I blinked a couple of times.

“Did I hear that right? I’m supposed to come with you? Why?”

I felt my tail twitch nervously.

“We take all mutants with powers to the closest police station for safekeeping. For your safety and ours.” The man said bluntly. Mutants… That word left a nasty taste in my mouth.

“If I have to… Can my friends come with me?”

The officer shook his head.

“Unfortunately no. But we can promise, you will be back home by tomorrow. We need to make sure, you and your… kin… don’t pose any threat to the city.”

I snorted. “That is bullshit and you know it. Fine. I’ll come with you.”

Reluctantly, I turned around to see all my friends standing behind me frowning and scowling.

“Let’s meet tomorrow for lunch. Back here, okay?”

While Damian nodded, Natalie and especially Melody still looked worried.

“I’ll be fine, okay? The police will be there at all times. I’m safe.” I tried to assure them. It probably didn’t work and they would still be worried until they saw me again.

Slinking out the door I followed the two officers to their car. To be honest, I would have guessed they had a bus around somewhere to collect the transformed people instead of moving them one by one in a car. The woman got into the driver’s seat, while I was ordered to sit in the back, the male officer sitting beside me, watching me carefully.

“Police radio’s calling you people ‘Emerged’ and this event an ‘Emergence’.” He said after a while.

I tried to laugh a bit, but the atmosphere in the car wasn’t particularly good and it kind of got stuck in my throat.

‘My people’ have a name now, great. Took them only six hours to figure that out.

I played with my tail, growing more bored by the minute. However, something was off. It was deep in the night at this point, though with my enhanced senses, I could see a lot better than I used to.

And I did not see buildings. Halifax wasn’t a big city, sure, but, I was certain, the police station wasn’t out in the woods.

“Officers… where are we going?”

My voice seemed to quiver. Fuck, I had absolutely no poker face anymore.

I saw the male officer motion something to the woman and less than a minute later, they pulled up into some sort of camping ground parking lot.

“Out! Now!”

The man ordered and shoved me hard towards the opening door.

I tumbled, landing roughly on the gravel ground.

“Ow… What’s the deal?!” I yelled rubbing my face, which felt like it has at least been slightly bruised.

Behind me, the man exited the car, his feet falling heavily into the gravel. Starting to get a bit panicked, I scrambled into a sitting position.

“What the hell?! I thought the police existed to protect and serve!”

His eyes burned holes into me and his face warped into a grimace of disgust.

“The reckoning has begun. We have to cleanse the beasts before they sully the human race.”

I felt my eyes bulge out and terror gripped my tiny heart.

“C-cleanse?” I squeaked out.

A clicking sound came from the man. Gods above! A handgun was pointed right at me!

“Please…! Why are you doing this?! I am not a threat to you, to anybody!” I whimpered.

“It isn’t about threats. You and your disgusting ilk are going to destroy the human race. We have waited for years for this day. And now, finally, you come out of your shadows and show your faces! Just know, beast, you will have died for a noble cause. Humanity will survive.”

Before I could reply, it felt as if time froze. I sensed something else. The humidity around the man’s gun suddenly dropped immensely. He had fired. I had precisely 50 milliseconds to dodge the bullet which I wouldn’t. So, I reacted.

When time returned to normal, I could see a chunk of ice on the ground and my chest surprisingly without a hole.

I scrambled to my feet, with my size not very intimidating at all.

But I scowled anyway, beads of sweat forming on my forehead.

The man stared at the encased bullet for at least a minute when, from the car, the police radio was engaged.

“This is cruiser 339, we need assistance. We have a violent white fox girl here with ice powers. We will try to subdue, but will use lethal force as self-defence if necessary.”

“LIARS!” I screamed, my voice hoarse. crackly, and full of anger.

“What are you fucking doing, Fred? Just kill it already!” The woman shouted from inside the car, getting ready to exit it as well.

I had to end it now, I wasn’t sure I could avoid two bullets at the same time

With a whispered, “I’m sorry…” I concentrated and found a flow of humid air fitting for the task.

In almost an instant, the air around the man Fred froze entombing him in a person-sized block of ice forever preserving the face of hatred for the afterworld.

I breathed heavily.

“Fred! You monster! You will pay for this!”

Bullet after bullet rushed towards me, somehow I could catch them. But I grew more and more tired.

I couldn’t wear out the woman’s ammo supply before I would faint… and die.

I rolled to the ground, my wall of ice following me down, splinters of ice flying everywhere as bullets one by one impacted it and I had to fill the holes made by them every time.

For some reason, I could see through my ice wall. I’ll take it.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Steady breaths, Skyla, this was going to be hard.

Punching the top of my wall, several spikes of ice launched at the woman with great speed. I didn’t want to look as I heard the surprised shriek of pain. Please, please… I don’t want to do this…I felt my eyes start to water.

Not now, not now. Later. Now, I have to survive. One final shard of ice caused the shrieks to go silent, except for a gut-wrenching gurgling sound. I couldn’t look.

I ran. Away, I just had to get away. I needed to survive. Where to? Right now, I didn’t know. I just ran through the forest. It was cold and dark, I tripped at least twenty times in my mad dash. I didn’t think, I couldn’t think, I wouldn’t think. After something that felt like at least fifteen minutes of pure flight, I collapsed against a tree and broke down into tears.

Everything that happened came back to me. Two police officers just wanted to kill me… and I killed them instead. I had killed two people. Me. With my new powers. I stared at my tiny new hands… blood sprang up and covered them, trailing down my arm.

In a panic, I tried to swat away the blood from my hands, but it didn’t leave. It didn’t leave!

“No! No! I don’t…! I am not…!” I couldn’t form coherent sentences nor could I think properly.

The blood crept up my arm, engulfed my shoulder, down my chest and stomach, but also up my neck. I was going to drown.

The blood reached my mouth and I could taste iron, it filled my nose, my eyes, everything was red, I couldn’t breathe anymore. I was going to drown.

I snapped awake gasping as if I had just come up for air after diving. I was leaning against a tall tree. There was no blood, not on my hands, not on my face. There was no evidence on me of the terrible thing I had done.

My breath was shallow. What would I do now? The police were probably hunting me now, even though, the two officers I had killed were probably not even real officers. I mean, real officers wouldn’t attempt to kill an innocent girl, would they? Or…? Or were the police as rotten as everybody said they were? It couldn’t be, right? It just couldn’t. Yes, they must have been fake, no other explanation.

My breath slowly steadied. There was one place where I could find refuge.

I stood up and went to look for a road.

Even in the middle of the night, I started to spot familiar sights. I knew immediately where I was. To be fair, there weren’t many abandoned roads in the area near Halifax, so figuring out that I was near Otter Lake wasn’t too hard a task, especially with the landfill that lay in front of me. I just had to walk a long while and hide as much as possible. I followed the road but hid in the bushes and trees on the side of the road. I was probably being hunted right now. Nobody should see me. A hint of fear snuck into my head, but I managed to suppress it.

Sure enough, a while later, I didn’t know how long, I could see an ambulance roll down the road.

I gulped. No, Skyla. Focus. First, get to safety.

It started to slowly lighten up outside. There was a distinct possibility that I could only notice it, though, because of my enhanced vision. I stood in the backyard of a house. There was only one way I could get in, to safety. Carefully, I climbed up the structure until I reached a window on the second floor. I knew it would be, despite the cold outside, slightly ajar, so I pushed myself through it.

The landing was not the softest I could have pulled off, but it didn’t matter, I was safe. The constricting feeling in my chest had vanished.

With a blinding flash the lights in the room turned on and I looked into the face of a familiar girl.

“J… Skyla?! What are you doing here… you look terrible!” I think I heard the voice of a goddess. Yes, that must be.

Something, no someone, grabbed me and lifted me up and sat me into a soft bed kneeling in front of me.

“Skyla? Please be all right!”

Melody shook me lightly and wrapped her arms around me. I didn’t even notice that I was crying. “Mel… I… I killed people…”

The hug ceased and I saw as she knelt down to look into my eyes. She was all blurry, though that came from the tears. “You did what?”

“The… the officers… they were trying to kill me… I didn’t know what to do… I... “

My sobs grew heavier, heaving as I tried telling Melody what happened.

“I killed them, Melody!” I yelled, my voice surprisingly clear, but that fixed itself immediately as I began crying anew.

Again, I felt the warmth of her body wrapping me in its embrace.

“You only acted in self-defence, right?”

Her hand went through my hair. It felt calming. Whimpering I nodded.

“They… they were trying to kill me. They said… I needed to be cleansed…”

Melody proceeded to stroke my hair. “They… said… I would destroy humanity… soil the blood.”

I felt Melody shake her head. “You’re not. They were radical racists. I have heard of a group like that. This event is surely a revelation for them.”

“He called it a reckoning...”

She stroked the tip of my ears and I noticed I was calming down significantly.

“Mhh. Those people are going to bring ruin to this country if they aren’t stopped.”

I couldn’t help but nod. “I shouldn’t have killed them, though.” I lamented again, my voice still quivering.

For that, I got a bap on the tip of my nose. “Stop that, Sky! You did what you had to do to survive. Nobody could blame you for that.”

“I do, though. I blame myself.”

Again, another bap on the nose. “Don’t. This world is crazy now. And…” I heard a sniffle. “And… I don’t know what I would have done if I had lost you…”

Oh no. I had only thought of myself this entire time and never thought of what others would feel like if the crazies had executed me. Melody would have been devastated.

I don’t think she would have survived another loss like that.

“Mel. I… I realized, I don’t just need to survive for myself. I need to survive for you, too.”

She gasped and broke into tears.

“When I saw you sitting there, all catatonic… It felt terrible, Sky. I don’t want you to die. I need you!”

Now, both of us were crying and hugging. It must have looked ridiculous from the outside, but it felt so good to be in my best friend’s arms crying about the terrible things that had happened to me tonight and how lucky I was to be still alive.

“Mel?” I asked once both of us had calmed down enough to talk sense again. “I need to stay hidden for a while. The police are probably looking for me. Can I stay with you for a while?”

“You’ll be my house fox?” Melody grinned mischievously. I pouted in response. “Hey, if I have to house you for a while, you gotta follow my rules and everything, yes? You will be my personal cuddle fox.”

She gave my hair another ruffle. I just couldn’t resist that. “Fine. I will. Just… don’t be a Lina, please.”

Melody chortled, and I felt my chest warm up at the sound. “Of course not, my little one.”

She took my head and buried it in her shoulder, her hand on the back of my head felt like a safety belt.

“You’re probably tired, right?” I nodded into her shoulder. “I still have an old pair of PJs lying around somewhere. They should fit you.”

She let me go and went to her closet digging around in it until she found purple pajamas holding them up for me to see. They were cute, though in a kid-like sense. Cartoon cats were printed on them doing all kinds of cute shit.

I took them and retreated into the bathroom to change clothes. Arriving there, I froze when I saw myself in the mirror. This time it wasn’t because of the unusual form of my body, but the shape my body was in. My pretty face was full of scratches, some had stopped bleeding not long ago. I trembled a little. The state of my body reminded me way too much of what had happened hours ago. I pushed the memories aside, growling a little, spotting cute little fangs in my mouth instead of my usual canines.

Tearing myself away from the mirror, I slipped off my clothes, except for the underwear, and into the pajamas.

When I returned to Melody’s bedroom, she fawned over me.

“Awww, Sky, you’re so adorable in them!”

I blushed. Sure, I had been calling myself cute ever since the storm happened, but coming from Melody, it meant a lot to me.

She softly patted her bed. “Come on, Sky. Let’s get you some rest, okay?”

I nodded and practically fell into the bed she had already prepared. It was soft. Very soft. It was heaven. Second heaven after being scritched behind the ears. But it was the best thing for me right now.

However, something warm closed in on me. I turned around and saw that Melody lay next to me… in bed…

“Mel…? What…?”

“Am I doing? Sleeping, silly. You woke me up way too early.”

“But… with me in bed with you?”

She smiled. “I don’t have anything else. You have to put up with that. The bed is big enough for both of us, I am sure.”

I saw her close her eyes, so I turned around. The warmth next to me was distracting at first, but the longer I was exposed to the presence of somebody next to me, the calmer I felt. It didn’t take long for me to fall asleep after that.