<span style="color: #08BFFF">Something really strange was happening. Zere wondered if she was the only one. <br/><br/>The girl with black hair spoke to her, but she didn’t understand wholly. All she knew was her voice sounded like cream. Her heart was dancing in her chest like she was about to fight. Her mouth was salivating, like she had found something she had been yearning for her whole life. Something within her started to swell. She had a feeling that, behind her contacts, her eyes were on fire. Her muscles twitched to move, one of her worn-out black booties tapping on the cafeteria floor. She forced her body to still. <br/><br/></span><span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #BF8080">Stop it, dammit! Zere, control yourself.</span></span><span style="color: #08BFFF"> She could barely hear her own voice over the deeper ones that seemed to radiate from her heart. The words that sounded so right and foreign, but that Zere knew were too far from “normal” for her comfort. Those words—the way her teeth grew sharper—the way her nails seemed to thicken—the things she dreamed about—the way she knew where people died and where they were buried—the way she knew which spirits gave off the most energy—the way she wanted to eat that energy up—the way graveyards felt like home—the way she wanted to call on powers she didn’t understand to fuel something hot and raging within her—all of that and more. That was what Zere called her Instinct. That was what she needed to hide. <br/><br/>But her Instinct loved this girl—what did she say her name was, Aliyah? When her name passed through her mind, Zere swallowed hard and something within her cracked with the force of lightning. She felt a dark power surround her being, and it felt <span style="font-style: italic">so good</span>.  Her face flushed. For the mere name of another individual to do this to her and her Instinct was humiliating! She pulled her eyes away, and in objection the power within her cracked again—a sound loud and painful and only for her ears to hear. At the exact same time, across the cafeteria, a florescent light shown beyond its watts and then blew out. If you watched closely, and paid attention for the millisecond you needed to, you would see the energy of the light writhe in the air, fighting the force, before being sucked into the darkness within Zere. <br/><br/>The sensation she felt made her want to scream. <br/><br/>She chose instead to look back to the black-haired, beautiful teen before her. That seemed to appease her Instinct. She wanted to get up and run away. But that wouldn’t be “normal”. As Aliyah pulled her hood down and apologized, Zere took comfort in the idea that she wasn’t the only one doing things that weren’t normal. <br/><br/>A choked laugh left her lips. It was breathy and soft, a sound that tickled sensitive ears and made most lean forward to hear more. Beneath the table, she was digging her fingers into her distressed light-wash jeans to regain composure. </span><span style="color: #BF8080">”Oh, that was nothing.”</span><span style="color: #08BFFF"> As she spoke, her voice was at the strange volume it always held when she tried to control herself—a few decimals below a normal volume.</span><span style="color: #BF8080"> “I was going to eat lunch away from school and they caught me trying to leave.”</span><span style="color: #08BFFF"> Almost flushing again at her words, Zere looked away and busied herself with trying to get food out of her black faux-leather backpack. For some reason she hoped Aliyah didn’t think she was a weakling for being caught, but she wasn’t ready to assure her that it was her first time getting caught in the past three years. That would be weird—wouldn’t it? </span>