Claimed by Alpha and Omega: Trash Luna

MIA'S POV "Get out of my room!" The shout hit me like a bucket of cold water, and I nearly rolled off the mattress trying to sit up. For three full seconds, I didn't move. I just stared at the ceiling, waiting for my brain to catch up with my body. It wasn't my ceiling. My ceiling was white, boring, popcorn-textured, the kind landlords slap on every rental unit in the city. This one was dark wood, uneven planks, with a hairline crack running corner to corner like someone had taken an axe to it in a fit of rage. I blinked. Once. Twice. Then I sat bolt upright, and the room spun. "Finally!" A girl stood by the door, arms crossed, glaring at me like I'd personally ruined her morning. Long brown hair, sharp eyes, the exact expression of someone who had already used up every ounce of their patience before 8 a.m. "You've been sleeping forever. Do you have any idea what time it is?" I opened my mouth to answer. Nothing came out. Not a word. Not a croak. Not even air with intention behind it. My hand flew to my throat. The girl's glare melted into something closer to guilt. "Oh. Right. I forgot." She crossed the room and yanked the curtains open. Sunlight poured in like it had something to prove. "You can't talk," she said, matter-of-fact, like she was reminding me I'd forgotten my umbrella. I stared at her. She stared back, entirely unbothered by the fact that my whole world had just tilted sideways. My breathing sped up. I scanned the room — a wooden wardrobe with a crooked door, a narrow desk stacked with unfamiliar books, a cracked mirror leaning against the wall, and a bed that was absolutely, unquestionably, not mine. I threw the blanket off and shot to my feet. "Mira?" the girl said, alarmed. I ignored her and lunged for the mirror. She followed. "What are you doing—" I stopped in front of the glass. A stranger stared back at me. Long black hair spilled over pale shoulders. The eyes were too big, the face too thin, the whole silhouette wrong in a way I couldn't have described if my life depended on it, and given the panic clawing up my throat, it might. I raised my hand. The girl in the mirror raised hers. I touched my cheek. She copied me, exact and merciless. My heart slammed so hard I thought it might crack a rib. “No. No, no, no.” I stumbled back a step, hands flying over my face, my hair, my chest, like I could pat myself back into the body I recognized. "Mira?" The concern in her voice had sharpened into something closer to fear. "You're really scaring me." “You're” scared? I wanted to laugh. I wanted to scream. I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shout “I don't even know who Mira is,” but my throat had apparently filed a formal resignation. I pointed at myself. Then at the mirror. Then shook my head so hard my new, unfamiliar hair whipped across my face. She frowned. "You don't recognize yourself?" I shook my head again, more frantic this time. Silence stretched between us, long enough that I could hear my own pulse in my ears. "You're really scaring me," she whispered again, quieter. I wanted to tell her the feeling was extremely mutual. Instead, I stumbled toward the door, some instinct screaming at me to get out, get answers, get anything that made sense. She blocked me, arms out like she was fielding a runaway toddler. "Wait." I pointed at the hallway, gesturing wildly. "Bathroom?" I shook my head. "Kitchen?" No. "...Grandmother?" I nodded so fast I nearly gave myself whiplash. She sighed, long and put-upon, like this was a routine she'd performed a hundred times before. "Fine. Come on, drama queen." “Drama queen.” Right. Because waking up as a stranger in an unfamiliar body was clearly an overreaction. I followed her out, and made it exactly three steps before a thought hit me so hard I stopped dead in the hallway. “Mira.” That was the name she kept calling me. Who — or maybe more accurately, what — was Mira? And why was everyone acting like I owed her a performance? The staircase groaned under my bare feet. Voices rose from downstairs, a lot of them, layered over each other, arguing, laughing, complaining about burnt toast like it was a criminal offense. "Is Mira awake yet?" someone shouted. The girl beside me, I still didn't know her name, called back, "Yes." "Then why isn't she down here?" "She just woke up." A different voice, dry as sandpaper: "She probably forgot she has an academy to attend." My stomach dropped straight through the floorboards. Academy? I glanced sideways at the girl. She caught my expression and stopped walking. "You remember the academy, right?" A beat. Her eyes narrowed. "Mira. Tell me you're joking." I shook my head. She stared at me like I'd just confessed to forgetting my own name — which, to be fair, I basically had. "You've been accepted into Luna Academy for months," she said slowly, like maybe repetition would jog something loose. “Luna Academy.” The words meant nothing and everything at once, heavy with implication I couldn't decode. "Are you sick?" she asked, lowering her voice. I shook my head. "Did you hit your head?" I actually considered it. Maybe. I genuinely couldn't remember. What I could remember; in fragments, sharp and humiliating, was my apartment. My bed. Alden's face when I'd finally worked up the nerve to tell him how I felt, and the excruciating silence that followed. The walk home, blinking back tears I refused to let fall in public. Curling up with my dog-eared werewolf novel because fiction had always been kinder to me than reality. And then. Nothing. Sleep. And now this, someone else's ceiling, someone else's face, someone else's whispered reputation trailing me before I'd even said a word. “This has to be a dream.” I pinched my arm, hard enough to leave a mark. Pain shot up to my elbow, sharp and real and deeply unhelpful. I yelped internally, the only kind of yelping currently available to me, and yanked my hand back. The girl watched the whole performance with open suspicion. "Did you seriously just pinch yourself?" I nodded. "Why?" I pointed up, made a vague sleeping gesture with my hands pressed together beside my tilted head. Her eyebrows shot up. "You think you're dreaming?" I nodded, defiant, daring her to argue. She looked at me the way you'd look at someone who'd just announced they were the reincarnation of a houseplant. "Okay," she said, drawing the word out. Then she grabbed my hand, warm and surprisingly gentle despite the exasperation in her voice. "Let's get you fed before you decide the window's a better exit strategy." I shook my head violently. She laughed — actual, genuine laughter, the first crack of warmth I'd seen from her. "Good. At least that part of your brain still works." The dining room was too small for the crowd packed into it. I counted heads on instinct. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Seven girls, all different, blonde, brunette, one clearly still half-asleep with her face nearly in her plate, another watching me like I was a science experiment that had wandered out of containment. An elderly woman rose from the head of the table. Silver hair pinned back, kind eyes, the kind of face that made my chest ache with a familiarity I had no right to feel. "Mira." Just my name — Mira's name — but her voice wrapped around it like a blanket. She crossed the room and cupped my cheek. "You look frightened, child." I lowered my eyes, throat tight. She pulled me into a hug before I could brace for it. I stiffened — a stranger's arms around a stranger's body — but the warmth radiating off her hit something under my ribs that didn't care about logic. "It's all right," she murmured. "Everyone's frightened on their first day. You'll be fine." I closed my eyes and, humiliatingly, felt tears threaten. I didn't know this woman. But apparently Mira had a grandmother who loved her fiercely, and right now, borrowed love was better than none at all. Then one of the sisters snorted. "She'll be fine?" Another leaned back in her chair, smirking. "Grandma, you're talking like Mira can actually survive Luna Academy." The table went quiet in that specific way that means everyone's listening even harder. The grandmother's expression hardened. "That's enough, Sable." The girl, Sable, apparently, shrugged, unrepentant. "I'm just being honest." Another sister turned to me, sickly sweet. "Don't worry, Mira. If anyone asks what your ability is, just tell them you're a healer." She emphasized healer like it was the punchline to a joke I hadn't been told yet. The table erupted into laughter. I stared blankly, the sting of not understanding somehow worse than if I'd understood every word. The girl beside me, my guide, my translator, my only ally in this entire upside-down world, rolled her eyes hard enough to strain something. "Can everyone just stop?" "Why?" Sable challenged. "We're telling the truth." "She hasn't even started school yet," my girl snapped. "She deserves one peaceful morning." "She'll get plenty of attention there," Sable said, smiling like a knife. "Might as well get used to it now." "Why," my girl pressed, "is that funny to you?" "Because," Sable said, sweet as poison, "everyone loves a joke." I lowered my head, and something in my chest cracked quietly, privately. I didn't know these people. I didn't know this world, this name, this face in the mirror. But somehow, before I'd even said a single word, because I couldn't, I was already the punchline. The grandmother set a plate in front of me, gentler than the moment deserved. "Eat." I nodded, throat tight. She touched my hand, steady and warm. "You'll do well, Mira. I believe that." I looked up at her. She smiled — small, certain, unshaken by anything her granddaughters had said. I smiled back. It felt strange on this unfamiliar face. But it was real. LILA'S POV I watched Mira pick at her breakfast like she'd never held a fork before, and something in my chest twisted uncomfortably. She'd always been quiet, the family joke, the girl everyone assumed would draw the weakest ability at the Academy's Awakening Ceremony, but this wasn't her usual quiet. This was different. Wrong, somehow, in a way I couldn't name. She kept looking at her own hands like they belonged to someone else. I told myself it was nerves. First-day jitters, amplified by seven sisters who'd never once learned to be kind before being right. I didn't know yet how wrong that guess would turn out to be. MIA'S POV After breakfast, the girl; Lila, I finally caught, when Sable snapped at her by name, helped me into the uniform laid across the bed. White shirt, dark pleated skirt, a silver emblem stitched over the heart like a brand. I stared at my reflection. For one disorienting second, I almost didn't recognize the girl staring back, and then I remembered that I never had, not since I opened my eyes on this body. Lila stood behind me, arms crossed, studying the effect. "You look nice." I pointed at myself, then pulled a deeply skeptical face. She burst out laughing. "You do. Stop looking at yourself like you're headed to your own funeral." I rolled my eyes so hard it nearly hurt. "There she is," Lila said, grinning. "You're already feeling better." I pointed at the door, then shook my head, hard. "You don't want to go." I nodded. "Because you're scared." I nodded again, no point pretending otherwise. She sighed, but it wasn't unkind. "I know. But I'm coming with you." She slung her bag over one shoulder. "And if anyone says anything stupid, I'll handle it." I pointed at myself, then at her, then gave her the most questioning look I could manage without words. "Yes," she said, softer now. "I'll be your voice. Until you get yours back." Warmth bloomed under my ribs, unexpected and fierce. I threw my arms around her before I could second-guess it. She froze, clearly not used to spontaneous hugging, then hugged me back, careful, like she thought I might shatter. "Come on, Mira," she said, pulling away first. "Let's get you to your own funeral on time." I shoved her. She laughed. And for one small, stupid moment, the terror sitting on my chest eased just slightly.