2. INTERACTIONS

He looked like he just stepped out of a male fashion catalogue. No wonder there were a lot of thoughts shouting towards him, especially from the girls. He really did look good, like Mya had said. His face was a little pale but perfectly shaped. His hair had a little dark shade of brown and it was short and gelled up in a fancy way. His eyes were kind of onyx coloured but that wasn’t too much noticeable. And his mind, it was quiet but I could hear a little humming sound on the background of it.

I could easily see that he wasn’t just human, just like me. But he wasn’t seeing me just yet.

His looks were not exactly what caught my attention. He looked really familiar, like I had seen him somewhere not here. I tried probing my mind to figure out where I had seen him before but before I could figure it out Mr McCoy called the class to attention. He informed us that we’d be handing over the project on the following day in the morning before he started with the lesson. As soon as he told us that, the bell rang and we had to get to our next class.

I packed my books into my bag and stood up to go retrieve my books from my locker for my next lesson. I didn’t glance at Ashton when I took off with Mya for our next class. I got my Math books and headed off to the Math class with Mya. It seemed he was in the same class again. So before the Math tutor started with the lesson, I tried probing my mind to find out where I recognised him from.

It came rushing back into my mind. I remembered being in my dad’s lab toying around with his computer when I came across a website containing information on missing children. There were lots of pictures labelled with their full names and dates of birth. Ashton’s face looked similar to one of the kids’ pictures but I wasn’t particularly sure. So I decided to forget about the issue and focus on the lesson that the tutor was currently giving. I’d go through with it after school.

The lesson went by swiftly as always, I didn’t have any trouble with my studies partly because of my mind reading but also because I was a focused student. After the Math lesson it was lunch time. Immediately after putting my books in my locker we went to the cafeteria. Mya went to get the food while I sat down with my other friend, Brendan Stanford. He’s what some people termed a ‘chatterbox’ because he never ran out of topics to talk about. I guess it did go along with his personality since he’s gay.  But he didn’t care about what people said about him, he’s always a happy person. His mind is also pure and full of things that he gets out verbally most of the times.

“So, Lina, who’s the new guy?” he asked.

“Who?” I asked absentmindedly.

“The one who looks like he just walked out of a fashion magazine”, he said with a smile.

I almost laughed at the fact that I also thought of Ashton the same way as Brendan did but I held it back.

“Oh, that’s Ashton Turner. He’s in our class”, I said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Hmmmm, wow. I guess I should pay you a visit in your class very soon. Who knows, he might fancy me, maybe.” He said with a laugh.

I joined him in laughter and Mya appeared at the table carrying a tray with food enough for three. She set it on the table and took a seat.

“What are you two laughing at?” she asked, her voice full of curiosity.

“Brendan is thinking of coming to pay us a visit in our class because of Ashton. He says Ashton might fancy him”, I said, and laughed again.

“Oh wow Brendan. Do you really think you stand a chance?” Mya asked.

“I don’t know, Mya.” He shifted in his seated and looked over his shoulder where Ashton was seated with a couple of guys from our class. “I really don’t know, since he’s eyeing one of us here.”

“Who?” Mya asked quickly and checked for herself.

Simultaneously, they both said, “Lina.”

I didn’t need to raise my head and check to see if they are right. I read it in both their minds but also from Ashton’s own mind. He was eyeing me in a very curious manner and I wondered why he was looking at me like that.

I noticed that I could see through his mind but not everything. It occurred to me that maybe his mind did not work the normal way as others. So I avoided meeting his eyes and focused on the tray of food that Mya had brought.

“Brendan, just because he’s looking at me doesn’t mean that he fancies me”, I said to Brendan while picking at the food with my fingers.

“We know that, but it wouldn’t hurt to have him fancy you. I mean, you have never had anyone fancying you before. So maybe this time you might be lucky”, said Mya while Brendan was nodding in agreement to what she said.

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m just not cut out for the whole dating thing”, I said.

“It’s still early for that kind of predicament. I mean, we’re only 16 so we’re still in the early stages of this kind of issue. So Lina, don’t take it that way. We’ll see with time”, said Brendan.

I dismissed the issue by taking a bite from the Cornish pie from the tray. They joined in for eating and we didn’t talk about that issue again.

After lunch I went back to my classes along with Mya. Mya and I were attending the Science classes while Brendan was taking the Business classes. So we were together during English and Afrikaans classes and also during break time. After school I’d go home with Brendan since we’re staying in the same area. So Mya and I had our classes along with Ashton but we didn’t talk to him again on that day. So I attended Science, the languages classes and Geography. After that we were dismissed and had to go home.

I headed straight to the parking lot and got into my Porsche to wait for Brendan. At the same time I was going over the Ashton issue, trying to figure out how he could be categorised under the missing kids. But then, I could be wrong so I told myself not to conclude on it. So I’d go on to the website when I got home and re-check the picture and the name.

Brendan came in and I drove home. I dropped him off at his place and went straight home after that. I went past the lab to see my dad, Dr Andrew Watson, and I found him working on some new gadgets that he invented. I decided not to ask much about them and went straight to the lab computer. I searched through the internet history list until I found the website. I clicked on it and it loaded all the pictures along with the information concerning the pictures shown on the screen. I scrolled down going through all the pictures until I finally found the one I was looking for.

I clicked on the picture and it revealed everything concerning the boy reflected on the picture. There were two things I was sure about when comparing the boy on the screen and Ashton. First, although the boy on the screen was about ten years younger than Ashton, these two had the same facial features but the eye colour was a bit different. The boy on the screen had stormy grey eyes but the shape still looked the same as Ashton’s eye shape. Second, the boy’s name on the screen was Joel Ashton McKenzie but Ashton said his full name was Ashton Turner.

I wrote down all the observations that I got on my notepad, even the things I wasn’t sure about. I knew that as time went by, I’d figure them all out and see whether it’s true or not. I logged off the computer and went over to where my dad was.

“Hey dad”, I said.

“Hi honey. How was school?” he asked while working.

“Same as always, but we have a new student in our class” I told him.

“That’s nice. Boy or girl?”

“Boy.”

“Oh ok. Let me just finish up with this and then I’ll attend to you in a sec.”

“Sure thing. I’ll just get upstairs to my room.”

“Okay”, he called out while I was walking away.

I went into my room and sat on the bed. The bed in my room was something that I used as a prop because I didn’t sleep on it. On the far end of my room, there’s a small part in the wall that served as a mirror. It only hid the main structure of a built-in capsule. It was made of highly fibrenated glass which was unbreakable by mere humans or even by gunshots. This was the capsule that served as my sleeping room since I wasn’t a mere human anymore.

When I was born, my mum immediately died after giving birth to me. The doctors said I wasn’t a normal baby and tried to diagnose me with different kinds of medication but I didn’t change. Although I was perfectly healthy and strong, my heartbeat rate was faster than normal. My dad took me home and had a stay-in nanny who took care of me. I grew up under the care of my dad and my nanny until I got to the age of five, when my nanny retired to go stay with her own family. That’s when my dad started to note the changes in my behaviour.

Whenever I got very happy my eyes would change colour, from brown to sky blue, and I would tremble terribly like I’d been Taser-ed. Whenever I got very angry, my eyes would change colour, from brown to bright red, and my body would heat up in such a way that I’d be untouchable because a person would surely get burnt when touching me. Sometimes my dad would think about something and I would answer a question in his mind like he said it out loud. That’s when we got to know that I could read minds. He found all this pretty strange and since he was already a scientist, he started researching more on how he could help me.

As time went by, these powers overpowered me and made me very weak. I couldn’t do anything anymore and I’d collapse a lot. One day, when I was in the bathroom, the water in the bathtub began boiling around me and I couldn’t stop the heat radiating from my body. Suddenly my whole body was on fire and my eyes were really red. I called out to my dad and he quickly came to the room. He couldn’t help me because I was very hot for him to get me out.

“Stop the radiation through your mind, Lina!” he shouted.

“I can’t! I’m trying but I can’t!” I shouted back.

Suddenly, I felt really worn out and sore from the inside. I let go of myself and the whole thing stopped, including my own heartbeat.

My dad took me to his lab and tended to me immediately in his own scientific way. He changed a little bit of me and inserted chips in my body that contained the strength and willpower to all those powers that I had. He made me a new person who could live with superpowers and learn how to control them. He made me a superhuman.