Finally, as if millions of tons had been lifted from Clarissa"s shoulders, The first half was over. She hadn"t let off her mood from her experience with Denero but Marie, thankfully stopped her before she did something she would regret when the millionaires" darling came home with a frown. Her and Clarissa stayed in their chairs, Marie wolfing the small sc.r.a.ps her mother had bought her with some of the fees she charged for every night. Clarissa could only afford small fruit and water or on days she wanted to reward herself, a single bar of chocolate and a can of soda for later"Clari, you need to calm yourself" Marie and her soft, french-adorned voice echoed through Clarissa. She sat on her chair, munching the banana as if there was no tomorrow.
"It"s kind of impossible. I don"t like being with these people at all. When you barely see the next plate of food on your table and you have someone who burns the millions of dollars in his fireplace just to keep himself warm, you already know how I"m feeling" she drooped her head as she fought demons in her mind
"Clari, look, you"re only going to hurt yourself even more if you let this linger in your head. This isn"t good for either of us. Lets just forget he exists"
Clarissa raised her head "I"ll do that proudly if he stops walking into my face every ten minutes"
"Hah....Yeah....I think I"d actually enjoy it if he didn"t do that"
"You think?" Clarissa chuckled as she threw the Banana peel across the empty cla.s.sroom into the trash can, landing a perfect shot.
The bell rung and Recess was over. Denero re-entered the cla.s.s, again attempting to show his cunning. Clarissa only shut her eyes to prevent her from choking him in his conceit. The day pa.s.sed by rather slowly. Each minute feeling as if a hour had pa.s.sed.
Finally an eternity had pa.s.sed and the final bell rung. The students, by nature, rushed out of the school as if a concentration camp had opened. Marie finished the last of her essay as the last child left. Clarissa still sat in wait for her, she wasn"t going to let herself go back alone, She needed to have someone beside her, should she lose herself.
"Okay, all done. Clari, lets go"
"Alright then." She spoke with few emotion and more as if she had just come from a vicious 12 hour shift. The two left the building, the sky still the steel grey color from morning, Marie lived some ways afar from Clarissa so she left her, giving her a hug before she did since she knew Clarissa wouldn"t hold on without some positive outlook. She was nearly surprised at how she was handling herself but knew her strength turns from Carbon steel to wet tissue in the blink of an eye.
While walking home, Clarissa came past the same buildings and shops where she would work part time before working with Marie and finally, becoming dependent on what she had acquired. The same park came by, where she sat alone and enjoyed the world around her. Sometimes she envied how nature can pa.s.s by so calmly and easily through any of its suppressors. When a tree is felled, a new one grows...but does it never feel pain? is it emotionless?
Thoughts kept racing through her head as she walked into the park, heading to the same bench where she spent her afternoons, She found the bench to be slightly wet but that didn"t stall her from taking a seat. She looked round, at the world that seemed to pa.s.s by as if she didn"t exist. She didn"t stick out nor did she blend in, a sort of white noise...heard yet unheard.
She noticed something blue on the ground. Something uncommonly blue. It was a little flower. She bent down and felt it"s petals, they were sleek and smooth like silken strings. The stem was a dark black and grey combination and the whole flower seemed to comprise of the two colors. She plucked it out of the ground. She wanted to make her own flower journal once and this was a good thing to have on the first page. She stuffed it into her pocket and stood up, returning to the journey home.
One left and 3 blocks down the road, the apartment building came into view. She carefully stepped on the wet concrete stairs and into the building, mud tracks on the waste-ridden carpet that had once seen better days. She trotted up to her room, her back seemed to be tired from the day, not allowing greater movement and begging her to stop her traversing. She slammed the door shut and fell onto the already old and crumbling sofa. The window in front of her was still grey with the storm outside. The forecast showed it was to stay for another week, She had plenty of time to enjoy the weather.
She pulled the flower out, She saw the bright blue petals had begun to lose their brightness. Immediately she felt a new energy burst inside her and it commanded her to stand. She did so without hesitation and rushed to the kitchen tap. She grabbed a gla.s.s and filled it three-fourths with water. She placed the flower inside it and put it on the counter. The flower seemed as if it was drawing breath the same as Clarissa and beating like a heart. She thought she was tired and that it was her eyes telling her to stop, she slowly drew closer to the flower and softly smelled it. It was sweet smelling, like an ocean but with some sort of sweet scent that seemed nearly indescribable. It accompanied the scent of a fruit bearing plant yet it felt somewhat different. Another species of a plant maybe. She hadn"t seen any kind of flower such as this. What was it?
"I"ll do some research later. I"m way too tired for this." She backed away from the flower as it soaked up the softened sunlight through the Metallic clouds.
She left to the bedroom and gave her face a quick wash, after drying she fell limp onto the bed, grasping a pillow as her eyes slowly drooped shut. She subconsciously kept thinking about that flower, it somehow didn"t leave her thought, the smell, the texture and the pulsing, it was too perfect...
She opened her eyes. Trees all around her, the sky was a deep blue and the wind smelled familiar. The ground a dark black like the trunks of the trees she was surrounded with
"Take this...and give the world good of it" She didn"t hear it but she felt it in her heart
"What is happening? where am I? What is this?"
"Upon your heart, the flames are of right. The power has been granted. You will see the light" The voice inspired as she felt her heart slow down
"Why does my heart feel different? Who are you?"
"A world of struggles await, but now you have the power to face them" Her body felt like it was thrown into a frozen pool of glacial water.
"Why...What...??"
"Congratulations, Clarissa. Your thirst will be quenched." The ground beneath her gave way into a frozen pool of water... She couldn"t breathe...Any moment, the freezing water would squeeze her like a lemon and drown her in its torrential waves.
Gasping for breath, she swung up to life. It was the cold floor that made her feel that drowning.
But she felt different. She felt something crawl on her hands and wrist, lifting them up to see what it was, her eyes witnessed something unnatural
Her vessels on her wrist were pulsing blue, then returned to normal.
Clarissa was thrown back to the foot of the bed as she gasped for breath, continuously staring at her wrist for something different
"What...was that...Oh G.o.d..." The stress was too much. She laid back on the bed as she tried to calm herself to sleep. Eventually her head gave into the stress, falling away into the abyss of dreams