Too Powerful? [COMPLETED!]

11- Pictures of Alex

Scott:

As Alex dragged me back in, my thoughts turned to her. Naturally, as they always do.

I don’t think I’ve been a very good teacher. Or friend. Or whatever it is the Professor wants me to be to Alex. Its been 2 months, and I’m no closer to helping her with her powers, then I had been the first time I met her.

In fact, I don’t even know what she’s capable of doing yet! This snowball incident, though, showed that she had some sort of… heating up powers?

Was she like Pyro then?

But… it couldn’t be, though, since the Professor had specifically said that no one was like her.

“Who are you, Alex? Why don’t you trust me?”

I muttered, looking out of the window of the kitchen, where I was waiting for the water to boil. Alex was upstairs, bursting about some bet she had made with Rogue. From the kitchen, I could see another small stretch of garden; beyond that, the tall peeling brick walls obstructed my view of pretty much everything else. The sky was cloudy, and the cool air hit my face like needles.

The view triggered something in my memory. A memory I always knew was somehow odd, yet I could never put my finger on what was so unusual about it.

A couple of weeks ago, I happened to walk past Alex's room. Her room was dark, although the curtains were drawn open, and a strong gust of wind was threatening to rip the curtains away from their hooks. Strange, I had thought, for a storm that strong to be striking on an Autumn evening. I had wanted to close the window for her, but Alex, hunched up in a corner of her room, seemed so perturbed that I didn’t want to disturb her. I gave a final glance at her, making sure she was okay and continued on towards my room.

Now, come to think of it again, I should have known that something was aberrant. I didn’t remember making my way out to the grounds that day; I stayed inside, catching up on my reading, but what I do remember was  playing Frisbee with Rogue and Alex the very next morning.

I stiffened, the bag of marshmallows in my hand, and tried to concentrate on that scene. Alex laughing, her hair flying around her small face… Alex teasing me, Alex biting her lips. Rogue and Alex, their hands around each other, smiling for the camera.

The camera!

I dropped the bag of marshmallows hastily on the counter and ran upstairs to my room. Banging the door open, I hastily rummaged through my drawers, searching for the camera. When I finally found it, tucked away underneath all my stuff, my hands were trembling.

I pressed the ‘On’ button, and reviewed the pictures I had taken. Scrolled back to the shots taken on that Autumn morning.

Alex, holding a Frisbee, taken from afar.

Next.

Me, halfway jumping into the air, a Frisbee sailing towards me. A candid, undoubtedly taken by Rogue.

Next.

Alex, looking straight into the camera. I took that shot.

Even in my current state of excitement, I could still remember that moment. I had thought that she had looked so lovely, so carefree, so happy, that I had impulsively reached for the camera. As I pressed the focus button, Alex had turned, and at the exact moment I snapped the photo, she had given me her brilliant, beautiful smile.  I smiled back at her frozen self.

Next.

Rogue, staring cooly into the camera.

Next.

There, there it was, the picture I was looking for.

Alex and Rogue, arm around each other, the excitement and happiness of youth shining from their faces. But that wasn’t what I was looking at.

As I had taken the picture from a distance, I could see the background and landscape of where the picture was taken. The girls were standing in front of the school block where Alex’s room was located. Out of focus, I could see that on the walls of the school building,  there was a small notice stuck, slightly to the left of an old tree that was tall enough, its enormous branches reached right below Alex's open window.

The notice proclaimed the start of the winter holidays. It had already been there for a couple of days when the picture was taken, and it had been flimsily tacked, with cello tape.

I should know, I was the one who posted it there.

I zoomed in.

The tree looked terrible, as if it had just been through a storm of horrific magnitude. Its leaves were completely gone, and even though it was Autumn the other trees, I could see, still had some of their leaves left, unlike this one. One of the boughs was dangerously crooking downwards, as if it was going to snap any moment. The top most part of the tree was black, as if lightning had struck the tree repeatedly and deliberately, even though the poor tree was definitely not the tallest matter there. The small pebbles that, as far as I remember, were spread around the bark of every tree in the grounds, were scattered, completely. Some were flung as far as where the girls were standing, which was a good two hundred meters away from the tree.

The notice that I had hastily stuck, though, which was not even a metre apart from the tree, stared innocently back at me from its place on the wall.

Untouched.

As if, somehow, the storm, which almost nearly uprooted the tree near Alex's window, hadn't hit it.

As if nothing had ever happened.