Snippet #1242917

It didn’t take long for Altan’s mind to wander away from his note taking – in fact, the teacher hadn’t even started lecture yet. Instead, he played with the idea of ditching his last class. The instructors were frustrated with him to no end, thinking that the lack of control over his power was simply him being lazy. He personally thought that they were full of themselves and hubris would be their downfall, thinking they could fix or control everything. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the girl beside him put her fingers to her temples, as if to stave off a headache. If he remembered correctly, she was an empath and sometimes being around people got to be too much for her. He scribbled a note and passed it to her just as she let out a whimper: Leave if you need to. Who cares about cell walls anyways?

A bright light exploded behind his eyes and he gasped, grabbing at his face and forehead as the pain intensified. It felt like a knife was slowly being driven into the side of his head – a migraine but a million times worse. The girl beside him was writhing but making no sound. Screaming started around him, and it wasn’t until his throat was raw that he realized he was one of the voices. His butterflies danced along the ceiling, more agitated than he had ever seen them. One exploded in a flash of brilliant light, leaving those who witnessed it blind as if they had been staring at the sun. Acid blood splattered on the students unfortunately placed under the butterfly, and then it was just a cacophony of screams, shouts, chairs being pushed back and toppled over, explosions, odd ‘whooshing’ sounds that Altan couldn’t place. The teacher was shouting for order and trying to herd the students outside. In the doorway he paused to look back at Altan and the other three students on the floor, still screaming and crying, then stepped out and closed the door gently behind him.

Altan awoke with a throbbing inside his head, like a night after drinking too much. He rolled over and reached up to pull his pillow over his face only to find that there was no pillow. He slit one eye open and his heart skipped a beat, much like it does when you miss a step on the stairs. Painfully he opened both eyes, seeing only white walls and ceilings. A girl he didn’t know was lying across from him on a type of gurney, wearing a hospital dress with bandages around her head. They were stained red, but it didn’t look like it was still bleeding. He assumed he was in a similar condition and after a moment of focusing he realized that he was, in fact, wearing a dress.