1. Prolog

My story starts on a dreary day in November, at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago where my father worked. Nothing exceptional happened at my birth, except maybe how much of the hospital's staff was there. My father was a well-liked surgeon and much of the staff was also quite friendly with my Mother. Now I guess that at this point you're wondering what my parents' names are and how they felt about my birth. Well, I'm not going to tell you because they aren't important, this is my story, not theirs.

My life was fine for the first few years if not a little dull. I did learn to walk and talk early but that can be chalked up to having smart, attentive parents, of which mine were both. I guess I should also mention that I have a very good memory. It is to the point that I can remember the day my parents brought me home down to every word they said that day.

As I was saying, everything was normal until I was a little over four years old. You see both my parents have blond hair, blue eyes, and a healthy glowing complexion with striking good looks and I naturally take after them. Well, that was until one day after my father came home and found me watching television, which was normal seeing as I hadn't started school yet, with black hair and brown eyes. To say he was shocked would be a gross under-simplification of his reaction.

I had never seen my Father seem so scared and confused in my life, then he started to stammer angrily as his face flushed so red I thought he might faint. After finding his voice he ran into the other room and started demanding answers from my Mother. My Mother sounded confused and a little frightened by my Father's actions as she walked into the living room where I was waiting to find out what I had done to set off my Father the way I had. After seeing me my Mother's action almost mirrored my Father's. She however seemed to decide that I knew what was going on and grabbed me by the arms as she demanded answers to her questions, I didn't have the answers to.

Eventually, my parents calmed down enough to send me to my room and figure out what was going on. They decided it was best to consult some of my Father's doctor friends about my sudden appearance change. Weeks went by with no answers that explained what was going on and as more time passed the more my parents became distant and unsettled. I think the decisive blow to my parents' rational minds was when I turned myself black while reading a children's book.

The next day we had a priest in our house who promised that he could fix me. Now I didn't really think I was broken, but my parents seemed to think whatever he was going to do was necessary. What followed was torture, they called it an exorcism, but that's not what I would call it. Some ways through the 'exorcism' I finally realized what had my parents so distraught. They didn't seem to like that I changed my hair, eyes, and skin color, so I changed them back to make them happy. This seemed to calm them down somewhat, but the priest insisted that he finish his 'exorcism' to make sure that the 'demon' possessing me had been driven out.

Well apparently some of the neighbors heard me screaming and rumors started that my parents were mistreating me. This didn't have any direct impact on my parent's livelihood but the shame of being gossiped about drove my Mother insane. So my Father decided we were going to move to England. My Father got a job at Addenbrooke's Hospital which was kind of a big deal to him and Mother. As for me well I hadn't spoken since my 'exorcism', not that my parents seemed to mind.

So off we went to England where I attended school for the first time. School was a nightmare. Loud children yelling and screaming and one teacher who honestly had no reasonable excuse for being in charge of herself let alone twenty-plus kids. I was the quiet antisocial one in class but between you and me I think I was still in shock, but it was the 80s so no one knew or cared about mental welfare.

Anyway, things didn't get interesting until about a year and a half later. It is kind of funny looking back and thinking that the thing that changed my life was getting a babysitter. You see my parents were going to be out for a few days at some doctor's convention that my Father was invited to speak at and so my parents decided to pay the neighbor two doors down to watch me. He was thirteen and that's about all I remember about him. What grabbed my attention was when he sat me down in front of the television so that he could finish his homework, I caught a glimpse of his math textbook.

I had seen math in my classes at school, simple addition and subtraction, but his math I had never seen and didn't understand, so I did what curious kids do; I asked him about it until he got annoyed enough to tell me how it worked. I was in love a first description. Not really with the math or anything like that but just for the fact that it was a little challenging. Until this point, I had been completely brain-meltingly bored with the subjects at school. Now I had a challenge.

A challenge that lasted about an hour. Turns out my babysitter wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. He was in a remedial class so his homework was a few levels below his age group but still, I had struggled with something for the first time. So now I had some passion in my life, a desire to do something. I should probably mention that that night was the first time I had spoken in close to two years. So when my parents got home and I asked them to buy me math and science books they were shocked to hear me speak again. So shocked that they barely even asked what I wanted with textbooks way above my grade.

I think that they were mostly just humoring me at first. You know when parents give you things they don't think you need or can use just to make you happy or the keep you busy. Well, they were again shocked when I not only read through the math but also the science, literature, and history textbooks, as well as understood them.

I think I should explain that my parents had been a bit distant and cold to me since the move, probably they blamed me for what happened, but this made them proud or at least as proud as I have ever seen them. Of course, that's when the weird things started happening. At first, it was little things. The car keys not being where they were left. A door closing by itself. The cupboards in the kitchen all being opened in the middle of the night.

We all tried to act like it wasn't happening. None of us wanted a repeat of last time, but things escalated. The car wouldn't start even though it was a new car. My parents ended up in a different room than they fell asleep in. It all culminated in one big incident where every window in the neighborhood was yanked up all at once.

I knew it was me doing it. I could feel it bubbling up inside my chest and it was only getting worse. After that last incident, my parents confronted me about it. They looked like I was some dangerous beast they were considering putting down for being too much trouble to deal with. I tried to explain that I had no idea what was happening or why it was happening for that matter. They did not seem pleased with that answer. Having learned their lesson last time they didn't call a priest. They decided that they would take care of this themselves.

This time they gagged me and made sure there would not be any visible marks. I was seven when I learned how to hide what made me different. Turns out that I had to release some of that pent-up pressure in my chest every so often so it didn't go out of control. There were a few ways to do this but my favorites were doing subtle transformations or causing things to float in my room away from prying eyes.

My parents never treated me the same after our last 'treatment' as they took to calling it. They were very reluctant to acknowledge me, outside of social obligations, after that. Mainly at my Father's work functions or during parent conferences where my teachers would praise me for my high marks and brilliant mind. They would boast about how proud they were of me but I knew at this point they hated having to take care of me.

Over the years we settled into a routine. I would practice whatever made me different in private and study subjects way above my academic level. I even picked up a knack for speed reading and got pretty good at it too. My parents would act proud of me in public and ignore my existence in private. Every so often I would slip up and forget to change back one of the things I changed about myself and that would warrant another 'treatment' to 'help' me control my 'affliction'. I stopped making those mistakes quickly.

Now we are mostly caught up to where I find myself now. As a gifted ten-year-old on a trip with my parents to go to a spelling contest, something I had taken to doing in recent years to make a little extra money that I could spend on myself. My parents didn't spend any money they didn't have to on me and thankfully they didn't try to take my earnings from these contests as it would be beneath them.

Currently, we are in my Father's car driving down the highway listening to the radio. Alone time spent with my parents is usually quiet. All was how I expected it to go until somebody in front of us slammed on their brakes and my Father swerved out of the way to avoid it only to crash into the center divider and flip the car. We ended up on the other side of the highway facing oncoming traffic. The last thing I remember is seeing another car speeding towards us and then nothing.