Gods Among Ants

         The bell rang, signalizing lunch. I joined the throng of students out on the lawn, bringing my own lunch since the cafeteria ladies have only three major food groups, grease, meat, and stuff left over from last year. I met up with my usual crew of tie-dyed shirts and surfing freaks, “Did anyone think about going to that new yoga place, its Hatha like us.”
         Rosa looked up from her salad, “I do Bhakti Yoga, as you like to forget.”
         I threw up my hands, “I’m sorry, Jesus Christ, you act like you care.”
         We were outcasts, considered weird and foreign by other students. The only friend I have that was not a geek was Hearth, a male cheerleader and the lover of Ann, captain of the cheerleading squad. I watched him approach, coming from a table on the other side of the lawn. He was tall, brown-haired and muscular. Hearth’s tight cheering shirt allowed his muscles to ripple slightly, annoying since he acted like such a girl sometimes. “So, was anyone thinking about going to the new yoga center downtown?”
         “Yes, I just asked them and got no answer,” I looked around me, pretending to be mad.
         “My mother says I’m spending too much money lately so I have to cut either yoga or guitar lessons,” Evanna focused on her noodles, watching the fork twirl the slimy, strips of pasta, and awaiting for an answer.
         “What? Ok, so, like, get a job,” Hearth gave her a blank look and sat beside Eagle, a green-haired guy from Cali.
         I stood up and walked away, throwing my trash in the recycle bins we petitioned for the year before last. I slowly walked to the parking lot alone, taking my time to get to my red car. As soon as I was there, I sat in the driver’s seat, jingling my car keys to waste time until the last bell rang. I watched people go to their cars, couples holding hands and kissing, singles and groups smoking their cigarettes and other weeds. I pulled in my legs and shut the door, turning the key in the ignition I heard the loud rumble of heavy metal. Glancing up quickly, I saw Eagle on his motorcycle, staring at me. He smiled and winked. Eagle kicked up his spike and drove out, leaving my heart thumping against my rib cage. With the rattle of a car muffler, I left the parking lot to pick up my little sister at the middle school.
         “Can we give Sierra a ride home, please Eve,” my little sister Eco turned her big white-blue eyes up at me.
         “Pay for my gas,” she rummaged around in her purse before she brought out a twenty, which I grabbed, “Thank you.”
         I have been deemed cool after a party my sister gave. The 8th graders had seen me meditating, which turned out to be the next big fays. The group of popular kids loved my henna tattoos and flowered peasant tops. It annoyed Eco since almost everyone only wanted to be her friend to get free yoga lessons which never happened.
         “Did Eagle say something to you today?” Sierra, Eco’s best friend since first grade asked.
         I’ve had a crush on Eagle since he moved out here three weeks ago, unfortunately he doesn’t like to talk, “He smiled and winked at me before I left the parking lot.”
         “That’s definitely date talk.”
         “I doubt that,” I watched Eco take a long drag on one of Sierra’s cigarettes, much to my distaste.
         “None of that in my car, window down,” I gave them a piercing angry look, “Those things will kill you and no one who does real yoga would endanger their bodies like that.”
         “We don’t do yoga or meditation.”
         “I bet mom wouldn’t care, she’d still put you on restriction.”
         I pulled up to Sierra’s house and watched her get out and walk up her drive. As soon as we pulled out Eco began yelling at me about how I always ruined her life. I ignored her and turned up the music, drowning her out with heavy guitars. She rolled her eyes and slumped back in her seat.
         ‘I hate her . . . well maybe not hate but dislike.’
         “What did you say?” I asked her.
         ‘What is she talking about now?’
         “I didn’t say anything,” she looked at me weirdly.
         A sharp piercing pain hit me in between the eyes like a knife was jammed and turned. I swerved across the empty road, hitting a tree on the other side, flipping Eco through the windshield. My head hit the steering wheel and I fainted from the overwhelming pain of my head. I tried to open my eyes but all I saw was red blood. I felt someone’s hands lift me up. I screamed out loud from the painful movement, my brain swimming in a pool of dreadful pain. As soon as the movement stopped, I screamed for Eco, remembering her body that was thrown from the car like a rag doll. I opened my eyes, strangely seeing a red film. A shadow moved and a sharp prick went into my arm, causing my mind to become fuzzy and losing my panic. I fell asleep from drugs.
         My fingers were numb for a second, then they were able to move. My eyes slowly opened, heavy from sleep and sleeping drugs. Vision cloudy, I eventually focused on a flower beside my bed. Roses, red and beautiful, bent in a breeze that came from an open window. I sat up straight, remembering Eco’s screams of fright. My head in a rush, I swung my legs over the bed, faintly wondering who undressed me.
         Pulling on a pair of jeans, a nurse walked in, stopping and staring in amazement, then regaining her calm she asked, “Honey, what are you doing?”
         ‘This girl is just crazy, maybe I should call in the doctor.’
         “No, don’t call anyone. I’m fine, can you tell me where Eco is?” I pulled a shirt over my head.
         “Oh, Eve. Sit down while I call in Dr. Shraki, ok?”
         I looked at her sympathetic face and tears overwhelmed my eyes, “How long have I been asleep?”
         “Fifteen weeks,” my body was shaking so I sat back on the bed.
         “What happened to Eco?” I stuttered, not knowing if I wanted to know.
         A doctor walked in, checking a clip board and muttering. She bumped into the nurse and looked up, chuckling at me, “So, the sleeping beauty finally decided to wake up.”
         “Are you Dr. Shraki?”
         “Why yes. Do you know that you’ve been asleep for a long, long time,” her voice was soft.
         “Fifteen weeks, where’s Eco?”
         “Eco went home a long time ago,” Dr. Shraki sat on the edge of my bed, “What happened that night? Why did you fly across the road like that? Did you try to kill yourself and your sister or was she in the way?”
         Dr. Shraki’s eyes narrowed and I began to squirm. Her soft voice began to ask rude questions and I withdrew from her. She would never believe me, that I was blinded by a painful headache. A dull pain began in between my eyes and something told me to look up into her eyes. I gritted my teeth and looked up. Dr. Shraki stared back with the same ferocious anger I was feeling. She softened and fear overcame her eyes.
         ‘Dr. Shraki, I hope you are not employing that I meant to harm myself and my baby sister.’ My thoughts seemed to transfer into her mind.
         “H-how c-can you d-do that?” the woman stuttered out loud.
         ‘What am I doing that is so fascinating?’
         “You’re telepathic.”
{indent‘Now, you asked what happened, why tell you when I can simply show you?’ I concentrated with my eyes closed and the headache left me and entered her mind.
         Dr. Shraki crumpled on the floor, clutching her head and screamed, “Make it go away! Please, I’ll do anything. You horrible, horrible mutant!”
         I concentrated and felt the disease-like ache retreat into my head, locked away like a weapon. Then I realized that the nurses were all staring at us, in the doorway. The first woman that I had seen, rushed forward and helped Dr. Shraki from the floor, wiping away the doctor’s tears, “Come on Dr. Shraki, we’ll get you some help.”
         In a snap the realization of what I had done seeped in. I was telepathic, and I had almost killed a woman, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. I’ll never do it again, I swear.”
         A nurse tucked me back into my bed, her tag said Cheryl, “Calm down, darling. It wasn’t your fault, first thing in the mornin’ we’ll get you a better doctor and a new room. But for now just sleep.”
         I closed my eyes and wondered how long until everything will take until I sleep in my own bed, with my little sister across the hall. My body was probably in total disarray, not stretching or bending for a long time. I would start my yoga again with a beginner’s body. I slept.
         I was running down a hall of fire. With every step I took, a piece of flaming roof would fall into the place I had just left. The heat was unbearable and I cried. My family was at the end of the hall, waiting for me. I ran to them, for them. I woke up in a different bed, it was uncomfortable and the sheets were old, scratchy, and smelled. The room was tan, with nothing else. No decorations of any kind. No desks and no windows. The air was stale and I grew frightened. A buzzer rang out through the air and a door on the other end opened. A large, old nurse came in wearing a strange cap. It was copper and seemed to spread through her hair, what was left of it.
         “Come on, I ain’t got all day,” she harshly grabbed my collar and pulled me out of the bed. She shoved me out into the hall, and told me to go straight down to the mess hall. Startled, I stumbled down the tan hall and cold floor. There were a lot of doors, exactly like mine. I could see that at the end was a door, I went through it. What I realized shocked me. I had been sent to some hospital prison! Preposterous, I was not a criminal.
         I opened the door, the cold metal of the handle shocking. A window was open on the other side, allowing fresh air and sunshine to filter in through the bars. A television was propped up across the room on a stand with several old, green couches surrounding it. The people in the room were seemingly my age, but all looked different. At a table, a girl with orange hair nudged a guy and tipped her chin at me, in the room there were only three other kids. They looked curiously at me and beckoned me to come closer.
         The orange haired girl pulled me down closer to her face, “Welcome to hell, they’ll be calling you soon and I suggest that if you want to not be a vegetable don’t use all your powers.”
         “God, you sound like a psycho. My name’s Ghost and I am telekinesis, this here’s Flame and she can manipulate fire. That’s Sage and he can see through walls,” she looked at me for a second,” You were brought here without knowledge, correct?”
         “Yes, where is here, exactly?”
         “No one knows. We all were brought here whenever we were asleep, all that we know is not to use all of your powers or tonight you may not wake up,” Sage spoke up from a game of solitaire he was playing.
         “Yep, see we were crowded a couple of years ago. Then for some reason people tried to break out when they realized that this compound wasn’t helping them erase their powers. They were taken down to the basement and put on drugs that made them sleep, we were warned when we first came. Now we wait in fear for a telepathic to help us,” Flame looked intensely at me, and my ache began to pound, wishing to be unleashed unto the one that locked me away.
         “Why were people here in the first place?”
{indent“This was a place that told the first few mutants that they could make them go back to normal. They couldn’t and didn’t want to, the doctors only did tests and locked them away. Now this place is ran by the military,” Sage spoke more, “You are telepathic, what’s your name?”
         “Evelyn.”
         “Ok, Evelyn. We’ll tell you our plan, after they test you.”
         “Testing me for what?”
         “To see if your powers are enough to be frightened of. We are not as weak as they think we are, you must only use a little of your powers. Pretend you are straining to do the simplest of chores, ok?” Ghost looked into my eyes, showing sincerity.
         “Some one’s coming,” Sage looked at a wall then back at the table.
         Flame shoved me away from her and continued to give me a critical stare, “So you say your name’s Evelyn. Well, Evelyn, your weak powers don’t impress us, not a bit.”
         Startled by their sudden change in attitude, I stumbled and fell. I felt a firm grip on my arm and a man picked me up, and like the woman of earlier, he wore a metal helmet. His grip was firm and began to make my blood pound with my heartbeats. The man steered me out of a door, down a hall, and through a door. Once inside, he made me sit in a fold able chair that faced a mirror. I knew that on the other side were just a couple of cameras and more people. The man went inside a door, coming back out with a rolling cart that had several large shots and knives, all filled with different liquids. I began to sweat, one of my biggest fears being knives and shots. My pulse began to quicken, making me gasp for air. Without thinking I pulled my legs up into a lotus position, beginning to meditate. When I released all my tension and fear, I also set loose the ache that was residing in my head and unconsciously I allowed it to skip all of the other mutants in the building.
         All sense of time left me. Sitting there was comforting, and I enjoyed the ease that came without the headache. A finger tapped on my shoulder and I jumped, withdrawing my concentration and allowing the ache to come back into my head. It was Ghost, Sage, Flame, and many others. A look of fear was in most of their eyes, except the first three that I met earlier.
         Focusing on the room, I realized that bodies of the crazed scientists were strewn around me. Blood, their blood, was in puddles everywhere, bathing the floor in crimson red blood. I hurled, then realized I was the murderer. Knowing my full strength was overpowering and my soul grew black with hatred. Needless to say, Flame, several others, and I realized that we were Gods among ants. Our large group separated.
         We were called the bad guys, but we knew who were the real bad ones. The same ones that called us mutants, the same ones that hunted us down because of their fear. It is sad, and I cry for the poor, tortured souls that are misguided.