For Silva, this day was not a good day. Not only her morning had started with her oversleeping, but after rushing to school she had discovered that her first class had been cancelled.

Today was not a good day because while rushing to the school she had stepped into a puddle.

Today was not a good day because for the first time this school year she had a person standing in front of her seat. The girl had come into her class right after the bell had rung the start of the recess. She had rushed to her table before Silva could habitually slip away.

Silva was not sure what the girl wanted but she was clear on her own wishes and was already eyeing a chance to getaway. Unfortunately, the chance did not arrive before the girl addressed her.

“Hey, long time no see… I wanted to ask you something, I saw you a couple of days ago in town.” The girl was apparently familiar with her, but Silva could not recall ever meeting her. Silva carefully eyed the girl trying to guess what she was getting at. “And I saw you in that whacky teahouse with a guy, and I wanted to ask who he is to yo-”

Before the girl could give her the question Silva was already in her bolting mode.

“You must be mistaken. It was not me.” Silva retorted. She had not been in a good mood at all and now this girl tried to wreck her peaceful school life. She had already gathered all of her stuff and now the only thing she was lacking was the chance.

The girl seemed to be unsure for a moment and seemed to be uncomfortable as most of the class was now looking at them. After a moment she made up her mind and moved to stop Silva from leaving.

“No, that must have been you!” The girl’s voice was full of confidence, which Silva did not share with her.

Seeing the unfamiliar girl blocking her Silva’s stress levels skyrocketed. She felt more and more attention fall on them as the rest of the class became quieter. No matter how Silva looked at the situation the girl had no good intentions. There also was no point in waiting for any help, as she had no friends within this building. The classmates were acquaintances at best.

Then it hit Silva, this girl and she was in the same class some time ago. Back then she too had been the quiet girl in the background. There were only vague recollections of this girl and a reunion was not what she was looking for.

It was at this point that someone entered the classroom and greeted everyone. The greeting took some of the intruder’s attention away from Silva as she glanced back to see who it was. So did most of the onlookers and Silva used the chance to slip past the annoyance. She tripped one of the passing classmates, silently apologizing to him. His fall gathered the rest of the rooms attention and for Silva, this was the chance to use her ability. The girl still tried to catch her, but when she turned back she found no one.

As Silva was exiting the class she still could see the confused girl looking around trying to find her, but she would have no luck. If Silva wanted to hide there was no one who could find her. Her vanishing act did cause a little stir, but not as much as Silva had feared it would. She guessed that her classmates had somewhat used to her being so elusive. She wagered that the worst that would happen would be some new rumours floating around, but she could deal with those as she had done in the past. But the fact that she had fallen back to her ability so easily was irksome and in the long term could turn out to be dangerous.

“Still, it was probably not the best idea to return to the class today. Might as well ditch the rest of day, it has been a while since I did…” Silva was not a repeated truant and the school tended to ignore people like her as long as their grades did not fall under the red mark. With nothing better to do, she decided to send a message to her friends and see if they are free after school. After getting a positive answer she shortly weighed her options, but in the end, decided on the usual aimless wandering around.

While walking away from the school she took out her phone to check for any news related to anything that could be linked to a supernatural cause. To her chagrin, there was more news of the strange wolf. Only three days had gone by but the creature had already become one of the local legends.

Some people even started to tell the tales of their ancestors seeing the same wolf back their days and what not else. It was a hot topic and there was news of a bounty that was put on the wolf’s head. The search parties were quickly formed, with even amateurs trying out their luck. Some hunters claimed that they had found the beast, but it had gotten away leaving them only with a tailwind.

There was also passing news of a metal fish that had ruined livelihood of many fishermen in South-east Asia. The locals saw it as a divine punishment the story claimed.

Nothing else attention-worthy caught her eyes, but she kept scrolling through the news feed. At least while doing so she would not have to think about the earlier encounter. After making sure that there was no more odd news she finally put her phone away and returned her attention on the road.

The sky was clear and air still. People rushed past her as she followed their flow. There was still plenty of time until her friends were free, she started to think of a spot where she could spend it, without the constant fear of stumbling into someone, or what was more likely, someone stumbling upon her.

At least their meeting spot was not the accursed teahouse, but that did not leave many quiet spots she knew around it. But there still was some. Finally, she decided on an abandoned playground she knew would be empty. It was eerie, but that suited her current mood.

It would take a bit of time till she got there so she out of nothing to do started to go through the news again. It was only ten something minutes since she had last done it, but in that time a new video had sprung up, which rapidly gained popularity.

Only instead of an animal, it was a video of a person. A man in his 30’s with dirty black hair and raw-boned face. He was talking in camera excitedly in language Silva did not recognize and then...

Silva could not believe it. The man’s arm caught fire, but not only he did not scream or feel any discomfort, but he also started laughing. When the camera panned sideways it turned out that he was standing in a room with several other people. They all cheered and shouted, what seemed to be, encouragements until the man’s other hand also started to burn.

There was no protective gear but his skin remained unblemished even when his shirt burned away increasing the size of the flames. After a moment he did tear the shirt off, revealing his upper body fully. The flames slowly died down as the man laughed. The video ended with the uproarious applause from the onlookers.

Silva’s immediate reaction was that it was fake and that it was all just one giant joke. The other possibility seemed to be too absurd to be true. Would someone like she really just reveal himself in such a public way? It was hard to say. Silva decided to forward the link to her friends and let them judge the content themselves.

Next, she checked what the comments were saying. For the most part, they were full of disbelief and praises for special effects as well as jokes. There was no one who saw it as real. Nothing unusual there.

But what if it was real? What if the man was like them? How many people like her were out there? She already had met Steven and Mika. There was also the glowing bead she had seen and the mysterious wolf. Too much of a coincidence, but she did not know what to make out of it.

And why now? Just when she thought that she had found a place for her in the world it started to rapidly change. What was the cause? The more she thought about it the more lost she was. For now, she hoped that people like her would not become public knowledge. There was a possibility that it could cause a worldwide witch-hunt. People do not like people who are different. She had seen plenty of that at school.

Silva hurried to her destination to sit in quiet and calm down. Unfortunately, when she arrived the playground was already occupied. The place had not changed from the last time she had been here. Old swings, slides and merry-go-round were scattered around the place, with most of them being so rusted that it was a small wonder they were still holding together. No one came here any more besides her, and even she came here only when she was in a particularly sour mood.

Well, no one did until now. For the first time, she found someone else hanging around here. The man was standing next to the swings, where Silva tended to sit was tapping his feet, clearly waiting for someone. He was chubby, looked to be in his twenties and had grey-ish, semi-long hair. The Chubby checked his watch, then let his eyes wander around.

It did not seem like the man would live on a short notice and Silva already resigned herself on leaving, but just before leaving, she noticed that the man making a call. He looked annoyed and when the receiver answered in addition he sounded desperate. The surroundings were silent making it easy to overhear.

“Hey, sorry I called you, but… Coul-, could you please slow down. Yes! But… Are you sure that person will arrive?” The man’s frustration leaked into his voice. “Yes! Yes… I know… Can’t you, at least give me a description? I know you said… No. What does that even mean? Okay, so I have to wait? Could you check again … What do you mean? There is no one here!” The more he spoke the louder he got, but then he suddenly quieted down and started to pay attention to his surroundings. He listened to the speaker for a bit more before hanging up. He scrutinized his surroundings once more before speaking out.

"Is anyone here?" This question spooked Silva who was in the process of walking away. “My name is Aramaleo Banster. I have come to speak with...” he then fumbled a bit while he searched for something in his pocket while mumbling to himself. He pulled out a wrinkled paper note and read it. “… Yea... Still does not make any sense to me... Hello?”

Silva’s heart was beating furiously. Again something that was hard to explain with just a coincidence. This day was getting worse by the hour. “No, I have to calm down, if they knew I would be here they would also know who I was, they didn't. They don’t know me.”

For a moment Silva watched Aramaleo circling around the playground while calling out. Silva used the moment he started to move further from her and hurried away, leaving the man shouting to emptiness.

There was still a bit time left until the agreed time for the meeting, but Silva had no mind to look for another quiet place. For now, she hurried away from this place and decided to not return to it for foreseeable future. What she needed now a moment to try and ventilate her head.

--

When Silva arrived at the café her friends were already waiting for her. After taking a deep breath she entered the café and walked up to them. The walk before had done much good as she felt much calmer.

“Hi!” Silva greeted them. Both had their textbooks out and were studying. “I hope you did not have to wait long for me.”

Mika’s attention fell on Silva as soon as she entered and she got a sunny smile from her, as her friend tucked an unruly lock of hair behind her ear.

“Hi, yourself! We arrived just a few minutes ago. We are still waiting for our order.” Mika gesticulated at the counter. “Do you want anything? My treat.”

“No, I am fine, thank you.” Silva shook her head before looking at Steven, who uncharacteristically for him had not yet spoken. He was holding a pen between his nose and upper lip and appeared to be fixedly studying his textbook. Before Silva could commend his diligence, his head dropped heavily hitting the table.

“Silva, tell me honestly. Should I give up?” Steven asked.

"Give up on what?" Silva was perplexed. She sat down at the table and tried to look at the source of his despair. It turned out to be a math textbook.

“The test, school, exams, life.” Steven counted while pushing his pen over the pages with his nose. “Not necessarily in that order.”

“Don’t be a drama queen.” Mika chided. “You will do just fine and I will help if needed.”

“I am a man. That would make me a drama king.” But despite that, he still straightened himself and returned to the material he was studying before.

Listening to her friends improved Silva’s mood tremendously. The day had been a disaster, but at least now she could regain her inner peace.

“Um, guys… There is something I wanted to talk about.”

"Again," Steven complained, but Silva could tell that both of their attentions were now on her. Steven even managed to look somewhat happy that he had a reason to not do his schoolwork.

“Well, I…” Silva tried to organize what she wanted to talk about. After a moment she realized that she had been silent for a little bit too long. “Well, I guess I’ll start with the least important. Today at school I was confronted by a girl in the classroom. She, well, she saw me and Steven together and wanted to… Well, I am not sure. I kind of ran away…”

The moment she feared came as Mika’s eyebrows furrowed as she realized the implications of her running away.

“Ran away how exactly?” Came the expected question.

“I made a distraction and disappeared form the class. I may have a problem with how much I rely on my ability to get away.” Silva vaguely stated.

“Don’t we all?” Steven wishfully looked up to the ceiling while recalling something. It did earn him a disapproving look from Mika who then addressed Silva.

“It seems like you understand what you did wrong so I won’t harp on it, but why did you mention it?”

“Well, so that you knew. There might be some rumours going around my school about me. So if you learned about those they would not come as a surprise. And the girl seemed to be looking for Steven, so…”

Mika let out a cold snort. “She is not the only one chasing after this guy.” She pointed at Steven, who was still looking at the ceiling, only now his face sported an evil smile. “I am more interested in those rumours.” She ignored Steven’s eccentricity.

“Nothing special, they just see me as some sort of oddity, because I rarely speak.” Silva avoided going into more details. It was better to not give Mika the chance to start nagging her about her past mistakes. There were still other things to speak about after all.