November came to a close earlier than usual. The unforgiving Australian summer was starting to settle in, and with it came humid nights and blistering days. The UV rating spiking above 10 almost daily meant all the students at Mackenzie Rose College were permanently trapped indoors while on campus. Every student was thrilled about the clear weather and incoming beach season.

  Except for one.

  "Shit, Vee!"

  "What-?"

  Viviana blinked out of her daydreaming and sheepishly spun her head around to find her brother marching up to her. He yanked her out of her seat and away from the window's direct sunlight, his touch scorching on her skin.

  "Gray, stop!" She huffed. "What are you doing?"

  "You didn't feel anything?" Grayson narrowed his eyes accusingly as he let her go.

  Viviana frowned and inspected her arms. Her heart dropped at the sight of her skin, red and burnt. A shudder left her lips.

  "I didn't, no." Her voice fell weak. "I'm sorry."

  "Don't be sorry, be self aware." Gray crossed his arms. "Just stay in the shade, or at least put sunscreen on."

  "I am wearing sunscreen." Via muttered under her breath. "Like five layers of it."

  Grayson fell quiet for a moment before shaking his head. "Just stay away from the window."

  Viviana's lips pressed into a fine line but she held back a retort. She rarely won arguments with him anyway. Instead, she begrudgingly sat down at a table far from any windows, beside her sister Twyla. The older girl had her head down as she quietly sketched around her math homework, her dark curls cascading over her shoulders. She clicked her tongue at Viviana's presence.

  "I thought mum told you to stay home today." Twyla murmured. "I can practically smell the ash from here."

  "Can you at least pretend to be the slightest bit empathetic?" Viviana groaned and rested her head on her palm. "And there's no ash, thank you."

  "Mm. You healed."

  "Huh?"

  Via immediately checked her arms again. Sure enough, there was no sign of injury left.

  "That's faster than last time." Twyla sat up and stretched her arms. "I think you can say goodbye to your hopes of getting tattoos at this rate."

  "What're you talking about?" Grayson furrowed his brow as he came back over.

  Twyla shrugged and returned to her doodling. Via subtly shifted her arms in hopes of her hair hiding them like a veil. Gray noticed anyway.

  "Via always heals fast." He mumbled. "So what?"

  "Eh, not this fast, but alright." Twyla narrowed her eyes at her sketch.

  "It's not a big deal." Via weakly defended, desperately searching her surroundings for a new topic.

  "Why were you at a window to begin with?" Twyla asked. "You know better."

  "I was in the shade when I sat down, the sun just moved after a while." Via replied.

  "..."

  "..."

  "What?" Viviana threw her hands in the air. "I can't control the earth moving!"

  "How did you not notice your skin burning?" Gray scoffed. "Doesn't it hurt like hell?"

  "I don't know, it was gradual. I was really invested in watching this raven outside pecking at a bin-"

  "Okay, you need to go home." Twyla sighed. "You're not dying at school."

  "It's fine! I'm fine!" Viviana stood from her seat, her hands raised in surrender. "If it'll make you feel better, I'll just go rinse my arms in cold water."

  "Fine, but don't take too long." Twyla rubbed her temples in defeat. "Lunch ends in a few minutes."

  Via rolled her eyes and weaved through the flock of students sharing the cool library with them.

  Of course the hallway just had to be ten degrees hotter.

  Via wiped the sweat from her brow with a huff. Her steps skipped as she carefully manoeuvred around each patch of light drawn in by the windows. The fluorescent ceiling lights were a headache on their own, but paired with the beaming daylight, Via struggled to keep her eyes open.

  She'd always had a sensitivity to light. Her mother would brush it off whenever it was mentioned, or would simply say to wear sunglasses. But Viviana couldn't quite figure it out. She had perfect vision, if anything her optometrist was impressed by the level of detail she could pick up, and her eyes were more than healthy. Twyla had once suggested the sensitivity being similar to how those with blue eyes are weaker to bright light, but Viviana's eyes being a dark umber ruled out that theory pretty well.

  Each classroom Via passed carried its own cacophony. A thousand students forced to occupy only 30 classrooms, the hallways, and the few other buildings revealed a critical flaw in the campus' design. Although, the school was over a hundred years old, so it couldn't be helped that it had been designed for the small population the town had had at the time.

  Mackenzie Rose College had humble beginnings, tucked in a corner of Melbourne that had only been farms and cottages until the second world war. Visually, it looked ridiculous. A collection of small, old, yet extravagant brick buildings cramped between modern offices and apartment complexes. But at least the city's density provided shade for most of the day, shielding the school from the sun like an umbrella.

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  Just not today.

  A wave of nausea struck Viviana rather suddenly. She leaned against the wall beside her for a moment to gather her thoughts, her brow furrowing at the sensation.

  "The hell?"

  Her first thought was to check her arms again, but they looked fine. As far as she could tell, there was nothing wrong. A sigh escaped her. She took out her phone and considered messaging her mother to take her home, but stubbornness prevailed, and she decided against it. Via exhaled sharply and kept moving, her steps uneven as she turned the corner near the admin office.

  Her gaze was caught by a woman on the other side of the office who was talking to a staff member. It wasn't that unusual of a sight, most parents and guardians visit from that entrance, but Via was curious regardless. She couldn't see her face, but the stranger had an uncanny sort of aura to her. Viviana practically felt the nausea double at the sight of her.

  The woman had long, voluminous, and strikingly crimson hair that seemed to sit perfectly. Like a bundle of flames, or a bed of rose petals. It trailed down past her hips, lightening at the ends into a vibrant orange like a burning candle wick. A leather jacket and bootcut denim suggested her to be too young to be a student's parent.

  Via found the stranger far too memorable for her to have met before, yet she couldn't shake the deja vu haunting her bones. Still, she couldn't find the strength to look away.

  "Aw, well, I'm sure a trip to the coast would really help you both bond." The staff member smiled as the two talked. "The beach is perfect this time of year, just before the tourists arrive."

  "I don't think that's her sort of thing." The familiar stranger softly chuckled. Her voice held a raspiness that complimented her appearance. "She's not very outdoorsy. But thank you for the suggestion."

  Viviana nearly jumped from her phone buzzing. She quickly checked it, only to cringe at the sight of a message from Twyla telling her to hurry up. She sighed and continued her path down the hallway, fighting the urge to itch her fresh skin. Each step felt too heavy. Each breath felt too shallow. The nausea persisted, and trembling began. Via had grown used to sudden panic attacks over the years, but this felt different. She wasn't sure why.

  The cold water helped ease the lingering sting beneath the surface. Via really couldn't figure out why she hadn't registered the burns on her own, when they were typically excruciatingly painful. Her thumb softly traced the subtle discolouration between the preexisting skin and the patch of newly created skin. The freckles she'd only just gotten used to had been replaced again. New formations, new patterns, new flesh.

  "Shit."

  Via wiped her bleary eyes. The war she faced against alienation seemed endless. Every time she'd finally feel normal, something would go out of its way to remind her that she was like no one on the planet but her mother.

  And when she felt her body betraying her, she didn't know who else to turn to.

  "Mum?" Via shakily spoke into her phone, finally reaching the woman after seven attempts. "Can you come pick me up again? I got hurt."

  "I told you to stay home, you refused to listen. You knew the risks." Her mother spoke back. "I can't come and get you, no. I'm stuck at work."

  Via hissed through her teeth and fought tears of shame.

  "I-I had an assignment due this morning, I had to come or I'd fail it," She defended, "And my teacher's been super on my ass about my attendance lately. Says he's gonna schedule a meeting if I keep it up."

  "Exactly. See? If your teachers are upset with you ditching, then there's more proof you should stay the day." Her mother sighed. "If they're serious about discussing it, then we go to the meeting and we convince them to forgive you like we always do."

  "Whatever. Can I at least uber home or something? I feel like I'm gonna vomit. Something's... really wrong."

  "You told me you had your anxiety under control-"

  "It's not anxiety!" Via almost shouted. "T-The burns have been getting worse, I'm constantly dehydrated, I'm losing my taste more and more every day - actually, I threw up my sandwich today! And I love peanut butter!"

  Her mother let out a long, somewhat suppressed groan on the other end of the line. Via gripped her phone tighter in response.

  "You cannot come home. Under no circumstances." The older woman spoke firmly. "I won't be home until dark. You should go to a friend's house, or study at the library."

  Viviana went quiet. There was a slight thread of tension in her mother's voice that she'd grown to know all too well.

  "... Who's at our house, mum?"

  "Stay at school."

  "Mum, who the hell is at our house? Is it dad? I thought you said you two sorted things out-"

  "Don't fight me on this." Her mother ordered before she hung up.

  Via felt hollow.

  Every limb trembled violently like she was hypothermic. Her ears rang. Her heart raced. Her head pounded. She slowly lowered her phone and glanced up at her reflection. Her vision had gone blurry. As her eyes tried to focus, she rubbed them a few times. No effect.

  Was the mirror just dirty? She could see everything else just fine. Every crack on her skin, every thread of her shirt, in exceptional detail. But the mirror was nothing but blurry. She leaned in, over the sink. Her features slowly began to define in the glass like a layer of ice had melted away.

  "What the fu-"

  "Oh!" A voice came from the door.

  Via snapped her head around and stood straight with a gulp. Another intense wave of nausea struck her.

  It was the woman from earlier.

  "I-I am so sorry. The lady at the office told me this was a staff bathroom." The stranger raised her hands in surrender and turned to walk back out.

  "It is." Via murmured, her gaze locked on the woman's eerily familiar face. "I just... come in here anyway. It's quieter."

  "Oh." The visitor hesitantly nodded.

  She stared at Via the same way Via stared back. The air had tensed with unasked questions and a deep, almost primal sense of familiarity.

  "I'll leave." Via muttered.

  She quickly hid her phone in the pocket of her skirt and marched past the woman, back to the hallway.

  "Uh-" The stranger cut herself off and gulped down her words, letting Via leave. She sighed, her shoulders slumping.

  "What a weirdo." Viviana muttered under her breath, trudging her way back to her classroom.

  The endocrine freakout plaguing her systems found a way to only intensify. Via was sure she looked half dead by now, pale and weak. She had never felt like this before. In all of the unnerving, inconvenient, and disturbing tweaks of biology her body made her suffer through, she'd not once felt such an instinctual dread. The day had been fine until this point. She'd arrived early, been active and present in every class, worked hard on her assignments. She'd truly tried to be the same cheery and compassionate person she'd always been. But it felt like she was rolling down a mountain of snow. All it ever took was one problem to destroy her entire day.

  Aside from the burns, everything was fine until she left the classroom. It couldn't have just been the heat, or the humidity, or the hunger that throwing up her lunch had left her with. Something had triggered this.

  The bell rang through the speakers of the building, and Via couldn't help but cry out in pain.

  Overstimulation had always been an issue, sure, and so had sensitive hearing. But adding that onto everything else was the last thing she needed. Via slumped against the locker beside her. Every breath was a shudder or a sob. She shut her eyes tightly and focused what remained of her energy into just breathing.

  The hallways began filling with students as everyone migrated to their classrooms or lockers. More noise. Her hearing began to muffle and ring again, but she welcomed the way it made everything else quieten down. She hadn't even noticed the guy talking to her until he shoved her.

  Her eyes snapped wide and she found herself face to face with a senior boy who looked like he was in a rush.

  "I said move it! Sleep somewhere else!" He barked over the loud chatter of the hallway.

  Via barely registered the words. She had to fight to keep her eyes open.

  "You're in the way!" The guy groaned. "Hello? Are you on something?"

  Via managed to wake up enough to step to the side. The boy grabbed her and pushed her further out of the way. His hands felt like fire on her shoulders.

  Something in her brain just seemed to click. All thoughts dissipated. The air went still. Everything fell silent.

  Viviana didn't understand what had happened until the screams cut through the fog, and she found herself pinning the boy to the ground, with her hands wrapped around his throat, and a crowd of other students starting to surround them. The boy weakly pleaded for help. Via merely blinked down at him.

  And in the moment that she let him go, Via felt like a lamb that had been forcefully dissected upon a theatre stage, ripped open to display the grey fur buried under its clothing.