Glacial

Chapter 3

As the days passed, I discovered the things I could do. I continued training at the alley and it finally started to pay off. Turns out the loathe I felt for Kathrine was more than enough to motivate me, and that hatred was the fuel of my magic, the fuel of my power, and I had immense power in me, 

However, it was unstable and I discovered it in the worst way possible. I couldn't control it or use it whenever I wished to. It just happened.  That unpredictability didn't change the fact that it was awesome, but that one day it scared me a lot. 

It was the day when I realized the true power of my gift, that I had the ability to change things.
From that time onwards I stopped fear... or better said froze.

By that point, I had gotten used to me creating crystallized snowflakes and icy wind around me. To light flames in my hands and to keep my body temperature cool in warm rooms. I felt my power growing stronger, and what happened that day was a result of that growth. It was bigger, it was important and completely out of my league.

I woke up feeling weird. There was something in my stomach that was vibrating through my whole body and made me nauseous. My hands were covered in a thin layer of ice that I couldn't get rid of and my breath was exiting my nose as icy mist. I couldn't go to school like that, but I also couldn't stay in my bedroom. What was I going to say to Mary? How could've I explain the fog that filled the room and my beyond cold temperature that was not normal for a typical human being? I searched the drawers of my little table and fortunately, I found a pair of gloves to hide my hands and a large grey scarf to cover my nose and more importantly my breath.

"You're finally cold?" Kathrine asked me with that shade of irony that drove me crazy in her voice when she saw me. She was referring to me wearing short-sleeved t-shirts outside in the freezing weather, under the snow, and not being bothered at all. It was the only thing that Kathrine seemed to be jealous of. She outright detested the cold and I enjoyed watching her struggle with it every morning. But it was my turn to struggle. Those clothes were way too warm. I felt like I was about to melt at any given point. Especially on the bus, with the heating turned on. I got desperate at the thought that I had to survive like that all day long. But my clothes weren't the actual problem after all, but rather the cause...

First hour I had French, with the most weird and prickle professor. Monsieur Cyril was really tall and incredibly thin. His voice was always calm, dull and quiet and his face emotionless, with shades of irony and pity when he was regarding me. Except when he was reading poetry. Then he became an entirely different person. His voice was playing with the words and his mask was being colored by so many shades and emotions. That day he was his usual severe self. He never really paid attention to me, but that time he did.

"Monsieur Alex?" He spoke to me and I turned to look at him surprised.
"We don't wear scarves and gloves in the class."
Panic started to fill me, especially while under his judgmental gaze. I didn't know what to do. I was just starring at him thinking, a blank expression on my face.

"Monsieur Alex?" He said again and raised the tone of his voice. I closed my eyes as hard as I could, hoping that something would happen. And something did happen.
"Will you..."

He stopped his sentence so suddenly, that it made me open my eyes. He, stopped so suddenly. He wasn't moving, his hand floating in the air. The only thing that moved was his belly, as an indication of him breathing.
I looked around me. Everyone was frozen. Some were laughing. Some were writing. Some were looking at my direction. I stood up wondering what had happened, what I had done. I was shaking my head in disbelief and it was then when I noticed the clock.
The same clock that irritated me with its tick-tock didn't tick anymore. It was frozen as well, as if time was frozen...