1nn0c3nt

---Wednesday 21st August 2019---

My alarm goes off. I wake in a cold sweat feeling like I've run a kilometer without eating or drinking anything beforehand. I rub my eyes, though behind my eyelids I see his image flickering. I stretch and get out of bed, grateful that it was only a vivid dream. I focus on putting on my uniform and packing my bag to take my thoughts off it. It was only a dream. You're ok. I run downstairs and grab some cereal out of the cupboard and grab a bowl and some milk and a spoon and eat my breakfast as slow as possible- I want time to stop. I don't want to go to school. I want to tell Peter I had no idea I did any of what I did. I want to comfort him, right here, right now. But a glance at the glaring clock face seems to yell 'time to go!' mockingly at me. I shrug my bag onto my shoulders and walk to the bus stop. I wait in the cold rain until the bus pulls up, the driver who I knew so well by now joking, "Why so wet?" I roll my eyes and laugh sarcastically. I'm then bombarded by the little kids who ride the bus with me- "Jakaranda! Look at this book I got!" "Jakaranda! Come check this out!" they all yell at once. "Quiet down you little rascals," the bus driver says. I draw a deep breath; I know I'm gonna have to engage, so I do. "Oh, that's a cool book you got there," I say. The little kid jumps into the seat next to me. "Can you read it out loud for me?" she asks, her small, soft voice persuading me in the way all little kid's voices do. "Sure." I reply with a smile. Reading the book takes up the whole fifteen minutes it takes to get to school and soon we're stepping off, a little hand curled around my much bigger one, and a friend next to me, laughing and chatting and showing me what I'd missed since I was gone. I felt untouchable, I felt happiness coursing through my veins. That is- until we had to split.

I gently shake the little hand out of my grip and give the little girl a hug before telling her to have a good day and heading inside. My friend follows, but soon leaves to go to her year level room. Now- to face the wolves. I think annoyedly to myself. I bound up the stairs to my classroom, and sitting there was my good friend Joclyn. I go to drop off my bag and grab my laptop and my diary and pencil case before heading off to sit next to her. "Good morning Joclyn!" I say. She looks up from her computer and smiles warmly at me. "Good morning!" she replies. I take my seat next to her on the end of the desk row. "How are you?" she nods. "I'm good." I smile to myself. Soon the bell rings and we're dismissed to our first classes of the day- mine, physical education theory component. I sit in class, hiding behind my laptop up the back of the classroom, having no one to talk to, suddenly filled with a lonely sort of longing; a longing to be liked. The teacher walks in and begins teaching the lesson, one of my least favourite lessons. Suddenly my mark begins to pulse- danger. I strain my ears and hear footsteps coming down the hallway. I stand up, hearing the footsteps getting closer. "Get down. All of you." I say, lightly at first. I stand up and look the teacher dead in the eye.

"Something's coming. Get under the tables. I- ah, I'm so going to jail for this-" a man in a business suit walks in. The teacher breaks her cover like an absolute freaking genius and says, "Jakaranda, there's nothing wrong with this ma-" I cut her off. "Actually, miss, he's hiding a military issue Betalpharic pistol. Type a-14, deep space grey in colour, approximately four rounds a second. He is also a mythomaniac with level three paranoia. I expected you to know that?" I say, my anger seeping into my voice. I- I remember him- The teacher stands there speechless and gaping at me. The man begins to draw the pistol, but by then I'm in my biosynthetics and holding my hand in front of the gun's bullet hole, blocking the shot with the palm of my hand. I look him in the eyes and let my eyes flash and change, scaring him only slightly. Yup, definitely going to jail for this. I suddenly jerk my hand while he's distracted by my eyes and yank the pistol out of his grip.

He puts up his hands to retreat, but then his action calls in the police. They come and arrest me. The class is silent in confusion while the police take me away. The man with the gun was also arrested. I sigh to myself annoyedly. I know that since the world had little idea of what happened in the final fight, any people with superpowers/enhancements/mutations still had to hide them; it was as if there was a new version of the Sokovia accords. The laws clearly state that people like me can't use our abilities, mutation or not, in public. Full stop. But I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that he was going to kill someone that time and that he wasn't going to hold back. They didn't lock me up like I expected- I waited in the cold, fluorescently lit temporary holding cell, watching policemen pass back and forth outside my temporary cage. I could sense their sympathy- they weren't locking me up like they're supposed to because deep down they knew what would've happened had I had not done what I'd done. A group of policemen come over to my cell. "Now- we're not meant to be doing this," one begins in a whisper, "But we believe you showed immense bravery in that moment. You saved your class, your teacher and yourself. We are proud of you, Jakaranda," I see the glint of an elemental in his eyes. "You- you're like me," I say. He looks around to make sure no one other than the group around him is listening. "Yes. I have your mutation, though mine processes elemental data. I would not have been able to do what you have done today when I was your age," he fumbles with the key. "Go. Don't worry, we've told your foster parents and orphanage all they need to know. And don't worry, I made sure we left out the shapeshifter part." I gave him a look of gratitude. "Thank you, sir," I say. "Go, be free, Wilder." he says, using the old word for shapeshifter, the native word used by the first elementals and shapeshifters. "Thank you, Season." I reply, using the native word for elemental. I give him one last smile and a hug as I leave to go home.

"Oh honey," Melissa says as I run into her arms. "I heard. It's ok, we're not mad. Go have a shower, make some tea. You need some time to chill out and recover. You did the right thing, Jaka." I smile at her again through the tears. I run upstairs and my bracelet begins to buzz. "Hey. I heard what happened. When I lashed out- I don't know. I just really miss him. I'm sorry. I hope I'll see you soon Wolfcry." Peter says solemnly before the line cuts off. I sit down, my face in my palms. Shuri buzzes the line. "That was pretty cool, what you did back there." she says. I shrug. "If my teacher just stayed were I'd told her to, I don't think I'd have had a problem," I grumble. "Yeah, teachers are like that sometimes. I know. But the important thing is that you're still alive. You did really well." she says sympathetically. I nod. "Thanks, Shuri," I say, looking out the window, seeing the sun sink below the horizon slowly. "I should probably get some sleep. It's not every day you're arrested for trying to help out," I laugh darkly. "Goodnight, Jakaranda. We're all so proud of you back at the compound." the line goes static. I fall asleep repeating those words to myself, their unfamiliarity striking a chord in my heart. We're so proud of you.

My dream begins again, though this time, it showed me what would have happened if he shot through my hand, and I was so deep in sleep that I could feel the bullet piercing my skin and bones. I turn around and see one of my only friends in that class on the ground, bleeding from the head. I feel a surge of anger that suppresses the pain in my hand. I look behind me and turn into a lioness, losing all control at the sense of anger. I've lost my parents. Don't be the reason you make me lose my friends. I feel the thought coursing through my synapses, each one firing with intensity. I throw myself, lioness formed, at the attacker, scratching his face until he's bleeding just as much as my friend. In my dream, that's enough to keep him down. I look around me through my lioness eyes and see the terrified confusion of twenty-four students. Some have blood splattered on their uniforms. I bound over to my friend bleeding on the floor. I feel for her pulse, and for a moment, I'm hoping she survived. Then her pulse stops beating and her chest stops rising and falling. My lioness form almost mutates from the anger as I run over to the attacker. An eye for an eye, I think all the while. I swipe at his neck with my paws, once, twice-