Lizzie Chivers (pretendreality) wrote in genome_project, @ 2010-04-18 20:19:00 |
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Current mood: | distressed |
Who: Lizzie
What: On her way home from school, Lizzie's powers (finally) manifest for the first time.
When: Monday (19th) after school
Where: Streets along Lizzie's walk home
Rated: PG-13
Status: Closed and complete
Lizzie’s walk home from school wasn’t too long, but when the weather was warm like this and she didn’t have a drink. She’d forgotten to refill her water bottle at school and it mocked her with its emptiness.
She pushed her hair back over her shoulder and adjusted the way that her bag was sitting on her shoulders. It felt heavy, her shoulders hurt and she just wanted to be home already. She kind of wished she’d gotten on the bus, but she didn’t want to waste the weather. Now she was totally regretting that idea.
She was distracted, of course she was distracted. Things were going wrong in her friend's life, her brother had been feeling off what with his lack of caffeine and she was just worried about everyone. She'd been so distracted that she'd managed to land herself with a detention from her biology teacher, the first detention she'd ever had.
There were a few people walking down the street, someone nearly knocking into her; a man in a suit holding a cup of coffee. She narrowed her eyes at him. He should really be watching where he was going, he could have spilt that drink on her. That would have hurt.
Her mind wandered, thinking about the fact that she could have been drinking water right now. It wasn’t exciting, but she was thirsty and the more she thought about what she could have to drink, the more her mouth watered. She had no change on her otherwise she would have dropped into the store and grabbed something to drink, like a lemonade or a cola, but as it was she had to wait until she got home. It was almost enough to make her speed up.
Her nose wrinkled as she saw someone else with a drink and she blew out a breath, it wasn’t fair. All she wanted was a cool glass of water, or a tall glass of an ice-cream soda. She hated it when the universe did that to her; tempting her with something she couldn’t have.
She could almost imagine how it would feel if she had a drink in her hand. Her feet stilled and her eyes kind of unfocused, something in her chest jumping and lurching. She felt like she had stepped into something else, somewhere else. A few moments later, she felt the weight of a glass in her hand. She looked down at it, feeling the cool condensation against her palm, the straw slightly wet at the end from where she would have taken a sip. She flexed her fingers around it and knew instinctively how it would taste.
When the first splash of cold soda hit her lips she felt her thirst instantly quenched and tipped her head back to finish it off in several long swallows. Halfway through drinking it, she felt something lurch inside her stomach again, like she was expelled and pushed out of her daydream and into herself again, just in time to see the man that had nearly walked into her cry out in agony, dropping the hot coffee that he’d just downed in one go as if it were... as if it were a tall glass of lemonade.
Panic rippled through her for a second before she dismissed it. Don’t be ridiculous she chastised herself, it couldn’t have been her, that was ridiculous. She didn’t have any powers. She ran over, as did a couple of people.
“What happened?” a young man asked, and Lizzie felt her stomach lurch again as she heard what had happened.
“I don’t know, he just looked dreamy for a second before he took the lid off his coffee and drank it all.”
“Was lemonade,” the man croaked, voice raw and quiet and Lizzie gasped, fingers fisting in the strap of her bag.
“No, man, it was coffee,” someone else said, crouching down beside him and lifting the empty cup. It was still warm -- hot. “Someone call an ambulance.”
She backed up a couple of steps and shook her head, feeling guilt and panic warring for first place inside her stomach as she grasped for her cell phone and turned on her heel, running home.
Lizzie didn’t stop until her feet hit the carpet of her bedroom. She slammed the door shut and leaned back against it, squeezing her eyes shut and sliding down the wood until her butt hit the floor. Her bag was tossed to the side and she hugged her knees against her chest. What had she done?