Intro: This is the book inspired by my short story, "Electric Reality." It happens well before that story, but the moment I wrote about Gizmo and her family I was hooked. I hope this turns out well. If the way I felt writing this opening is any indication, it will be :D
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Project Name: Personal Sky (I give all my unnamed books code names :D In this series, my personal code names for the books each come from poems written for an art series ("Poetry in Blue") I bought a while ago by Jennifer DiMarco of Blue Artisans. www.blueartisans.com)
One. The street lights flew past in a blur. It was at least an hour 'til dawn, the winter sharp and brusque against her face as she sped down the street.
Two. The rough, sharp zoom of the wind as it whipped around her helmet, the rumble of the motorcycle engine, the silence of early morning in the suburbs.
Three. The smooth glide of the pavement beneath her wheels. The stiff leather of her gloves. The vibrations of the bike against her body.
Four. A deep breath, the blood rushing past her ears, the tension and release in her muscles. The pound of her heart beating against her skin. Sweet anticipation.
Five.
She smiled, wide and feral, absorbed the electricity from five street lights and one power line into her skin and her heart stopped.
The smell of clean air and pre-dawn dew was replaced with singed flesh. She was barely able to keep the bike steady as her eyes rolled and she felt herself burning to pieces. She screamed, loud and wild, until the electricity burned away the sound of her voice. She knew she should be dead. She knew what she was doing was impossible. But she didn't question it as the electricity split her apart. Just before she lost all control of the motorcycle, as the thrill of electrocution and the transcendent high of the pure energy shooting through her veins overcame her, she shot the electricity back into the sky where it flashed like lightning in the clouds. Within seconds her skin had healed, her senses returned and, in just over a minute, it was like nothing had happened. The only sign that she'd nearly electrocuted herself to death was the burnt smell that clung to her leather jacket.
Her parents thought she smoked. They had no idea.
She didn't know how she could sense and pull electricity into her body. She didn't know why the pain was never unbearable or the electric heat didn't overcome her. She didn't know how she could heal so quickly. But she didn't think about it. She was a super hero. A mutant. An alien. Invincible. Whatever she was, it was the epitome of cool. And she had no intention of sharing her secrets with anyone.
It'd been four years since the electric fence on her grandparent's farm when she was twelve. She hadn't walked into it. The electricity had shot out at her like she was a lightning rod, sending enough voltage through her body to fry her like a piece of chicken. But it didn't. Since then she'd been on a constant quest to see what else she could survive, but no thrill could beat that first near-death experience. Electricity. It burned her and remade her, all at once, just like the dawn remade the world. She was a phoenix. Reborn from the flames.
The smell of scorched skin still lingered when she heard the first car pull from a driveway on her left. And there it was. The rest of the world was waking. Her mom would be calling soon. She'd stopped paying attention to when her daughter came home years ago, but she always called if she was still away by morning.
She rarely came home anymore. She couldn't stand the tiny apartment with the narrow, paper-thin walls and the musty smell of rooms that had been closed off from fresh air all winter to preserve heat. She needed that wild, that passion that was becoming harder and harder to find as the things that had once sent chills across her skin became so painfully vanilla she could do them with her eyes closed. She needed to find that thing that would make her scream. She needed the thrill of jumping along rooftops or speeding down the highway so fast she knew any mistake would kill her. She needed the electric charge, burning her from the inside out. Without it, everything seemed to slow to a stop, dead and unbearably fake and pointless. She had to keep the circuit moving, had to keep her blood pumping.
She glanced at her phone. Still no call, but school would be starting soon enough. She hated it. Hated the monotony, the endless rules and routines that seemed determined to pound every creative and unconventional cell from her body, but she had learned one truth very early in life: if she wanted to be free, to do what she wanted without her mother getting in her way, she had to at least appear to follow the rules. Most people wanted to believe the easy answers. If she could put up a convincing enough front, they wouldn't question her. They'd look the other way. They wanted to.
She chuckled, the sound harsh and tense, already the awful pointlessness of her day bearing down on her. People were so quick to ignore reality. But she wouldn't complain. It ensured her freedom. Still, she couldn't help but laugh and feel sorry for everyone. There were so many fascinating things they'd miss by closing their eyes and keeping things light and easy. They'd never know what it felt like to hold electric fire in their veins. To feel the wind against their skin, so fast and hard they could barely breathe. They'd never know what it felt like to really, truly scream.
