UsernameEmailRegionInterestAOL IMICQ IDYahoo! IDMSN IDJabber

The sun was shining and it was a spectacularly warm day, but she couldn't tell.

A gentle breeze carried the smell of flowers across the lawn, but she couldn't tell.

It wasn't until you stopped doing them that you realized how much you could possibly miss things like feeling or smelling or tasting. It wasn't until you stopped doing all the little tasks that made up a day that you realized how many hours there were to fill. She didn't--couldn't--eat, didn't need to use the bathroom, didn't breathe. She never needed to bathe, didn't even need to comb her hair. She never had to shop for clothes (everything she wore was just a hologram, shaped light, just as her own appearance really was).

...She would never even get to have sex. She would never have children. And what guy would even want to kiss a girl who didn't feel like a real girl, who was just a solid mass of light, not flesh and blood? She wouldn't feel anything other than a faint pressure sensation along with photonic field anyway.

About the only normal human thing she could still do was sleep. And even that required a specialized isolation pod, that was purged from all exterior light and was the only thing keeping her from simply dispersing into random light particles while her mind was not focused.

Professor Xaiver said she was likely an omega-level mutant, or a very high end Alpha. Potentially one of the most powerful light manipulators on Earth.

But she didn't care. She just wanted to be human. To have her life back. But that was impossible. She'd literally burned herself out of her body, seen in lying charred on the floor. Seen her parents' panic, seen their fear.

Not far down on the lawn, some of the other students were playing touch football. One of them spotted her and tried to wave her over.

She shook her head. They tried to make her feel welcome... but nothing could change the fact that even among freaks, she was the queen freak.