CHAPTER 1

THE STALE colors of her ceiling welcomed her when she woke up briskly. Her ragged breathing and sweat-covered shin were not new 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 more prolonged and hotter, as if she was soaked and boiled.

Glancing at the alarm clock on her side table, Cent groaned when she found out 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, 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 so strange that she started to resent it. But deep down, Cent desired what it felt like to truly belong. Though with the fact that she was abandoned in front of a foster shelter, Cent grew up feeling that she never belonged in the world. That nagging sense kept her awake for many hours, only to be awakened 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 and 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 after her fifteenth birthday, both legs were surrounded with some weird skin marks. Cent asked for 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 artist on their block refused her since these marks were apparently 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 stared at her reflection with a blank look. She had 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?” 

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 primary reasons she never felt that she belonged was her quirks that started manifesting 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 the shade of her shadow.

Let’s go, guys.

“Shoot! I am so late for Madam Lira’s class!” Cent ran like a mad woman, not minding the harsh whispers of the teens who 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 right side compartment 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 shelter’s caretaker, 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, 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. 

Did you find anything?

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 hers once again.

These shadows have been 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 to do her bidding. Cent realized that she was far from average and feared that the ordinary people around her would know about her weird abilities. They would cast her out for real.

It’s not like I am into social pyramids, but at least I have 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 just like what she expected. She envisioned a flock of black butterflies surrounding 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 quirk often since her first class in Julliard was from the terror madam named Lira. Just uttering her name would make her shiver.

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. Then they passed through the giant fans. 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 with the slightest 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 lady’s comfort room. She breathed relief when no one was using the said area. The flock of butterflies passed through the vent straight to the farthest cubicle. And the black butterflies formed a human silhouette until Cent returned to her human image.

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.

CENT ALMOST fainted when she opened the studio’s back door where Madame Lira’s class was being held. No matter how slowly she opened the door, she was met by the smoldering look of the middle-aged woman.

I’m gonna die.

“Maleficent Smith!” Madame Lira’s thunderous voice boomed inside the spacious studio. Cent could not help but wince as she heard her dreaded name.

Maleficent, the name embroidered on her silk blanket, covered her bloody and tiny body. Sister Tasha told her that she might be a rich man’s long-lost daughter since the basket she was placed into was embroidered with gems that saved the shelter from bankruptcy at that time. Cent held into the thought that someday her parents would find her. So Cent refused to be adopted until Sister Tasha gave Cent the former’s last name.

“You dare to be late for this class! Did you forget that you are only here because of your blasted scholarship?”

She heard the snickers of her classmates. She hated being the center of attention. She feared they would notice that she was not ordinary at all, leading to her being a total outcast. The thought made her body shiver; she felt like she was going to throw up. Cent just looked down as if she found something interesting on the floor as she clenched her fists.

“What? You turned into a mute now?”

The clicking of Madame Lira’s heels made the shadows lurking inside her shadow hissed with obvious contempt. “No,” replied Cent in a hushed yet fearful voice. She was not afraid of Madame Lira anymore. Instead, she was worried about what would happen if Madam Lira came near her that would snap her shadows.

They were hard to control when they were agitated. And they were only in this state if she was in a perilous state like now. “No, what?” Madame Lira’s looming silhouette covered Cent’s cowering frame. Cent still refused to look up. She remembered the state of her mirror in her room; if she dared to look at Madame Lira when her mood was in disarray, Cent could not guarantee the professor’s safety.

“Are you daft? Or have you lost your common etiquette along the way? I said, no what?” 

Cent felt the cold and painful touch of Madame Lira’s fingers on her chin as the latter forced Cent to look at her. Madame Lira succeeded. Cent’s once cobalt-colored eyes turned into hideous lime green as if they were shining beneath her bangs. “No, Madame Lira. Please.”

Madame Lira’s perfect eyebrows arched but let her chin go harshly. She walked back to her table in front of the studio. Still looking down, Cent sat to the farthest chair from the others to avoid being talked upon. But she heard every word that her classmates uttered.

“What a weirdo.”

“Who is she?”

“I can’t believe I failed to notice that we have a freaky classmate in this class.”

“Shh. She might be a stalker. You don’t want to be stalked by her, right?”

I am not a stalker. 

Cent felt the comforting hiss of the shadows as they patted her shoes. Smiling bitterly, Cent bit back her tears. 

They are right about two things, though. I am weird, and I am a freak.

Cent wished to run away from this class, but if she did, she would lose the only purpose worth living for her. She would need to adjust to a new environment if she ran away. And being new meant being the center of attention. Cent hated that thought, so she needed to steel herself to maintain being the wallflower of Julliard.

THE NEXT day, Cent was an hour early for Madame Lira’s class. She sat silently at her spot. Two black butterflies flew around her as if they were playing with her while the shadows with her hissed like they usually did.

The bell rang, but no one came, so Cent started to wonder. Thirty minutes after the bell rang, a teacher’s aide came in. He looked surprised when he saw her, which caused her to wonder more. “Why are you here? Haven’t you read the post from the school’s page?”

I don’t have a gadget. Cent wanted to reply, but she just shook her head. “What happened?”

“Your professor in this class croaked last night.” He replied casually. Those three last words froze her.

So it happened again.