Children Of The Crucible

Stevie Part 2

Stevie's PoV

I woke up about 15 minutes before my alarm went off as usual. My body always just seemed to know when it was morning, and I never actually needed my alarm clock.

I stretched before hopping out of bed and shoving my school uniform on. School didn't start for hours but I got dressed straight away so I could take my dog Harvey out for a walk. He was only one, so he was pretty hyper all the time, and went stir crazy if he didn't get his usual walk in the morning.

I quite enjoyed our early morning walks, just us strolling through the park, no one else around apart from the hard core runners, doing their jog before work. Lots of people wonder how they find the effort to get up at the crack of dawn and run, but if you give it a try, you will realise that it's actually really refreshing and gets you ready for the day ahead. Take it from me, I used to do swimming every morning before school back when I was on the team. Much to my dismay they stopped running it when they ran out of money.

Harvey came bounding up the stairs to meet me as soon as I opened my door. He was a border collie and the most loveable dog ever. I laughed as he bounced around me in a circle, excited for his walk. I tiptoed past my sister's room, not wanting to wake her up. In many ways, my sister, Orla, was like a cross between me and Gwen. Like me, she was a total geek but she could never get herself out of bed in the morning, plus she had a love for beauty and make up like Gwen.

I reached the bottom of the stairs and attached the lead to Harvey's collar before leaving and setting off for the park. Despite it being winter, the sky was quite bright, with the sun breaking though some clouds somewhere in the distance.

We walked along the main road until we came to the park gates, only a few minutes from our house.

When we got about halfway into the park, I sat myself down on a bench and let Harvey off the lead so he could run around. For a hyper one year old, he was also very obedient, and I knew I could trust him to stay close.

I leant back against the cold, hard metal of the bench as I watched my dog. I loved it when it was just us in the park- I was really shy and didn't actually like situations involving lots of people. I always found myself saying something stupid and making an idiot of myself. Even though I met so many people through all my clubs and sports, I didn't actually have many friends since I didn't really speak to anyone.

That made me seem really pathetic and lonely, but don't pity me. I had Gwen and anyway, I enjoyed being by myself. Especially if I was reading. I loved being able to sit in my bedroom and be transported to another world.

I'll admit, sometimes I did wish I could disappear and live in The Secret Garden, or Hogwarts, but only because they seemed so much more exciting and magical than our world.

I was snapped out of my train of thought by Harvey's barking. He was looking straight at me with a worried expression on his face. That was strange.

'Here boy! What's wrong?'

I beckoned him over but he looked confused. I sighed and got up off the bench to see what was wrong with him. I patted his head, but he immediately shaked my hand off.

'Hey what's the mater?'

Why was he acting so strange? I held my hand in front of his nose so he could sniff it and see that it was me. But when he made no attempt to sniff it, I realised with a jolt that my hand wasn't even there.

Now this was definitely something that had never happened before, so I guess it was pretty reasonable for me to go into a full blown panic, especially when I realised I couldn't see the rest of my body either. Spinning around, I desperately looked for a part of myself that was visible. Harvey, at this point, was barking madly, confused that he could hear me but not see me.

I retreated back to the bench for a moment, to try and steady my breathing and, you know, work out why the hell I couldn't see myself. I closed my eyes, my thoughts returning to what they had been earlier. It seemed my wish for disappearance had come true in a really sick, twisted way. If that was the case, unlikely as it was, then I didn't have any clue how to make myself visible. Unless...

If somehow this had been a 'wish come true', maybe there was some way I could wish to reverse it. I concentrated on the thought in my head for a minute before I dared open my eyes, scared it would have been to no avail.

I opened one eye and glanced down. I was there. Breathing a deep sigh of relief, I fully opened both my eyes and went over to comfort my perplexed dog, who was barking excitedly as I approached him.

I decided to call it a day and reattached his lead and started on the short journey home. As we were walking, my mind started wandering, exploring any logical reason which could have caused me to become temporarily invisible.

I wondered if it was a one-time occurrence or if it would happen multiple times. Wait, what if I couldn't even control it. What if I would simply be sitting in class and all of a sudden I would just disappear. Or what if-

I brought myself out of my thoughts quickly, not wanting to dwell on things that most likely wouldn't happen.

I decided to see if I could make myself disappear at will, and no time like the present to have a try. Well I'll admit, I probably shouldn't have tried out in the open, especially since the streets were starting to busy with people going to work or going to get some things from the off licence on the corner.

The good news, if it was even good news, was that I could indeed control when I became invisible. The bad news was that I gave one particular old lady who was walking towards me a horrible fright. Luckily I managed to snap back to visibility just as she was replacing her glasses on her face, having cleaned them after my momentary disappearance.

I arrived home to a bunch of messages from Gwen. They were very brief, saying things like.

'OMG something crazyyyy happened this morning.'

'idk what's happening.'

'Stevie pick up, it's so weird.'

'Meet me at school early, I NEED to talk to you.'

I replied ok, and asked her if everything was alright, before putting my phone and a new book in my bag, seeing as I'd finished my other one, and set off for school.

Author's Note

Hey everyone, hope you are all enjoying the story. Thanks so much for continuing to read and vote, it means a lot. Also, out of curiosity, comment who your favourite character is.