Chapter 2: Diana
I remember waking up in my room at home. Something felt strange on my back, like it was tickling me. "Blondie," I muttered, thinking it was my cat. I opened my eyes and found Blondie, my black cat, in front of me on the ground. So what was on my back.
I sat up, feeling a little dizzy when I did. I glanced over at the clock, groaning as the cobalt numbers glared 2:23 at me. Two thirty in the morning, and I was just waking up.
I tried to think over what had happened today, but the last thing I remembered was Petra telling me some crazy story about a light. I groaned again and crawled out of bed and to the lightswitch. I flicked it and walked over to the mirror, staggering the whole way. I glanced at my reflection, almost the same, but something was different, so of course I took a closer look.
Now, I could be wrong, but generally, people's eyes stay the same color day to day. I mean, it's not like most people see what I saw. When I went to costumes yesterday, my eyes were the same plain mahogany brown they had been every day of my life, but now, for some reason, all the color had left them. Now they were a pale, icy blue. "What?" I muttered, staring deeply into my new blue eyes.
Suddenly my blood ran cold. If this had changed, what else had? I remembered the tickling feeling on my lower back. I turned around, knowing in a way that you know you'll have a test when you fell asleep before finishing your homework that I was going to find something that shouldn't be there. I stared at my back, and with my spaghetti strap pajamas, I could see a pair of feathery, snow white wings.
I scrambled over to my desk, searching desperately for my phone. I grabbed it and scrolled through my contacts and called Petra.
"Hey, Diana," she said, almost unbelievably calm. "You awake?"
"No, I'm fast asleep," I said, glad my usual sarcasm covered my shock. "What are you doing awake?"
"Just studying for a chem test," she said, and I envied her easy answer. "What's up?"
"Well, uh..." I struggled to phrase it. "What...what happened in costumes today?" There was an infuriating silence, and the only sound I could hear was my own pounding pulse. "Petra, tell me what happened."
"How much do you remember?" she asked.
"Does it matter?" I seethed. "I think you know what I'm talking about. You were freaking reading my mind earlier!"
She got quiet again, and I waited for her to say something. After a long pause, she said, "I told you about the blue light. You didn't believe me, so I took you to the fabric room. I lead you straight to it, and then the same thing happened to you, only apparently...stronger."
"Apparently?" It came out more terrified than angry. "Apparently it's changing my DNA! Apparently it's changed enough that now I have feathers growing out of my back! Apparently is the dumbest word you could've used, Petra!"
"It isn't my fault!" Petra yelled, and I was stunned into silence. "You're not the only one who's changing, okay? Whatever...whatever crazy, insane thing is going on here, it's not my fault! So stop blaming me!"
I stood in silence and shock. She never acted this way; that's why she was the baby of costumes. She prided herself on accepting everything and anything that happened to her, and the only thing she wanted out of life was to breathe; even her motto was breathe to fight and fight to breathe.
"I'm sorry, Baby," I said, my voice quieter than I had heard it in my lifetime. "I'm sorry."
"No, Momma," she answered sweetly. "No, I'm sorry. Listen, something undeniably huge is happening. We have no idea what it is, right?"
I nodded, tears in my eyes, then remembered she couldn't see me and said, "Yeah."
"So we just need to stick with each other," she finished. "If you need anything, I'm here."
"And vice versa," I added. "I took a deep, albeit shaky, breath. "Okay. So what do we tell everyone else?"
"I guess..." I could picture her in my mind, her mouth in the pout it usually went into when she was thinking at a hundred miles an hour. "They've all seen your wings. They all know that it happened. I guess we'll tell them the truth."
I nodded. "Okay." I paused, then cracked a smile. "Honestly, Petra, maybe you should be Momma Costumes."
I heard her grin through the phone. "No, you're infinitely better than me."
"Well, thank you," I said, smiling.
"All right, well, I'll see you tomorrow," she said. "I'm gonna get back to studying."
"Okay," I said. "Hey, Petra?"
"Hmm?"
"Get some sleep, Baby."
"You too, Momma."
I hung up and flopped down on my bed, wincing in pain as my wings were crushed under me. I rolled over onto my stomach and pet Blondie. I fell asleep looking at the calendar, where I had circled the date of my eighteenth birthday.