be helpful. To my relief, they calmed down a little.

Another wave of nausea hit but I sighed it away. There was no way I was going to throw up in their car this morning. I'd have to clean it all up later.

Mother's eyebrows furrowed deeply in the rear-view mirror and I met her eyes again with questions in mine. She sighed softly and turned to me cautiously.

"What's wrong with me, mother?" I whispered, just loud enough for her to hear. She turned to me, her eyes weary with worry. Father kept his eyes on the road.

"Your aura," she whispered with a tremble in her voice. "It's thickened." my head tilted to the side in disbelief.

How could my aura thicken any further? I was an overgrown child - it couldn't get any more condensed than that!

"What do mean?" I forced out, gritting my teeth against the moisture that sprung from under my tongue. There was just an obscene amount of salivating going on in my mouth today - what was I, pregnant?