Your Star

Part Two

        I don't know what happened. I don't know what went wrong. I don't know how I went from sitting with a pleasant family over a warm cup of tea to running in the woods lugging my emergency suitcase in the darkness. I try to replay the events in my mind but they come out misplaced and fuzzy. It all happened too fast. It all ended too soon. But I try to replay the images back in my mind as I stop to catch my breath against the firm base of a tree. I sink to the ground littered with sticks and twigs amongst other gross things and try to recollect my thoughts, as well as try to keep from crying. I can only remember the nights events in short clips that are in slow motion, like in the movies when a film slot is missing.

      6:22 P.M. I am sitting with Mr and Mrs. Arnell and their son, Matthew. They're from New Jersey so they don't know about the rumors. I might actually have a chance with them. It is very clear that thier son likes me. I pretend not to notice, though, because I never had this kind of attenion before. The only ogling stares I get from boys are ones full of disgust or ones that come right before an insult. We are laughing about something, though I can't remember for the life of me what.

    "So, Luna," Mrs. Arnell says once she catches her breath,"What do you plan to do with your future?" I sound more like I'm interviewing for a job or college than a family. But I play along nevertheless. A sudden surge of confidence is pulsing through my veins and I no longer have control. I cross my legs in a seductive manner. I would never do something like that. At least not without looking like a complete fool.

    "Well, I want to finnish school and after that I think I might become a teacher." Lies! I scream in my head, I want to be either a designer or a horror film director. I try to change my answer but I find myself outside of my body, though I can still hear and feel everything that is going on. I watch in awe as my body winks at me. I'm not dead, at least. But my eyes are another color. Another shade of violet. A darker, more deviant shade of violet. A shade of violet that struck fear into me for the first time in my life. Mrs. Arnell clears her throat and smiles at me, well my body.  

   "Oh, so you like children?" 

   "Oh, yes, Mrs. Arnell. I absolutely adore children. I'd just love it to wake up every morning and know that I am making a difference in their lives." Her lies are so sweet, it's sickening. I know this- thing that has taken over my body is up to something much more sinister. Mrs. Arnell laps up the piosin, though but Mr.Arnell (thank God) still isn't convinced. He stares me, well her right in the eyes.

    "Is that so? Tell me, Luna is it?"

    "Yes?"

    "What's wrong with your eyes?"

    "Carl!" Mrs. Arnell streiks, hitting her husband's arm. "You'll have to excuse my husband, Luna. He can be a bit...blunt at times." But my body shakes its head and smiles reassuringly. 

     "No, Mrs. Arnell. He's fine. I get that kind of question all the time. The truth is," I hold my breath for this one becuase I, myself, never really knew why my eyes were that way. Perhaps this thing that held my body hostage knows the answer. "That my mother was very ill. They were infected with a deadly and rare disease that disorriented their genetic traits. And during devolpment I guess my eyes must have stopped developing thier color traits somewhere between blue and green and that's why they're purple. I don't know. My father told me once but that was when I was five right before he died..."

    The Arnells are eating this up but I know it's all a lie. I never knew either of my parents. I felt my cheeks burning red as I watched her cry crocidile tears, glaring at me through a veil of wavy black hair. I can't hold it back then. I lunge for her but I go straight through her, landing hard on the floor strangling the empty air. She gasps and the Arnells fall over themselves trying to protect her from an invisible enemy.