Archen

It was something you had to come to terms with eventually. You would become an Archen.

Harper could tell. Time was running short. Long copper hair turned short and silver, cocoa eyes turned icy. It wasn't right. He should've had so many more years to live out his humanity. Yet as he's seen, the universe has a sick sense of humor. He wished he could pretend that everything was okay. Who's to say that he couldn't just dye his hair and wear contacts? But he knew that wouldn't work. Around three months after the minor physical changes, came the mental and bodily ones. There would be no hiding it then.
Kicked out of home for something that he couldn't change, he sat on a moldy and decrepit bench by the river. The bench must have been over a hundred years old. It groaned under his weight, thousand of tiny splinters snapping in half below the inhuman human. This is it. Where he'd spend his last days.
Light footsteps came from behind him. Harper snapped his head around, scanning the area for the source of the sound. He sighed in both pleasure and disappointment as he saw Cameron tiptoe around poison ivy to get closer. She simply smiled at him, in place of a proper greeting. A feeling of discomfort was visible in her expression . Harper could tell it was because of him. He couldn't really be considered "Harper" anymore. Just a pre-Archen taking the soulless body of him.
"Hey," Cameron said, a motive hidden behind the layers of her voice. "I just wanted to check up on you. You haven't been at school, and... well, there are rumors," she stated almost emotionlessly. Even Harper could have told you that. Rumors flow like drinking water in a small yet wealthy town. And Harper? He was rare.
Most became Archens in their mid to late sixties. It wasn't exactly common for a highschooler to start showing the signs.
"I'm fine," he replied, in a voice that oh-so-clearly proved the opposite. Staring straight ahead, he toyed with his sleeves. Cameron's eyebrows knit in worry, for she was deeply concerned about her friend.
"Can I ask you a question Harper?" Cameron said in a voice tinted with anxiety. Harper continued gazing at the nebulous river, tilting his head slightly and nodding. "Ask away."
"Why did you leave? Why did you run away?"

Silence.

Harper could feel his anger rising. Every day for the past six months since he'd first started changing, he'd bottled up his anger. Every disapproving look. Every stabbing comment. Every time he looked in the mirror, knowing that this was permanent. Every little thing that decided who Harper was. It erupted out of a simple question, asked by his only friend left.

He stood up with an almost robotic sense of simplicity. His eyes narrowed into barely visible slits. He glared at Cameron with an irrational hatred gleaming in his pale eyes. Cameron noticed this, and gently stepped backwards, covertly glancing side to side for an escape route. Harper could feel her fear. But that did not change for a minute what he felt he needed to do.
"I didn't run away, nor did I leave! I was forced out by my own damn family. Don't you see this sickly silver hair and these too-perfect pale blue eyes?! Something is wrong with me. My body didn't want to wait another fifty years, so I got ruined because of something I can't even help!" Harper ranted, stepping closer. His footsteps became louder and more terrifying with every step. Cameron felt a tear start slipping down her cheek. She quickly wiped it away, because now was not the time to be feeling any emotion. Despite her own trepidation, she put on a poker face. It was clear- to help Harper deal with... everything. That was her goal.
"And now you're believing the lies people tell. Are you stupid? This silver hair has been coming in for months and you've never put the pieces together? Do you even care?" he yelled, but his voice somewhat softened near the end of the sentence. Cameron decided that due to Harper's slight change of tone, it would be sensible to speak now while she still could.
"Of course I had put the pieces together! I just didn't want to say anything because it was more fun to enjoy life with you, instead of this," she said mostly calm, but a twinge of annoyance worked its way in. She knew that that sentence may have angered him even more, but she kept talking.
"You have to trust me, Harper! You're the closest thing to a brother that I ever had. I didn't know that your parents were lying! They told me you ran away. What else did I have to go on?!"
His face softened.

He was being treated as human, not some freak of nature.

"I'm sorry Harper. I truly, truly am." Cameron almost whispered.

Harper looked straight into her coffee eyes, and turned to look at the river again. All was calm. But the calm was a curtain hiding the pain and fear behind it. His angered face seemed to correct itself, gaining an indifferent expression. Cameron walked up to him, and gently touched his cheek, turning his face towards hers.
"I do care Harper," she said, hugging him. He was rigid at first, but slowly melted into the hug. Cameron finally let her emotions show and let her tears fall. Everything that had happened... it was too much.
Harper glanced at Camerons hair, which had taken on a more silvery tone since he had last seen her. His eyes widened, and his body froze up.

"I care."