Vilde was having a very unfortunate morning, but this was not her average unfortunate morning caused by her general hatred of mornings. This misfortune was caused by a shitty nightmare of a rift opening next door to her high school and having a panic attack in front of her crush. In addition, the dream was not yet over as she had just awoken into another dream. She knew this was another dream because when she had put on her glasses and stared into her dresser mirror, glowing violet eyes stared back.

“Ouch,” my arm stung as I pinched it. That was odd.

I threw on my pink hoodie and some black jeans. After getting dressed, I grabbed my cane and got out of my room, only pinching myself a few more times along the way. My eyes were no longer glowing but still bright violet so I had decided to wait out this dream by continuing my morning routine. The only other possibility was the slim chance I had awakened a power that also altered my appearance, but awakening a power required snapping due to an at least somewhat traumatic event. I hadn’t experienced anything like that unless you counted the nightmare, which I weirdly remembered in vivid detail, and I’m mostly sure snapping didn’t work like that.

“Rise and shine,” Pa called from where he stood in front of the stove.

“Good morning Pa,” I reply, flopping down on one of the bar stools and pulling out my phone. Everything I saw surprisingly made sense, from the time and date to the news article about some supers doing supery things. That was concerning for my hope of this being a dream. Maybe I wasn’t dreaming, just hallucinating?

“Here you go,” Pa said, placing a plate of fried eggs on toast on the bar next to me.

I thanked him and grabbed my fork to start eating but stopped when he physically did a double take and stared at me in the eyes.

“Wat de fok!”

Afrikaans, that can’t be good.

“What?” I return in as calm a voice as I can manage while starving with a plate of food in front of me.

“Your eyes, their… purple?”

“Oh shit,” If he noticed, then maybe this isn’t a hallucination either.

“Watch your language, young lady.”

“You just swore like three seconds ago.”

“Touche.”

“I’m more concerned with the fact that this isn’t a dream or hallucination. What the hell is going on?” I say, trying to keep an edge of desperation from seeping in.

“I don’t know sweetie, um… did you notice anything weird? Like… floating? Maybe lifting or breaking things too easily? Moving things with your mind? Walking more easily?” the hint of hope in that last one felt like a crushing weight on my chest.

“No,” I muttered, staring down at the rapidly cooling eggs.

“Huh, um… well, I don’t exactly know what to say, but maybe this will be really great for you! My own daughter, a super! Imagine it, the Mighty Vilde!”

“Who knows, maybe my power is just having weird glowing eyes,” I said with a healthy dose of sarcasm.

“Glowing?”

“Oh, I guess they did stop glowing. When I first woke up, they were glowing, I just didn’t think that any of it was real.”

“Fascinating. Well, after school, we should really go down to the local clinic and see what they say about it. Just don’t worry too much honey.”

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“Damn, school. Can’t I just stay home?”

“As the best Dad ever, I wish I could say yes, but you have that stats test today, don’t you?”

Shit, I have not studied enough for that. “Maybe I could just make it up later?”

“I’m sorry, but no. We’ll have to figure this out later this evening. It’ll be alright Vilde. Hurry up now sweetie, the bus will be here soon.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

My hood and glasses were enough to hide my eyes from being noticed for the perilous duration of the bus ride, but that changed once the bus rattled its way into the parking lot of my school, late, of course. Stepping off the supposedly not a safety hazard bus, I saw them, Abigail Russell and her cronies. Fortunately, they were somewhat of a distance away. If I was lucky, they shouldn’t see me on my way to first period.

“Check it, the lame giraffe is here!” shouted one of the cronies. Jessica maybe?

Damndamndamn…

I tried to speed up my lacklustre pace with only marginal success. I wish I could still run.

Abby subtly kicked out the bottom of my cane. Since she discovered that I wouldn’t automatically eat dirt when she did that, kicking my cane had become her favourite ‘conversation starter’. It was one of the most annoying things she could do without the consequences of actually tripping the disabled kid.

Abby was unapologetically a self-righteous asshole. She thought that because she had money, smarts, and powers, she was just better than everyone else. Unfortunately, because the universe is not fair in the slightest, she was also the prettiest girl in our grade.

I would never admit it, but I had a crush on the bitch until most of the way through sophomore year when she had awakened and started lording her powers over everyone else. I was immune from her superiority complex for a while, at least. Apparently, as an athlete, I had some kind of worth in her eyes, but once I wrecked my knee, I became just another target.

“Whoa. What’s with the eyes? Contacts? I highly doubt you, of all people, got powers?” Abby taunted.

“Dunno, just woke up like this,” I said, trying to brush her off and continue walking towards class.

“You saying you awakened? Do you think you have powers? How about you prove it? Show me,” she said while blocking my path.

“I don’t have any powers,” I replied, walking around her.

“So you’re just a weirdo with contacts, huh? Though, even if you had powers, you’d still be useless. I guess there’s no point even trying to compare you to me”

I ignored them and continued walking as the bell rang. The bell forced the princess and her snickering sycophants to give up on me to make it to class on time. I offered a silent thanks to the rickety bus for running late and a curse for the retreating girl still laughing about me. Suddenly, I saw a brief flash of violet light glinting off the lenses of my glasses.

“FUCK!” Abby shouted, interrupting my confusion over the light.

I turned around just in time to see Abby collecting herself off the floor and cradling her wrist. It seemed as though she tripped over fresh air and subsequently took quite the tumble to the dismay of her followers.

Serves you right, I thought as I walked into the statistics classroom. In big letters, the whiteboard read ‘Test on Chapter 12 and New Seating Chart.’ Ek is opgefok.

I sighed as I glanced across the projected seating chart. I finally found my name on the far right of the second row: ‘Vilde Söderberg.’ Though maybe this day wouldn’t be so bad, I smiled as I read the name immediately to the left of mine, ‘Robin Grant.’

I tried to dust off the non-existent lint from my hot pink hoodie to appear even moderately as good as Robin. They wore white and black platform boots, a longer black skirt with a matching pinstripe blouse, a blue corduroy jacket, and a yellow beanie with their short black curls just visible below.

*Hello. How are you?* I signed before I dropped my backpack and sat down.

Their hands flashed through a few various signs in response. Despite them slowing down for me, I only caught the word *fine.* Though I did notice their nails were coloured blue and yellow to match their outfit.

“Sorry, I didn’t really catch that,” I replied in English, resigned to my incompetence.

“It’s fine, I can hear well enough with these. You don’t have to sign,” they said giggling and pointing to their hearing aids. Their chocolate-coloured smile and golden-brown eyes threatened to stop my heart.

“But I still want to try and learn!” I said, unsuccessfully attempting to not be awkward.

“OK, I’d be happy to help you practice if you ever want.”

“Really! Thank you, I’d love that.”

Thankfully, our teacher, Mr. Stokes, saved me from putting my foot in my mouth anymore by telling the class to quiet down as he began handing out the tests.

I grimaced at the thought of this test. It wasn't like I was that bad of a student. I didn't have a terrible grade in the class either. I just was not prepared for this test.

Then the rift sirens went off. The loud noise made me jump. A rift drill. This could be great, maybe, just maybe, the drill would push the test out to another day. I had gotten seriously lucky. Nothing could get me down after this.

Then the loudspeakers crackled to life.

“THIS IS NOT A DRILL. A RIFT IS FORMING NEARBY. I REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL. A RIFT IS FORMING NEARBY. REPORT TO THE NEAREST SHELTER…”