Eli’s fingers dung into the dirt. The feel was familiar, like how she’d dig into the garden back home. Their backyard, with all the ivy, the butterfly bushes, the pansies. Her parents, with their corporate jobs, never figured out where her green touch came from. Her little brother, Finn, didn’t share it either, as he rather sat in his room reading a book, or hanging with friends, doing whatever little brothers do.
No, it wasn’t until an apple tree shot up in the middle of the grass lawn that anyone suspected anything. Not even Eli. They remembered how they thought how it would be nice to actually have an apple tree, having just planted a seed, wondering how long such a thing would take. And guess what, it turned out to be a wait of only a few moments.
Studying the dirt under her paint-stained nails, faces of her parents flickered before her eyes. That panic, surprise and fear at the same time, flashing across their faces, then turning to her to comfort her. ‘It’s going to be okay, sweetie. It’ll be alright.’
They must’ve been trying to convince themselves too. The old radio she’d put on, for some background noise in the greenhouse, crackled. ‘...been three months since the decree that all mutants must have their abilities registered on their ID.’
Ah, yeah. Eli scratched her head, careless about the dirtiness of it. She pouted. ‘Oh, you will never, ever stop me’, she thought. It felt like the government wanted to treat them as if they were aliens, weird ones that needed to be caged. She was going to be a respected, famous, and very cool botanist, who also painted neat stuff. Heck yeah. ‘I’m gonna get just what I want’.
And being here, at Xavier’s Academy for Gifted Students, so far away from the gray and dull city, she found herself so very alive. She’d made friends, too. Cam and Thomas had been so kind from the start.
But Eli couldn’t help but miss home. Of course, they could call, and video-call, even, but it wasn’t the same. It had all happened very quickly. Her parents had seen some ad of some kind for the Academy, and had written to Professor Xavier. He had come over to their house, and over a cup of tea, all was explained and settled.
It was better than being a freak at school, or all the things they’d gotten thrown to their head, right after the apple tree ‘magically’ had appeared. News like that was wildfire. Eli had deleted Snapchat, and cursed the social media for their blunt sharpness and satire.
No, they were much better off here. Finn, though, hadn’t taken it well. Even after talking about it, he didn’t want them to leave. ‘But why do you have to leave? This is your home, this is where you live!’
Eli almost crushed a plant stem between their fingers as a tear rolled down their freckled cheeks. They wiped it off. Better to have no salt in the ground. In this world to survive… we can live while we’re alive… or choose not to. The teen shook her head. She was going to live her life, no matter what. She’d take all the chances she could get, and show those government people that she was not an alien, or a freak. She huffed, remembering the looks that other students had shot her then. ‘I’m perfectly capable of handling myself. You wanna have a taste of ivy…?’ She muttered, taking a cosmos flower to put in a bigger pot.
The radio now played a song. Eli tilted her head, listening for a moment. ‘...Oh, the apocalypse is coming, don't you lose all your control…’