章 1: Crescent
THE STALE colors of her ceiling welcomed her when she woke up briskly. Her ragged breathing and her sweat-covered shin were not a new thing for Cent. She spent her seventeenth year dreaming as if she was being chased by something ominous only to wake up abruptly when a pair of large flaming hands engulfed her. This vicious cycle became a regular thing for her when she celebrated her seventeenth birthday. And now, with her eighteenth birthday just two days from today, her nightmare became longer and hotter in a sense as if she was soaked to be boiled.
Glancing at the alarm clock on her side table, Cent groaned when she found out that it was still three AM. Like always, she would wake up every three AM from that hellish dream. Sitting up, Cent fisted her long raven-colored hair. "Fucking perfect," mumbled Cent.
Her day would always start like this. Waking up from some weird psychotic dream then she would spend the remaining hours of dawn doing yoga as she listened to the soft tune of Mozart's piece through her Bluetooth earphone.
Cent grew up without a family to lean on. The concept of family and home was a strange thing for her that she started to resent. But deep down, Cent desired what it felt like to truly belong. But knowing that she was abandoned in front of a foster shelter, Cent grew up feeling that she never belonged in the world. That nagging feeling kept her awake for many hours only to sleep for a few hours and to be woken up by a nightmare.
Stepping inside her cramped room, she immediately dressed up. And in front of a broken large mirror in her room, she stared at herself. Cent wore her infamous black long-sleeved dress paired with black stockings to cover her marked legs. On her fifteenth birthday, strange tattoo-like symbols started to appear around her legs and after three months of her fifteenth birthday, her both legs were surrounded with some weird skin marks. Cent seeks the help of a dermatologist, but this new type of skin disease was something that the dermatologist had yet to see. She tried to make a tattoo artist remove them, but even the famous tattoo artist on their block refused her since these marks were part of her skin.
Cent hated her body. She hated being different. She loathed the idea of being an outcast. And she dreaded what she would get this eighteenth birthday of hers. Cent started at her reflection with a blank look. Long straight hair that reached her waist with bangs that almost covered her eyes, a pale complexion, and a skinny body with a height of 5'4, Cent wondered where she got her features. "Did I get my hair from my mom? Or from my father?" But upon realizing that her questions would never be answered, Cent glared at her reflection which earned the mirror a new set of cracks. The sound of the mirror breaking snapped Cent from her reverie. I did it again.
One of the major reasons why she never felt that she belonged was her weird abilities that started to manifest after she celebrated her tenth birthday. Shrugging it off, she stepped outside to attend her class. The shadows under her bed followed her outside; Cent muted their whispers of death as they stuck to her shadow.
"Shoot! I am so late for Madam Lira's class!" Cent ran like a mad woman, not minding the harsh whispers of the teens, which grew up with her in the shelter. But she never dared to look back at them; she never wanted to stand out.
Grabbing her pocket watch from the pocket of her gothic dress, she almost dropped the wretched pocket watch upon seeing the time. I won't make it! And it is Madame Lira's class! I am so dead.
"Cent, where are you going?" Sister Tasha, the caretaker of the shelter, asked Cent when she passed by her. She knew why the kind-hearted nun asked in wonder since she passed by the door. "I forgot something!"Instead of dashing like a woman being chased by death itself, Cent proceeded to the garage of the shelter home which no one used since the sisters did not drive.
Crouching behind the trashed cars that loitered around the unused garage of the shelter, Cent scanned her surroundings for any signs that she was not alone. The shadows moved like a cloud of smoke around her.
"Go and check it," Cent ordered the shadows. She watched how the smoky creature transferred from her shadow towards the shadows around the garage. She snuck a peek into her pocket watch. "Shit."
Ten minutes before the devil-like Madame Lira starts her class! Hell will break loose if someone is late for her class! Biting her lip, Cent summoned the shadows in her mind. Come back.
The hissing whispers of the shadows confirmed that there was no one around the area.
"Good. You may come back now." And so they did as the shadows settled back to her shadows once again. These shadows were her companions ever since she could remember. They played with her during her childhood years. And when she grew up, she learned to control them and do her bidding. Cent realized that she was far from normal and she feared that the normal people around her would learn about her weird abilities. They would cast her out for real. It's not like I am into social pyramids but at least I am having a wallflower life. Where no one sees me and no one cares what I do.
Concentrating as she closed her cobalt-colored eyes, Cent pictured the black butterflies in her mind. A zap of cold breeze whipped her body as she expected. She pictured out that a flock of black butterflies surrounded her body from the tip of her hair to the last of her shadow. The next thing Cent knew, her body turned into hundreds of black butterflies.
This was one of the weird nonhuman abilities that would allow her to travel long distances. Cent used this ability often since her first class in Julliard was from the terror madam named Lira. Just uttering her name would cause a shiver down her spine.
Cent, in the form of the black butterflies, traveled a twenty-minute worth of distance in five minutes. The black butterflies passed through the vents of the prestigious school. They passed through the large fans of the vents. Cent observed that every student was now rushing toward their classes. I don't have time to go to the rooftop! The comfort room! Wait, where's the comfort room that has the least probability that the girls will use it during this time? Ah! I don't care anymore!
In her command, the black butterflies flew to the nearest ladies' comfort room. She blew a breath of relief when no one was using the comfort room. The flock of butterflies passed through the vent straight to the cubicle. The black butterflies formed a human silhouette until Cent got her human image back.
Not bothering to look at her pocket watch, Cent rushed to her first class. She winced when the hallway quieted down. "I am so dead," said Cent.
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