Chapter 7

I walked quickly into the school and kept my head down to ignore the obvious stares I was getting. Luckily, the front office was the first thing I ran into. I stepped inside quickly before shedding my jacket in the heated building. I looked to the woman at the front counter awkwardly; unsure of how to approach her. Luckily, she sensed my presence and looked up with a friendly smile.

"Hi, how can I help you?" she asked warmly.

"I-I'm new... Daniella Morison?" I answered unsurely. You'd think I'd be used to starting over by now, but the awkwardness never wavered. I was still the awkward, timid, and unsure girl that Evelyn made me to be. I hated meeting new people. I always seemed to know their true intentions before they even opened their mouth. Another curse of being an empath. I was getting nostalgia and pity from the woman behind the counter for some reason as she looked at me.

She looks just like her mother.

It wasn't my thought; it was hers. I had imagined someone's thoughts before every once in a while, but it was more like a feeling. It was weak, but it had been happening more and more lately. I was probably just losing it. There was no way I could read people's thoughts. My imagination was getting out of control.

The woman typed on the keyboard in front of her, glancing up every once in a while to look at me curiously and sympathetically. After an awkward moment of the typing being the only noise inside the office, she handed me a schedule.

"Here you go. I'm Mrs. Carson, by the way. I'll call for an office aid to help you get around for today so you won't get lost," she offered. I thanked her quietly before she disappeared behind a door behind the counter. I stood there by myself awkwardly until she came back with someone in tow.

The girl was tall and thin. Her skin was perfectly sun kissed. Her chocolate brown hair hung in long, loose waves that faded to blonde. Her hazel brown eyes sparkled with mock happiness. I was momentarily confused on if she was walking towards me or down a runway. Her cropped jeans with ankle boots and pink blouse with an open cream blazer layered over it only solidified my model theory. With her in the room, I felt very small, plain, and insignificant. She flashed her pearly, straight, white teeth at me and held her hand out to me.

"You must be Daniella. I'm Sophia," she introduced herself. I shook her hand and gasped with the contact. Her hand was hot compared to my icy digits, but what took my breath away was the image I saw when her skin touched mine. My vision faded to black before a different, foggier picture appeared. It was Sophia, but her canine teeth were elongated. Her eyes glowed with anger as a growl ripped through her throat. It was like something out of Twilight. Although there were no imagined thoughts, the message and feeling were clear: she saw me as her competition in this school. Someone to embarrass, get rid of, or isolate.

I released my hand from hers quickly as I took a step back. I still couldn't see anything but black, but it was slowly starting to fade back to normal with the exception of a fog around reality. Mrs. Carson and Sophia were staring at me in a sense of wonder, confusion, and fear. They were staring directly at my eyes. I could feel my cheeks and neck heat under their stares.

"Your eyes," Sophia breathed in disbelief. I turned and stumbled out of the office and into the nearest bathroom with my schedule in hand. The fog didn't let up on my vision as I went to look at myself in the mirror. My head ached slightly but nothing too major. The girl in the mirror was a replica of me, except her face was flushed red and her eyes had no pupil the vision of haze. The eyes only reflected a glowing full moon. All the way down to the darker gray areas that held the moon's craters.

I didn't understand. I wasn't sure what was happening to me, but I didn't like it. I'd never seen a person's intentions in a literal vision before. I'd never seen them so clearly and in pictures. I took a few deep breaths and splashed a little water on my face before staring at the girl in the mirror again. The leftover haze faded, turning my moon-like irises back to their abnormal silver color. One thing was certain though: it happened when I touched Sophia.