1. Sixteen

On my sixteenth birthday, I woke up from a vivid dream.

And for the life of me, I couldn’t recall what it was about.

In a stupor of drunken drowsiness, I rolled over to face the open bedroom window, just as the last remnants of the liquid dream slipped through my fingers. Only a faint shadow on the wall remained, ingrained on the side of my mind. A slight shiver rolled through my bones.

I blinked my eyes a few times, adjusting to the early morning twilight dimming the sky. A strange tickle coursed from my crown to my toes, a weightless feeling. I winced, unable to move my head from the pillow. Vines of dark hair obscured portions of my vision, and I brushed them away to see clearly. The San Diego sky was a mixture of hues from light blue to fiery orange with a touch of soft pink. The trees in the front and side yards were black against the colors, rustled as a nice, cool breeze drifted through them and the window. It was gentle against my skin. As the sun crept higher in the sky, the pink dissolved into the orange, then into the blue, until the entire sky was a subtle gray color.

Down the hall, a door opened, then shut. Footsteps crossed the carpet to the bathroom, which also opened and then closed. Moments later, the pipes in the walls screeched as hot water turned on, and shower curtains scraped across a shower rod. Father was awake.

Sitting up was difficult to accomplish. My muscled ached in unusual places, like I endured a rigorous workout the night before. But I still managed to do it. I saw into the side yard under the window that separated the two houses, a wooden fence dividing the land in two. I lifted my eyes and saw the neighbor boy’s bedroom window, the light turned on behind the closed blue curtains. I smiled shyly, hiding my face behind my hair, and turned away.

Moving felt odd. My body was sore, each muscle twitching with electricity, nerves on end. I couldn’t discern if this was my body or someone else’s. After all, my mind was trying to reject something that looked familiar. The smooth pale skin on my knuckles, the clipped nails, my arms throwing off the blankets and my legs swinging out of bed—they hurt so much when I moved. Despite the pain, they felt stronger, my body felt lighter, and there was a fluidity in my movements I didn’t recognize. Like a dancing motion. I didn’t know my body could move so fast, and so gracefully. Before I knew it, I was standing in front of my dresser, staring into the vanity mirror like a perplexed doll.

I nearly looked like one.

A fresh faced sixteen-year-old girl stared back at me, her full red lips parted in confusion, her wide gray eyes transfixed in a daze, her waist-length black hair in a tangled knots at the end. I could vaguely remember that less than three months ago the ends met my chin, now at my waist. To verify that this was me, I turned my torso halfway to look at my bare shoulder and see three scratch-like scars deadcenter on my shoulder blade. Yes, that was me, and this is my body. But why did I look so different?

I had to stop for a moment. Closing my eyes and taking three deep breaths, I blocked out all thoughts and nonsense in my mind, and focused. All my other senses heightened once I turned off my vision—the sense that deceives most often. The sense that I focused on, instead, was my hearing.

The average human listened with their ears, and I was no different. Only my sense of hearing was sharper and more defined than the average human. From where I stood in the middle of my room, I could hear the streams of water pouring out from the shower head and splashing against the tile wall and the floor. Father shifted his weight, his skin sticking to the floor, I heard it stretch and him hiss under his breath. Outside the house, a series of alarm clocks went off, some further than the two close by. A mower sputtered to life, with some frustration, and its owner swore loudly. A thudding rhythm pounded away, muffled by walls, with a voice shouting angrily to the beat. Then a series of passing cars, tires rubbing against the pavement….

Average humans, though, couldn’t hear with their minds. Like I could, and the rest of my family. An ability we are born with, we hear the thoughts and emotions of others, which sound like a flurry of voices in a packed theater and just require a bit more focus to pick one to listen. It wasn’t hard to do. Even now I could hear the thoughts of my neighbors, some stuck in that slumber phase where the mind babbles on with no sensible connection. But it was one voice I was looking for. I could recognize it clearly in the crowd, even a mile away.

“Shit, I have to drop this off this morning. Crap….”

A smile played on my lips. If only he knew that his thoughts were not so private, but maybe that said more about me not giving him it.

The shower turned off, the curtains opened, and Father stepped out. This snapped me back.

It was sinking in. This was my birthday. My sixteenth birthday. While normal girls ask for extravagant parties, lavish gifts, fancy cars, and designer clothes, the only thing I ever requested was for SDPD father to get an early shift—a request he was happy to fulfill. In fact, he handled it with his Chief so that he had the day off. So I was surprised he wasn’t sleeping in.

I took the time I had left to get ready for school, shedding off my night clothes and wriggling into a black tanktop, high-waisted shorts, and a denim jacket. Mildly impressed at how fast I untangled my hair and brought it back into a messy ponytail, I turned around to take a quick look at my reflection.

Something flashed across the glass. Something bright, and red.

Where my eyes were. I froze.

What did I just see?