My eyes watched the alarm clock shake in place, making a dreadful noise letting me know it was time to get up. What a fruitless night, I thought to myself in annoyance as I rubbed my legs vigorously back and forth, trying to wake them up, feeling the terrible sensation of pins and needles running through them. It turns out trying to take magic into my body rather than pushing it out was more difficult than I could have possibly imagined. In the other world, my body was like a glass of water that kept replenishing itself over time, and my only jobs were to regulate how much was in my body, making sure I never used all of it or else I would die, and the other job of pouring out the metaphorical water and shaping it to my desire. In this world, my new body was like a water balloon that had no water in it. I needed to figure out how to fill the balloon up with water while also making sure I did not overdo it, causing the balloon to burst. I assume if this happened, bad things would occur to my body, like no longer being able to use magic or possibly just dying altogether—both scenarios equally terrifying. I stood up from the floor, stretching, feeling dizzy with a mild headache, and shut off the alarm by my bed.
"Breakfast is ready!" called the delightful feminine voice from the kitchen that I was growing accustomed to thinking of as my real mom. I don't know when it happened, but for some reason, I no longer wanted to think of either of them as my new dad or my new mom; it seemed wrong to call them that, even if it was just inside my head. Even though they were peasants in my eyes when I first met them, I strangely feel more connected with those two than I ever felt for my previous parents. A genuine, non-malicious smile that I was still growing accustomed to crept onto my face as I yawned again, walking out my bedroom door.
My nose picked up the lingering scent in the air of one of the most delightful treats that I had come across in this world, causing my mouth to salivate and the tiredness in my body to immediately evaporate. I sat in my chair at the dinner table, and three big, fluffy, steaming pancakes with butter melted on top sat in front of me, almost pleading with me to bathe them in the dark sugary syrup that enhanced their flavor tenfold. After eating breakfast and catching a few minutes of TV, I was dropped off at school again, and the tiredness in my body started to creep in slowly again, making my head feel light. Gods, this would be a long day, I thought as I walked into my first class of the day.
I made it all the way to third period before having to be woken up by one of my classmates. I wiped the drool from my mouth and rubbed at my eyes, still feeling the heaviness my body protest against me, wanting me to close my eyes for just a bit longer. The bell rang, signaling everyone to line up for recess, and I bumbled my way towards the line, bumping into desks like a stumbling drunk. I made it to the playground and scanned the area for the girl with my eyes while doing some routine exercises, trying to get the blood flowing to my brain. The numbness that made me so tired began to recede from my body, probably only temporarily, and I spotted the girl sitting by the biggest tree in the whole playground alone, curling her knees to her chest. I made my way over there and stood in front of the little girl. She had a sad expression of hopelessness and curled her knees even tighter to her chest, looking like she just lost a battle that would decide a war.
"Girl, what's your name?"
"Elizabeth," she whispered, sniffling slightly.
"Did something happen to you today?"
"No one wants to play with me," she said with tears in her eyes. I sat down next to her, feeling uncomfortable. Cheering people up was never my strong suit; in fact, I usually was better at the opposite back in my home world.
"Do you know any magic, Elizabeth?"
The sadness in her eyes fled from her, and she looked up with a grin. She jumped up from her position and made a weird stance, pointed at the ground, and screamed.
"Zaptosis!"
She made a buzzing noise with her mouth and gave me a beaming smile and put her hands on her hips, declaring the monster that was about to attack me was vanquished by her secret special electricity spell. I stared at her, unamused, and wondered if what I had sensed from her previously was just a fluke. I rolled my eyes.
"No, girl, I mean real magic, not pretend magic."
"That was real magic!" she screamed and made another weird pose and screamed another ridiculous made-up word and claimed she had just made a twister out of thin air, destroying yet another monster. Gods, I thought to myself, I had made a mistake. I thought she knew real magic; instead, it was just a fluke. I started walking away, annoyed that I had wasted most of my time for recess when I could have been planning out how to harness real magic.
"Where are you going?! Don't you want to play powers with me?"
"Not interested," I said, waving my hand in a goodbye gesture.
"Why does no one want to play with me!" she screamed in a shrill, cracking voice.
I whipped my head around, sensing energy gathering and sparking all around her. I scanned her with my senses, focusing on what was causing the energy to gather around her. My eyes widened, and I inhaled sharply.
"It's that simple?!" I excitedly said to myself, not caring if the girl heard me or not. She was using one of the two types of emotional hairs that all humans possessed, and it was attracting energy like a nail would to a magnet.
I imitated what I was seeing the girl do with her emotional hairs, and within seconds, energy condensed and popped around me as well. I excitedly added a final step to it, confident that I had figured out how to use magic. I dragged the hairs back into my body, energy attached to each individual hair, and I felt the vibrating energy coursing through my veins, and a large grin crept onto my face as I celebrated inside my head that it had worked. Suddenly, I froze; all the joy vanished from me when I started to feel something in my body mixing with the energy that I had never felt before.
"No!" I gasped when I realized the energy was converting parts of my life energy into pure magic, making my body feel cold and tingly. Ice ran through my veins as I realized that this could indeed kill me if I didn't act quickly. I put my hand to the ground, my vision becoming blurry, and pushed all the remaining energy in my body that had yet to convert into magic into the ground and panted, chest feeling tight and out of breath. I looked up at the girl, and she no longer looked angry or sad. Instead, she had a horrified expression on her face. The world went out of focus again, and everything went sideways as I blacked out.