Pristine Academy: The Singularity's Manifestation

“She’s a monster!” Hands were pointed to a blonde girl in the middle of the crowd on a beach, her face contorted in fear and embarrassment. She’s covering her strangely blue hand, hiding it from the people taking an interest in it. “Patricia is a monster in disguise. I told you she is!” A black-haired girl hysterically shouted, walking up to the blonde and ripping her other hand out to show the scandalous notion she was presenting. The sight of an arm that looked unnaturally like a blue crystal caught the attention of all the people around them. It looked hard and reflective, with crystalline patterns from her elbows and her fingers like pointed daggers. It shines in the setting sun, like a beautiful exhibition. However, it was far from beautiful, as the owner of the arm, Patricia it was breaking into tears with the harsh grip that she was under and the embarrassment she had just suffered. Despite her hand’s hardness, she could feel pain inflicted on it all the same. As she looks around, she is surrounded by her schoolmates, almost as if she were an animal in a circus to ogle. She hisses as she pulls away her eccentric arm from the harsh grip, glaring at her. The girl who started the commotion looked offended as she was being rejected to embarrass her more. “You’re not going to hide it anymore!” Her voice was hoarse, her eyes were trembling in frenzy. “Everyone thought I was f*****g crazy that you had weird alien arms! You get back here!” She pounced at her, trying to get her arms again. However, Patricia didn’t make it easy, pushing her reaching hands to pull her again in the middle of the ground. The two girls broke into a fight as the black-haired girl charged at Patricia. The latter was brave enough to fight back without hesitation. “Tell them! Tell them you are a monster!” The other girl shouted at her as she practically toppled the blonde girl under her. Their schoolmates around became their audience. No one dared to step in and pull the girls aside. Instead of putting an end to this mess, the audience chattered among themselves and some even cheered it on, as if this were some kind of wrestling match. Suddenly, a burst of force pushed everyone, as if a wind had just knocked them. It was a small push, yet it was enough to brush up sand on the eyes of Patricia’s enemy and made a distraction that shifted the audience’s attention. They didn’t know where it came from, but this small event gave Patricia a window of opportunity to flee the scene. She pushes the girl away from her and tries to flee among the crowd. The girl was fast enough to catch her arms again and pull her closer to her harshly. “You’re not going anywhere!” Patricia was overwhelmed with pain. It felt as if her arms almost detached from her whole body as she was pulled harshly. “Erin!” She pleads as she pushes her away. A sudden strength rushes to her body, like an electric feeling from her head to toe, wiping the pain that she just experienced. Although it released a wave of weakness onto her as if she exerted a great force on something. She opens her squinted eye and sees Erin on the ground, injured, with a blink. Her body splayed on the sand, injuries about. She was frozen in shock, although she started screaming as the pain started to set in her senses. It snapped Patricia out of her trance, allowing her to realize the scene before her. There were several shards of what seems to be magenta glass around the girl on the sand. These glass shards are around her as well, albeit floating. It seems time has almost stopped, as everyone was entirely speechless in shock around them. Patricia could feel her heart beating faster than it ever had as the situation’s graveness slowly sank in. Before her mind could even process everything, her feet started moving, running away from the scene. “After her!” The collective shout behind her back gave her the motivation to run faster and faster. People started chasing after her, save for the ones who were left behind to tend to the wounded girl. She comes running towards her bike and runs off with it, outrunning her pursuers. She started pedaling the fast as she could ever do and will ever do in her life. Her hands were gripped on the handlebars as if her life depended on them. She turned her head for a moment and saw some were still pursuing her with their bikes. Patricia decided to take alternative routes around the city, as if she were on the run. She went through alleyways and turned right and left at every corner she managed to find. Soon, the pedals and the shouting of her pursuers became distant and distant. After what seemed like hours of pedaling, she finally found an alleyway where she lost her pursuers. They either lost her or gave up halfway through. Her bike comes to a halt as her heart almost does with the fatigue she’s feeling. The blonde catches a year’s worth of her breath as she rests her trembling feet. She turns her head again, checking twice if there is still someone behind her. She sighs in relief as she is in peace, alone with herself at last. Patricia rests for a while before finally going home. She wraps her right hand with a handkerchief before setting off. After some minutes of calm pedaling, she approaches her house. The sight of the color of her house alone makes her feel at ease, yet there’s a lingering fear inside her. She enters their lawn and sets aside her bicycle. She stands there, staring at the house, hesitating to go inside. She decided to stay outside for a while and calm herself down one more time. The events that happened earlier rush into her mind, stumbling like a mob in her head. She looks at her crystal hand, trembling from the rush that she had experienced. It was still the same as before, but she didn’t know it will do what would happen. “Did I do that?” She breathes heavily, “What have I done?” Her voice cracked as a tear rolled off her eye. “What’s happening to me?” She said to herself, her feet were trembling in fear. Patricia looks at the house again. She feels fear to even step on the porch. She pulls herself together, “Just… don’t look… bad.” She fixes herself and slightly covers the bruises she got. She wipes the imminent tears from her eyes. She takes a deep breath and approaches the door. Entering her home, no one seems to be present in the living room. She took the chance to slip past and go to the stairs. “What a miracle to witness. You’re early today.” Patricia froze in place as she heard the familiar stern voice that she was afraid of. She decided to insist on going upstairs, but the voice spoke once more before she could. “Don’t run away. Are you hiding something?” Someone approaches her from behind and grabs her arms. Patricia looks shocked as she looks at her father, observing the bruise she got on her arms. She immediately withdraws her arms from his hand. “What are these bruises?” Her father looks at him, rather disappointed, with a hint of concern. He peered at the hand that was covered with a handkerchief. “Tsk,” tutted an exasperated father. “Did they catch wind of your hand finally?” Patricia sighs with a slight groan in her voice, “They… They did.” Her father sighs, “I’ve always told you not to hang around with those people. It’s evident in their faces that they just want to snitch with you if they discover something. Tell me, it’s Erin, right?” Patricia looked down at the floor. She couldn’t face her father right now. She didn’t want to talk about it. She turned around, and her feet started walking upstairs. “We aren’t done talking yet, Patricia.” The blonde girl turned her head to her old man behind her, her eyebrows furrowed downwards. Her tone spoke with venom, almost as if hissing at him. “If you’re just going to rub on me that you are always right, I already know it. I don’t need to hear that again while I am in so much pain.” “I am not rubbing anything on you. I am just telling you that you should have listened to me. Those people are no good for you.” Her father told her gently, in the rare times he did. Patricia looked away, hiding the imminent tears in her eyes. “Everyone who’s befriending me always ends up on your bad side.” “Because they were bad, Patricia, do I need to list them all? Eurydice, in your elementary school, when she learned about your hand, she told her mother. Ending up with your grandmother to bribe her to not tell anyone. Belle, in your middle school, she ends up snitching on you for everyone to bully you.” There was a hitch in Patricia’s breath, as if he just shot the bullseye. She sighs, trying to reel herself in.. “Yes, they were all bad. I admit that.” Her father only scoffed, “See? Even with all of that, you’re still not listening to me.” Patricia clenches her fist, taking deep breaths to calm herself. However, something inside her is pushing her to reason. A lot of her regrets before rushed to her mind, overwhelming her to speak up. “Is it wrong for me to seek friends, Dad?” Patricia bites back the tears that were threatening to flow from her. “Is it bad for me to trust my own peers that they will understand me, even if I’m like this, if I have hands like this?” Once her father didn’t speak for a few seconds, she continued. The dam in her mind is slowly cracking, leaking through her words. “Is it wrong that I trusted people who I thought would respect my difference, respect whatever is wrong with my arm, respect who I am!?” She started choking in her words; her eyes were already getting glossy from her imminent tears. “All I knew in my life is I’m different from the people around me.” Patricia looked at her arm, the blue crystal arm that she had. It was beautiful, if not for the many names that she listened to just because she had this arm. Others would have seen this as something wonderful, out of this world, something to put up in a museum. But all she got were countless instances of bullying and pain in her whole life. “Grandma always said that my arm was a blessing. The only thing I have left from my mother. But the only thing it gave me all my life was people laughing and screaming at me that I’m a monster!” Sobs went out of her mouth, tears started flowing from her eyes to her cheeks, like a waterfall. She started kneeling down, curling up into herself. “I don’t know if my friends are bad or if I shouldn’t have had this f*****g arm at all! I don’t even know why I have this or what it does. All I know is that it’s ruining my life!” Patricia shouted, her voice almost cracking as she scratched off her left arm where the crystal abomination she was nursing was connected. “This arm gave me problems more than a miracle that grandma was talking about! Look at me now, I don’t have any genuine friends, even if I wanted to. I don’t have any genuine dreams because I always question myself.” She looked at her father, her eyes wet with her tears. “I almost killed someone with this hand.” Her father slightly turned to her, looking at her as she held out her crystal arm. “Crystals appeared and stabbed her in the body. Can you explain this to me, Dad? Did I do that? Did this hand do that? Tell me the truth. Tell me that I’m actually a monster!” Her father was speechless as if something had gone so wrong. His face went pale, his eyes trembling as if in fear. Patricia sniffed, glaring at her father’s reaction. “Tell me of this curse, Dad, right now. I am so sick of this. You have been hiding something from me for all of these years. Tell me now. End my suffering.” “It’s still not the time…” Her father looked so distant, as if he was shocked, in denial. Patricia’s breath hitches, standing from her curled-up position, her face already red and stained with tears. “It’s never a time for you! Tell me, tell me about how the heavens cursed you with a cursed child. Just stop lying to me! I am so sick of this!” Her father didn’t respond. He looked as if thoughts were fighting each other in his mind. Patricia was impatient already. Her father has put her in this position. He knows something; he knows more. “Tell me! I almost killed someone from my ignorance! Can you shed any light on your daughter!? Are you this heartless!?” She suddenly felt something pulling her arms around her. Her father runs his calloused hands through her hair. She could hear him sob. “I’m sorry, Patricia… I’m sorry. I… I’m not equipped for this day to happen. No… I never thought this would come soon.” Patricia looks up at his father, her chin held by his fingers. “Don’t worry now. I’m going to call your grandmother.” “You deserve to know more.”