Time Warped

Chapter 1

I guess you could say that I had an ordinary life; waking up at 6:30 in the morning and then going to school. I'm basically your average teenager; school sucks and I wish I could drop out.

I wouldn't even consider myself even near the "jock type" in my high school. I'm just one of those typical teenagers that get bullied by the popular guys.

Sure it's sad, but I'm used to it. Being teased and smashed into lockers and trash cans is just a normal day for me. I hate it, but yet I can't avoid it. Trying to avoid Shaun Connors and his posse is like trying to avoid a tsunami. You can't. It's physically impossible, unless you get to higher ground; but... Well, you get my point. Back to the story.

I've had my power for as long as I could remember, back when I was six. It surprised me one day when I suddenly saw my brother coming at me in slow motion not purposefully. Training my power and figuring out what I was capable of was difficult at first, but it was like ice skating for the first time. You try and try again, even if you fall down, and eventually, you glide across the ice without the help of the wall.

I had to figure out all by myself, and yet there was nobody to help push me along, or give me encouraging words to tell me that I'm doing it right. Heck, I don't even know if I do it right sometimes, but it all turns out good after I use my powers.

Have I told anyone? The answer: no. Reason: nobody has ever asked me. I mean, I'm a shy guy. Who can blame me? It's just my personality. I'm not the one to show everyone what I got for Christmas or go around showing off new shoes. Sure it freaked me out, but I kept to myself and life is fine.

I take that back. Not everything is fine. Dad had mysteriously disappeared on a business trip just last year, along with two of his co-workers, leaving Mom with three boys to take care of on her own.

His last words to me were, "When I get back, we'll be living like kings."

We're not necessarily poor, but we run out of money a lot because Dad takes a lot of money for his job and leaves us with the spare money he doesn't use.

Dad never talked about his job. He just claimed that he was a human biologist. He never had time to eat meals with us, or even go outside for a minute or two to throw a baseball around. It was always, "Sorry, I'm going to be late for work!" or "I'll do it when I get home."

Even if he promised he would do something, his work would always get in the way. Stacks of books lined his bedroom, piled about his desk, and took up most of the bookshelves in the house. Knowing Dad as being a super geek, he probably read all of them cover to back at least three times each. That's pretty impressive, right?

Trying to figure out what Dad does for his job was like itching a mosquito bite. It gets worse every time you scratch it; or in my case, my curiosity grew bigger every time I would find something out about his work. He always had small test tubes in his room filled with various shades of color, he used important science words such as 'hypothetically', 'variable', etc. and he owned two lab coats. My first guess was a doctor, but he never smelled like a doctor's office or the hospital.

As I said before, Dad mysteriously disappeared on a business trip along with two other people, including Kasey Riley's dad. The plane had crashed just fifteen miles from a small town in New York. Search parties were sent out to find survivors, but no evidence even claimed that three other passengers were there. Seven people were found alive, but only five made it to the hospital alive.

A short funeral for the people that died on the plane occurred a week later. Candles lined window shops, and most of all, a whole group of candles were laid at Dad's and Mr. Riley's grave site. During that time, Kasey and I had gotten closer mainly because we had both lost our dads. It was the most any girl had ever spoken to me, excluding my Mom, and someone I could actually determine as a friend. Mom tried to hide her grief but at times I could hear her crying in the middle of the night.