The Phantom of Scranton Hill

26

Charlotte had left hours ago and Justine was left sitting on her bed, thinking over what had happened and trying to connect everything.

So, Charlotte is a rare species that can predict the future, read in ancient and extinct languages, and communicate with the supernatural, thought Justine as she stared at the ceiling. Then, Dax was a good looking, kind, baseball playing ghost who was able to vibrate his molecules to interact with humans until he died for a second time, she continued, moving into a sitting position with her eyebrows creased.

So what am I? I'm just a boring person who watches bad things happen to good people. Great. Time to put that on my resume, she shook her head in disappointment. She hated being normal when everyone around her had special powers and unique abilities.

Justine stood up and walked over to her cluttered desk, taking a seat on the spinning leather chair and doing a few three-sixties with her legs hugged to her chest. She flicked the switch on the lamp and opened a notebook, filing through the desk drawers to find a sharpened pencil. She tried to make sense of it all, but her brain kept running around in circles like a carousel of confusion.

She let the lead hit the paper, smoothly drawing shapes and lines of all different sizes. The gray tip moved fluently across the sheet, shading more detailed areas to give dimension. Justine had zero control over her wrist. Her mind was blank, yet her left hand knew exactly what to do.

Minutes had passed and her arm gave up from exhaustion. She stared at what she had drawn. A tree. A stupid tree. Justine studied its shape. Its design seemed African, more sub-Saharan.

God, it looks like I've seen The Lion King too many times, she whined mentally.

Justine sighed, wishing she had something to do. She had relinquished ownership of the book, handing it over to Charlotte's possession for the time being. Justine didn't see a point in keeping it when Charlotte was the only one who could understand it. Charlotte could read Latin--the language used to write the leather-bound book.

"And Chaz had trouble with Spanish," Justine laughed to herself, being the only one in the room, as she thought about her friend's issue with language. Latin was the base of all romance languages. Charlotte could fully comprehend the mother language but failed miserably when translating any of the babies. In senior year, Charlotte struggled with regular Spanish two; she had to retake the first year three times to get it right.

Justine shook her head, smiling slightly with a big yawn. She glanced at her clock, seeing how it was just past ten o'clock. She huffed a breath, hearing her stomach growl. She hadn't had dinner, explaining to her mother that she simply 'wasn't hungry' at the time, but now she felt starved. Her mother, however, was most likely fast asleep like Justine should have been. Her eyes began to droop.

"Oh, come on," she told herself, fighting to stay awake. "It's Saturday night. Live a little."

Groaning like a dying whale, she switched off the black Pixar-esque lamp on her night table and crawled onto her bed. She flipped around, staring at the popcorn ceiling as she snuggled deep under her comforter, allowing the warmth to overcome her. Yawning one last time, sleep dawned easily, but it came with a price: an endless dream.

Uncontrollable wind whisked around, papers flying in all directions in a tornado of office supplies. Her analytic eyes scanned the area, studying every corner, nook, and cranny. It was a bedroom. A queen-sized bed lay on the right side against the wall, its sheets a forest green and majestic light pink. The walls were painted gray, the floors modern and wooden.

Her eyes continued to roam. A disorderly black desk supported a single monitor and stack of messy papers, a goldfish bowl luckily acting as a paperweight, but the goldfish was freaking out as it swam in all directions, seeking escape. A mahogany vanity dresser rested opposite the bed, the mirror hosting dozens of pictures of a little girl with flaming red hair. This was Charlotte's room, Justine's subconscious had soon realized.