"You are unleeeaashed, you are unbroooken you are undoooone..."

The song blaring from my phone is slick, breakneck, cacophonous. As it should be. Dad, and sometimes Nilsa too, disagree with my tastes in pop music, but I don't care. There's a pop song out there for all my outrageous emotions; hitting puberty, experiencing my first crush, obtaining an ounce of popularity, etc etc. For that, the genre has earned my undying loyalty.

Back to You comes to a slow end, but starts right back up again, sliding into its resounding opening lyrics.

The music has swallowed me; I sway from left to right, my shoes gliding over the polished wooden floor as I twirl around in circles, my hips beginning a slow motion of gyrating, my phone a miniature boombox pumping me with adrenaline.

I feel so...alive.

The hemovac was removed days ago, leaving me to freely flex my abdomen, and my core at last depleted of ickiness. Pain meds aren't really necessary these days either, so that's two less medications that I regularly have to stuff down. The incision site is still uncomfortably elevated, but it's gone down quite a bit since last week.

Doctor Fadel had said it'd take months to be fully healed, to completely get my energy back and have enough strength to get back to my normal. But today it feels like I'm already there, as if the surgery never even happened two weeks ago; like I've skipped all those months of recovering and gone straight to 'good as new'.

Unfortunately for me, just because I 'feel' as good as new isn't justification enough for me to participate in the team performances, according to Doctor Fadel, who won't write me up a doctor's note to verify my improved condition, and Coach Valdez who won't allow me to dance with the squad without one. (At least I still get to wear my dance uniform; a pink and white body suit with a matching letterman jacket).

And maybe it's for the best that I distance myself a bit longer from the squad, though. There were no 'hello's' or hugs from any of them when I pulled into the Reamirora parking lot. Nope. Just murmurs and odd stares as if I'd died on my way to the hospital that day I collapsed and came back to life overnight.

Oh, and I forgot to mention.

I've been dancing like a reanimated tree for some time now, alone, inside Reamirora's second gymnasium. Nilsa drove. She got her full G licence back when she was seventeen, but for reasons beyond me she prefers walking instead of driving, so her mom usually takes the car.

I feel a little guilty that I deprived Nil of joining the rest of the team of their rowdy bus ride to Reamirora, but there was hardly a choice. She was an important factor in getting my dad and Doctor Fadel to agree with this plan: Nilsa will drive me to the school and back home, and during the game I stick to the corner sidelines and dance on my own during intermissions like no one's watching. And hopefully no one does watch me. Usually I don't mind as it's part of the job being on the dance squad, but I guess I'm not up to being back in that kind of spotlight yet. Pretty sure I'm still at risk of being the centre of horrid gossip.

"No matter how it all goes throouugh, you'll find your way back to yoouuu..."

The song's almost done again, and I debate leaving it on repeat or changing to a different one as I walk an imaginary tightrope over a white line on the floor. I stick my arms out on either side of me like I'm trying to maintain balance, and then perform some mild yet quirky wiggling and waving with them.

The volleyball match is due to start, in like, ten minutes. Nil's in the first gym with the team warming up. Since this gym is empty, I'm not sure if those Reamirora Beasts are there too doing the same thing. And I'm not name-calling, that's their mascot — some kind of beast that looks like it's made up of several other beasts — at least that's how Nil explained it to me. Neither of us actually know the name of their mascot-

My bladder rocks my train of thought to a halt. Those three glasses of water I had this morning finally want out, and I hope I'll be able to find a washroom in this mansion of a school before the situation becomes one of 'do or die of embarrassment'.

I pause the music and my shoes squeak as I spin around to make for the exit, but instead I stumble back two steps, startled by the person already standing there, and watching me.

A girl; her dark ginger hair is done up in French braids, and her eyes are such a deep shade of blue, like sapphire or something, that I can notice them all the way from where I stand.

"Oh, sorry," she says, her voice husky though sweet somehow. She's coming towards me, slowly and with open palms raised midway in the air, as if I'm a deer she might spook. "I heard music and got a little curious."

The jersey and matching shorts she's wearing are an intimidating black and red, with Reamirora embroidered in red above a '5'.

"Sorry," I say too, suddenly drowning in self-consciousness. How long was she watching me? " I was just-"

"Dancing, yeah. I heard Magnolia had a dance team." She's like two steps away from me now, and there's about a thousand freckles scattered across her face that I didn't notice before. "That's so cool, and you're pretty good, by the way. Did you learn from your dad?"

My face twists, impossible to deny how odd that question was. "Umm...no..."

"Oh, maybe your mom then?"

My lips straighten into a hard, thin line, and my eyebrows draw together as I glare at the girl. No fucking way is this conversation happening. "How 'bout you just mind your own business?" I snap.

Remorse instantly overtakes her. "Sorry, I wasn't- I just- ...Sorry, nevermind."

"Whatever." I storm past her, purposely knocking her shoulder on my way to the door.

"W-wait-" she calls, but I won't have it.

"Can you just leave me alone-" I actually shout, then sharply turn back around to glare at her again, but I can't.

"...what's wrong?" the girl asks me, because my jaw's practically on the floor while I stare wide-eyed at her face; her freckles, a calm shade of coppery-brown similar to her hair, suddenly look...jagged, protruding, and...glistening somehow. Her pupils aren't round anymore, they're just slits, and her sapphire irises are a thousand percent more noticeable than before — because they're glowing.

What. The. Fuck.

She tries to take a step forward, and I flinch a step back. "D-don't come closer..." I stammer, and the girl's eyes get wider than mine.

"You...you see it, don't you?" she says, her tone cautious."You see my scales."

Goosebumps flare on my arms and my brain literally feels scrambled. I stumble backwards a few more steps despite her staying put, and I choke on my spit a bit trying to figure out a response to that.

One of the twin metal doors swings open then, and boisterous cheers and chatter fill the silent gym. I look away to see to see the new arrivals, but I can feel the girl's eyes — her glowing eyes — still on me.

"Heyyy, what do we got here?"

The voice is thunderous, assertive even. And the person it belongs to looks straight out of a male model catalogue: his skin's darker than mine, flawless too unlike mine though; a head-top full of of short and twisty black dreadlocks while the rest of his hair is faded and smooth around it; every inch of him is sturdy and bulging in the red and black volleyball uniform he's wearing; and he's tallest one among the cluster of boys he strolled in with.

He stops not too far away from me, the small horde of chiseled an imposing teens with him following his lead, and his head sways back and forth a couple times between me and that girl. I can't quite read the expression on his face.

"Magnolia?" questions another boy next to him; tanned skin and shaved black hair coordinating with his thickset caterpillars for eyebrows. He's almost as brawny as the male model next to him. I realize that he's been scanning me top to bottom, the look on his face seeming like my existence is unfathomable to him. "You fraternizing with the enemy, Bae?"

He's looking in the direction of that girl now. Are they dating or something?

I somehow find the will to drag my head back to her too. I nearly do a double take. Her freckles are normal, and her eyes aren't slits imbued with glowing sapphire.

Suddenly she's an ordinary stranger again. Except for how livid she looks now.

"Call me that again, see what happens," she warns caterpillar eyebrows, in a tone too dangerously noxious to be all bark and no bite. Still not clear on whether these two are a thing or not.

Eyebrows just laughs the threat off, but the guy standing a step behind him nudges Eyebrows with his elbow and gives a warning look of his own. I didn't notice him before among the rest of the group, but I do now; he's as tall as male model, though his ivory skin isn't flawless with those few scars blemishing his face.

"We overheard voices in here," male model cuts in. He keep his line of sight trained on only me, and I suddenly feel like a cornered animal.

"You 'overheard', huh?" the girl says, and maybe it's my trepidation fucking with me, but there was something scathing in how she said it, accusatory even.

"We're picking up some extra equipment before the game starts," scar-face explains. The silky strands of his oatmeal-coloured hair look like they're obscuring his vision, yet he's not making any movements to brush them aside. "Coach's errand."

I glance from him to the girl as he shoots her some kind of knowing look; the girl seems to calm down from that, and then I start to wonder if they're the ones dating.

"Ummm...I should get going." I need to get away from these nosy, posh weirdos. I try making for the exit, but someone steps in my way. Male model.

"What's the rush?" His rugged arms are crossed over his broad chest, and he's still staring at me. I don't think I've seen him blink this entire time.

Words catch in my throat. I can't think of a more appropriate response than 'you people make me uncomfortable'.

"Leave her alone, Jason," the girl warns. Her intervention startles me, and I steal another glance at her; still an ordinary stranger. Thankfully. "Game's about to start anyway."

I avoid looking at Male Model, but I hear him grunt. Without another word, he steps out of the way and the small horde around him follows in step yet again, a parting ocean as they allow a path for me.

The room falls silent except for the squeak of my shoes on the floor. Though I'm not sure how many pairs, I can feel eyes on me, multiple for sure. Part of me wants to look back and assess the odd situation one last time, but I won't. I shouldn't

I don't need to use the washroom anymore, and maybe that worked out for the best; I do not want to linger around any part of this school alone again. The sooner this game gets itself over with, the sooner I'll never have to see these weirdos again.