The Devil Within

Chapter 2

"Hey," a soft voice called.

I turned. Melanie was leaning against the gate, the breeze blowing softly at her golden brown hair. Today she's wearing a purple top, matched with a denim skirt and white sneakers. Simple and sweet.

"Hey yourself."

"What's wrong? You look like you got hit by a truck."

"What a nice thing to say on this lovely morning," I said sarcastically. We walk side by side on the pathway quietly.

Melanie is a popular girl at our college, not just because she is pretty, she's really smart too. The good thing about her is that she doesn't care if she's pretty or smart, she never really tried too hard to be like that. She's also my neighbor, which explains why she was outside my gate. 

We walked to the stop where we wait for the bus to school. A few people were staring at us, or Melanie, more likely. She doesn't notice.

I almost laughed at one guy's attempt to peek over his girlfriend's shoulders to look at her. 

"What are you thinking?"

"Huh?" I look to Melanie. Her face was awfully close to mine. She is looking at my face intently, so intently that I think I would blush.

"Nothing," I replied casually and shrug. First of all, people don't go around saying that they come from a family of power-users. Secondly, guys absolutely do not talk their little inferiority complex from not being a power user in their family. Needless to say, I can only try my best to not let the little episode earlier affect me. Its not something that I can talk about to anyone. 

"You can tell me if there's something bothering you, you know," she said, as if she read my mind.

I turn my gaze to the dirt path beneath my feet. "Nothing's wrong, why would you think that?"

"You'll always keep everything to yourself in that thick head of yours," she continued, playfully lacing her fingers through my hair.

I dodged when I see her other hand coming up to mess with my hair again. She pouted and looked up at me. "Lately, we haven't been talking much at all."

I flinched a little at those honest, beautiful hazel eyes. I remembered our very first meeting. She had just moved in with her parents next door shortly after Mom died. Dad took me and Austin over to greet our new neighbors. The Heartsworth's were new to Spring Falls, moving here when Melanie's father got a job posting. We hung out most of the time when we were kids, but somehow I got the feeling that her parents didn't like me around. That didn't stop Melanie from hanging out with me, but that was until high school. Because by then, everyone realised how beautiful she was. People wanted to befriend her. So I started to distance myself a little, not wanting to draw any attention to myself because of my family and because...I guess I was just gloomy by nature. I sucked at making small talk. It was hard for me to find a common topic with others.

"That's not true," I said, the lie weighing heavily on my chest.

I see the bus approaching and said, "Come on, it's here."

She muttered the word smooth before she climbed the steps to the bus. A guy scooted to the inner seat and made a gentlemanly gesture for Melanie to sit. The guy had a look of victory on his face when Melanie said her thanks, but narrowed his eyes at me when Melanie turns to me and smiled at her 'good luck'.

"So what are you doing after school today?" Melanie asks. "The same," I said without thinking. She knows that I've been struggling to get my biology report ready for submission, so she didn't ask for the details. Somedays, we both wonder how I got this far in my education. She must've done hers eons ago.

"So when are you going to make the lemon tart that you promised?" 

I laughed. "And that's all you can think of? Sweets? I swear you got a....." 

My voice trailed off abruptly. Something was  beginning to sound in my head. 

I heard Melanie asking "I got a what?", but her voice was drowned out by the sound of  reverberating waves in my head. 

The guy beside me was practically glaring at me for ignoring her, but I didn't care. I was...dizzy, and I wasn't sure if it was due to the bus rocking back and forth on the bumpy road. It took all of my effort to hold the metal handle firmly because my knees were on the verge of buckling. The woozy feeling was similar to the one I felt this morning. All the voices in the bus dimmed out, and my surroundings became a blur. I could see that Melanie's lips were moving but I couldn't make out what she was saying. It was as if time has slowed down and I was the only one stuck in between, neither in the past or present. There was a strange stirring within me I couldn't identify.

There. A small voice sounded, like a ripple in the silence.

Like a formless finger, the voice directed my gaze to the traffic junction, where a guy was standing. He seemed...familiar but I couldn't put a finger as to where I might have seen him before, but it seemed pretty obvious he was a truant, dressed in all black and obviously not heading to school. He was tall and looked like a body builder. It was weird how alarm bells were ringing in my head even though I don't know who that guy was.

The bus slowly started moving again, jolting me back into the present with a huge force. I would've fell on my butt if it hadn't been for Melanie's firm grip on my arm. Firm grip on my arm... I looked at Melanie's hands on mine and my heart skipped a little. Everyone's eyes were boring holes into me with a mix of envy and fury.

"Are you alright?" she asked, her face full of concern.

"Yeah I'm fine," I lied. I looked back at the traffic juncture but he was gone. And so were the alarm bells in my head.

I pulled my arm back and gave a reassuring nod.  Under the watchful gazes of the other people on the bus, I lowered my head and pushed my glasses up. 

"Just a little anemic," I said.

Melanie looked doubtful but she nodded. After that, she insisted that I hand my bag over to her, and my pride just crumbled more on the spot. There's nothing in this world that won't go her way, so I lowered my head more throughout the bus ride, glad that Melanie didn't insist I take her seat. That would have been so uncool.

"I got a what?" Melanie pressed after we alighted.

"Huh? Oh..." I recalled our conversation on lemon tarts. "the appetite of a bear"

Her brows furrowed cutely.