From the Ashes

1

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PRESENT DAY

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Jensen Wilder sits alone at a round table in a high school cafeteria. His dark, shaggy hair shields his eyes from the people around him. However, his reflection on his phone screen shows his face.

It shows his blue eyes that are captured by a thin, bright ring of orange. Certainly, his eyes look out of the ordinary, but not that anyone would notice.

With a sigh, he sets his phone down and glances around the cafeteria. Every table seems to be full. Well, except for his. No one sits at Jensen's table that resides in the farthest corner of the room.

He frowns as he thinks about how it has been a long time since anyone sat with him. In fact, it has been an even longer time since anyone talked to him directly, except for Daisy.

Even the self-proclaimed "loners" stayed away from Jensen.

Daisy is a petite girl with golden hair. She offers a sweet smile to everyone she passes in the halls--including the boy who walks alone.

His gaze sets on the table that she sits at with her friends, who coincidentally, happen to already be looking at him. They giggle and turn away.

In instinct, he raises his hand to hover over his eyes. He bows his head. He can't let anyone see his eyes. It doesn't happen often. He can never control it. It's just another one of the problems that so wonderfully come alone with being a supernatural being.

The girls at Daisy's lunch table giggle loudly and Jensen hears his name being whispered.

The skin on his knuckles turns white from clenching them into tight fists. The whole reason he avoids people and having friends in general, is to be invisible. He has apparently failed.

"I bet he's thinking about how to grow weed in his backyard. As if he isn't faded enough." One girl scoffs as she turns back to her friends, casually flipping her bleach-blonde hair over her shoulder. The other girls at the table laugh and agree with her.

Another adds, "No way, he's beyond that. Anyone can get Marijuana these days." She pauses, "I heard he sells the hard stuff behind the soccer shed."

"Like what?" Someone speculates.

"Crystal Meth," she whispers loudly.

Someone of the girls gasp and a few squeal in humorous delight.

However, only one of the girls stays silent. Her hazel eyes carefully watch as Jensen looks over at them. She wears her blonde hair in two braids with loose strands hanging around her face. She looks radiant.

His breath catches in his throat when their eyes lock.

Daisy looks away as soon as their eyes meet and averts her gaze back to her food.

Jensen feels a pang in his chest. He knows he did this. Every time she tried to talk to him over the years, he cut her off, walked away, or simply ignored her. He doesn't want to be like this, but he just doesn't know what else to do. There's no other way.

What she didn't know is that every time he was rude to her, it hurt him and he wanted to run after her and apologize immediately. The way her face fell was an image that he couldn't seem to get out of his head. She was only ever kind to him and was one of the only people in the world who actually seemed to care about him. But yet, he couldn't drag her into this. He didn't even really understand much of anything that was going on himself.

He didn't expect the nightmares to get as bad as they did. After he found out he was a Lynx, nothing was the same again.

Four years ago, when he heard the word Lynx for the first time, the dreams stopped. Then, a couple of months later, they turned into horrible nightmares.