Not What She Seems

What Does She Mean?

"No! Get away! I don't wanna be sedated!" the five-year-old exclaimed.
"Come here! I'm gonna sedate you!" the woman exclaimed jokingly while chasing the toddler.
"No! Leave me alone!" the child exclaimed. All of a sudden, in hopes of defending herself, the toddler shielded the woman from her with her hands, and out of nowhere, vines grew around her wrist and up to the tip of her fingers, then the vines came off of her fingers and made a shield.
"Oh my...." the woman said, shocked.
*****
"C-cousin? I don't believe it." I say.
"You better. Don't you know? Oh of course you don't, your just a freshman, which means you're 15." Verlynn says, answering her own question.
"I am 15, but I'm not a freshman, I'm an Intermediate." I respond.
"Really? An Intermediate? But you're two grades ahead then." Verlynn states.
"Yeah, I know." I reply.
"Anyways, of course you wouldn't know. I'm two years older than you. When I was nearly a year old, your mom and my mom got into a fight because your mother was distancing herself from mine. When your mother did an experiment, she tested it on me and it completely backfired. That's how this happened." Verlynn pulls out her right hand from her pocket. I gasp. It was all ruined! Fingers were merged together!
"I've heard that your mother has hated herself ever since." Verlynn says, putting her hand back in her pocket.
"So that's why—never mind that." I say.
"Hmm, do you smell that! It's pizza! Dinner's here!" I exclaim.
"Yavara—where is your dad?" Verlynn asks as I open the door. I stop.
"I...don't know, maybe I'll ask my mom? It doesn't matter anyways, there's pizza!" I reply.
"Yavara, you must know something. All the time we've been roommates, I've never heard about your dad." Verlynn states.
"It doesn't matter, he's fine wherever he is. Let's go and eat before everyone takes the good slices!" I exclaim again.
I told her the truth, I don't really know. The thing is, I had a vision. It wasn't really a vision, because visions are about the future, but this was the past, so more of a flashback that happened before I was born. I saw exactly what she described, mom experimenting on her with permission of mom's sister. Then, I saw the argument she described. All of a sudden, I stop.
"Hey....are you ok?" Verlynn asks.
"You left out something—permission. Your mother shouldn't be mad at mine if she gave her permission to do it." I mutter.
"What'd you say?" Verlynn ponders.
"I said I just thought I forgot homework." I lie.
"Homework?" she asks.
"Yeah." I reply.
That was such a lie. I had another vision. This one was actually a vision. In my vision, I saw Verlynn angry at mom. Verlynn asked mom what she put in her drink, but mom denied the fact she put anything in her drink. There was something wrong with this vision, though. Usually in visions, I have no way of knowing when it'll happen, but this time, there was a clock in it. The time read 7:45. I look on my phone, and the time reads 19:35. I only have ten minutes until the vision becomes reality. How am I going to stop it though? Part of what makes it the future is what you do before the vision to prevent it, that shapes the vision, doesn't it? I don't know, but we'll find out in ten minutes. But maybe it's tomorrow, or next week! We are on break now for the summer.
I walk downstairs as mom passes me up heading upstairs with a box of pizza. Everyone is already grabbing their plates and cups since there's coke too.
"Ooh! Ravamara! Where's Markus and the twins?" I ask while hugging her.
  "Well, uh, they're..." Ravamara stopped and tilted her head a little to the side.
  "Mm, how do I explain this without sounding creepy. Well, they're—"
  "COME HERE, I'M GONNA KILL BOTH OF YOU!!!" Markus screams, then stops.
  "RIGHT AFTER I GET MYSELF SOME PIZZA!" he screams. Markus turns around and sees me. Then, he picks me up off the ground and takes the pizza I have in my hand and puts it on his mouth.
  "Thanks for the pizza sis." he says while chewing loudly. Everyone stops and turns around.
  "YOU JERK!" I exclaim and push him to the ground, knocking the pizza out of his hand. I pick the pizza off the floor and hit him with it once on the leg lightly. Then, mom walks downstairs. Mom just stands there, staring at me while holding a pizza box.
  "I'm not even gonna ask." she says before walking away.
  I let Markus go after she left and grabbed my own pizzas. Then, everyone bursts out laughing.
  "Markus, you did have that coming. It wasn't even that hard though." Relvin says, helping him up.
  "My leg hurts." Markus complains.
  "Sit yourself down, I barely even touched you." I respond.
  We sat down and ate dinner and talked, then Relvin, Verlynn, and I headed back upstairs to my room.
  "Yavara, now that I think about it, I've never seen your grandpa. Where is he?" Relvin asks.
  "Busy. always working and doing stuff. I heard that he's coming for Christmas though!" I answer.
  "Really? Why isn't he coming to visit me for Christmas?" Verlynn asks.
  "Did I miss something?" Relvin ponders.
  "Oh right, lemme catch you up. So surprise surprise it turns out Verlynn is my cousin. There you go, you're caught up." I tell him.
  "What? Does anyone else know?" Relvin says, shocked.
  "No, I don't think they do." I reply.
  "So you're just gonna hide this?" Relvin exclaims.
  "Of course, if mom didn't tell me before, she clearly doesn't wanna tell me now. If she doesn't wanna do this, she obviously doesn't want the other kids to know. Geez, it's keeping secrets 101." I say, smacking him in the back of the head.
  "Oh." Relvin whispers.
  "Anyways, don't you know?" I ask.
  "Know what?" Verlynn asks.
  "Your mother probably never told you, but the reason grandpa doesn't come over to you guys' house is because your mother said "You're just like dad. Always distancing yourself, always working on weird experiments, and never with family. my mom must've told him." I state.
  "How do you know that?" Verlynn asks, appalled.
  "I heard them talking about it when I was 5 years old. They tried to be secretive about it and speak in French, but I still knew what they said. It was at Christmas." I recall. Now that I finished saying it, I feel really good, now Verlynn can come down to reality and not think her mom was an angel while mine was a devil.
  This shocked Verlynn. Clearly I was right about what she probably thought. We kept on talking and eventually fell asleep around 01:00 (1 AM).
  The door creaks open, and I wake up. I see Verlynn open her eyes too, but we immediately close them and pretend to sleep. I open my eyes just enough to see mom coming to Verlynn and me's side of the room. She picks up Verlynn's deformed right hand.
  "Soon, you won't be like this anymore." Mother mumbled. She looked at the back of Verlynn's hand and put it back down. My mother walked out of the room without looking back and silently closed the door.
  "Did you see that!" Verlynn exclaims.
  "Yeah!" I respond.
  "Me too." Relvin says.
  "What does she mean?"" Verlynn asks.
  "I dunno, but we'll find out tomorrow morning." I reply.
  With that, we all go to bed worried sick what'll happen to Verlynn's hand, and we also go to bed curious about what my mother meant by saying "soon you won't be like this anymore.".