"Breaking news: An explosion seems to have occurred at the main terminal of Dulles International Airport. Witnesses reported a loud bang and shattering noises at 6:37 am this morning; details about possible injuries or casualties are scarce. The terminal was extremely crowded this morning as many flights were canceled due to a storm warning; rescue forces are fearing the worst. A possible connection to the recent series of explosions in the D.C. area is currently being investigated."
Regina Day turned the radio off. Sighing with exasperation and deep-rooted concern, she closed her eyes and went back to the fridge to fetch a fresh bottle of milk, placing it on the table next to the breakfast cereal. "Not again," she sighed. "I just recovered from the last time the press tried to frame them as terrorist attacks."
"Frame them?" Gabriel Day looked up from his bowl of cereal to raise a curious eyebrow at his wife. "What do you think they are, Regina?"
"Gabe, we talked about this. I'm pretty sure these are no ordinary explosions." Regina sighed again as images flickered through her mind. "I've seen the injuries. No burns, no traces of any chemicals, nothing. It's as if air suddenly expanded for no reason. It doesn't just do that." Her expression softened. "Well, at least it's a little way off this time. I still remember the time they took all the injured people to our hospital, it was pandemonium. I almost thought I'd have to use necromancy on some of them."
Gabriel frowned deeply. "That's forbidden."
"It was an eight-year-old girl! Would you have let her die?" Regina sat down and stuffed a large spoonful of cereal and milk into her mouth. "I mean, I didn't do it," she continued as Gabriel gave her a disbelieving look, "but, you know, if I had to..."
"That's a felony."
"I already committed a felony by marrying you. I'm not scared." Regina laughed. "I mean, we're basically outlaws already, so what's the worst that could happen? It's not like they'd catch me, anyway."
Gabriel sighed and gave a resigned, affectionate smile. "You're too reckless."
"Says the one who almost got himself killed for a total stranger."
"That was one time!"
They both snorted and continued eating. It wasn't until they were almost finished that Regina's gaze fell upon her daughter, Mercury, who had barely touched her food, staring absentmindedly into the distance. Behind her orange lights and shadows flickered over the wall as if cast by a fire, but there was nothing burning. She didn't seem to notice.
"What's wrong, Mercury?" Regina asked. "Are you okay?"
"Huh? O-Oh, um..." Mercury jolted as if startled out of a trance, blinking and blushing with embarrassment. The lights and shadows disappeared. "No, I'm just worried. I mean...an explosion...and no details...I just hope it's nothing serious this time..."
Gabriel cracked a knowing smirk. "You weren't imagining anything scary again, were you?"
Mercury blushed again and fervently shook her head. "No!" she lied. "N-No, I wasn't imagining anything this time, really!"
Her parents exchanged a knowing look. Gabriel grinned. "Really?"
"Yeah, really! I'm not always imagining stuff, you know?" Mercury laughed nervously.
"We know, we know. You don't have an overactive imagination at all." Regina smiled kindly and ruffled her hair. "Now eat your breakfast, okay? It's almost time to leave."
No matter who you asked, anyone who knew them would tell you that Gabriel and Regina Day were perfectly normal, kind-hearted, polite people. They lived in a small house in the suburbs, surrounded by a garden that wasn't too neat but beautiful in its own way, with crooked trees and brightly-colored flowers wherever you looked. Nobody was too sure what Mr. and Mrs. Day had been doing or where they had lived before moving here, and nobody asked; they'd been young, and most people simply assumed that they had gone to college.
Gabriel Day was a pale, serious middle-aged man with blond hair that was slowly whitening in some places if you looked closely, a good-natured smile, and bright gray eyes. When he wasn't at home reading under one of the trees in any weather you'd find him working at the flower shop he owned, a small place full of beautiful flowers that would put even biologists at a loss and scents that never caused any allergies except, mysteriously enough, for the rude customers. Of course their rudeness had nothing to do with their allergic reactions, people said. If anything it might be karma, but there was no way a flower could react to a person's manners. Obviously.
Regina Day was a little older than her husband but looked younger, her rich dark brown skin almost showing no wrinkles, except when she laughed. Her dark eyes were always twinkling with a hint of mischief, and her curly black hair seemed to reflect her moods, bouncing or flattening as her expressions shifted. Regina didn't care much about her husband's flowers; she was a hospital surgeon, and coworkers would say that she could calm any patient's bad moods or fears in an instant, almost as if she was psychic. Which she wasn't, of course. She was very good with people and skilled at her job, but it wasn't like she could actually manipulate people's emotions.
Mr. and Mrs. Day were nice people, but perfectly normal. That was something everybody agreed on. They overslept on weekends like everyone else. They struggled with taking care of the house and garden like everyone else. They ran laps around the block like everyone else and ended up chatting with the neighbors instead like everyone else. They were just that, ordinary.
Nobody seemed to notice Regina sometimes sitting outside at night, seemingly holding a conversation with the crows on the roof. Nobody seemed to notice the way Gabriel could switch on the lights in his room by snapping his fingers even though they didn't even have bulbs in them, either.
Nobody except for their daughter.
Mercury Day had always been a little strange. When she was in kindergarten she once pressed her hand against the window on a cold day and the whole window fogged up, flowery patterns seemingly painting themselves into the fog just to disappear in an instant. In elementary school she and the neighboring girls helped in the kitchen, and the steam coming from one of the pots had taken the shape of a fairy, danced across the room, bowed gracefully, and dissolved out the window. In seventh grade she had quietly watched two of her classmates argue about something pointless while their shadows behind them moved together and kissed. Nobody could say if Mercury had anything to do with it; she didn't notice, and when asked about it she couldn't remember a thing.
Now she was in eighth grade, close to starting high school, and still strange things happened around her every once in a while.
Mercury didn't pay attention at school today. No matter how much she tried, her thoughts always kept drifting back to the news headline she had heard this morning. An explosion...And it was already the fourth one. Every time they seemed to happen in closer succession. She wondered what kept happening there...If her mother was right and those explosions weren't terrorist attacks, then what were they?
Maybe they were gas explosions...no, then the places should have been burned. Air expanding for no reason...without warming up...
What if someone or something simply kept filling all these buildings with more and more and more air until they exploded like balloons?
Mercury almost laughed at that thought. She wasn't sure if that was possible, but what if it was? She wondered how much air one would need to burst a house. Probably a lot. Where should it all come from? Outside? Maybe it had been sucked in from the outside. But then there should have been no air left outside...People would have needed space suits to walk around outside. Okay, that probably wasn't how it worked. But what if?
No–on second thought, it would probably just have become very windy...maybe windy enough to fly around if you had an umbrella? That would be scary. But fun, somehow. She wondered if it had rained last night–
"Mercury, are you listening?"
She blinked and jumped. Standing in front of her, glaring down with a very unamused expression, was her teacher.
And the whole class was staring at her.
"S-S-Sorry!" Mercury stuttered out, her face going bright red. "I just...got distracted...sorry..."
"Again? Jesus Christ." Her teacher sighed resignedly. "You never change, do you?"
A few voices snickered. Mercury shrank in her seat and put up her textbook, trying to hide from the looks, the laughs, the unwanted attention. She wished she could turn herself invisible and disappear until they all stopped looking at her, laughing at her, judging her.
But all she could was shrink and try to hide and stutter an apology and hope they would all forget about it in a second, and that made people all the scarier.
Mercury tried to listen. She always did. It wasn't her fault that her thoughts always kept straying off to strange things nobody else thought about and her only decent subjects were art and creative writing, as long as she didn't have to present her creations in front of people.
The class went on. It went on and on for ages, and Mercury spent it sitting stooped over her book and pulling up her shoulders, avoiding eye contact with everyone and hoping she wouldn't get called on. Then at long last it was over, and she hurriedly packed her bag and slipped out before anyone could try to talk to her, sprinting across the hallway, leaping down a flight of stairs, and making her way to her next classroom two doors away through the gloomy, deserted, spider-infested school basement.
Nobody talk to me, she thought as she made her way back into human civilization, plucking a spider out of her hair and ducking past a row of jocks to slip into the classroom. Nobody look at me. I'm not here. I'm invisible.
Then her next class began, and her teacher started checking everyone's presences as she mentally prepared herself to say "Here!" when she was called. And yet, when her name fell, she still felt unprepared.
"Here!" she squeaked out, sounding startled and panicked. Her face heated up. Had she sounded too weird? Were people judging her?
But miraculously no one was looking. Her teacher stared at her, but for some reason his eyes seemed to be staring right through her.
"...Mercury?" he asked. "Is Mercury Day here?"
"Y-Yes," Mercury said, louder this time and leagues more confused. Had he overlooked her? "I'm right here!"
Her teacher blinked and suddenly looked just as confused. "Oh, there you are!" he exclaimed. "Sorry, I didn't see you for a moment...You have to speak up, you know? Otherwise you'll turn invisible someday."
"Yes," Mercury mumbled, a glowing blush spreading over her face as all eyes rested on her. "I'm sorry."
Her teacher returned to checking the names, still looking mildly puzzled, as if he had seen something he couldn't quite believe. The others looked much the same. No one was even laughing.
It was as if Mercury had actually been invisible for a moment. But she couldn't do that, right?
Magic...
No way. She couldn't do that. For someone like her it should be impossible.
And yet people continued to look at her as if she had actually appeared out of thin air.
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