Assimilation

"Monsters will always exist. There's one inside each of us. But an angel lives there, too. There is no more important agenda than figuring out how to slay one and nurture the other." -- Jacqueline Novogratz Carlisle Abetangelo 2nd year of Arcadia Academy

[eviebanner-deactivated20141213]

Evie’s face lost a bit of color when he mentioned the rumored cannibalism. Tragedy, that is, really. Evie didn’t understand why people didn’t necessarily talk to her. Who eats people? We do, Evie. Evie looked about, frowning slightly as they spoke to her. “I don’t…remember the war,” Evie said, a guilty expression crossing over her face. She only remembered Arcadia; she only remembered the squishes, and the—the FOOD. Evie once again, looking around, trying to silence them again. She giggled erratically.

He rolled his eyes? Does that mean he knew? Rosaline didn’t understand her, but an eye roll meant something close to knowledge. Evie didn’t know; she had to stop assuming things. Okay, maybe one more. Was he going to eat the fruit or not? The mangoes were looking delicious. “Um,” she paused, thinking about how to respond properly. “That is kinda disgusting,” Evie stated, trying to grab at the fruit. 

[nonecalpass-blog]

As time progressed in the conversation, Cal couldn't help but wish he'd been rude and just bulldozed his way out the door. Evie was a nutcase. Her facial expressions made her seem like she was having some sort of emotional crisis. It was completely disheveling. "Good for you," he replied, his words leaving a dry flavor in his mouth. "Maybe you should go pick up a history book and educate yourself about it. At least then you won't get confused on who had to deal with what." Part of him questioned the negative context of his retort. They felt unnecessarily cruel, much like most comebacks he offered. It was probably just his previous irritation resurfacing. He needed to recharge, begin anew in the morrow.

"If that--" he paused, pointing a finger at the basket of fruit that she was now reaching toward. "--is all you interrupted me for, do you mind if I end this conversation?" Cal's face looked pained, as if the entire ordeal had been an inconvenience. "Classes are tomorrow and I'd like to be conscious for them."

[nonecalpass-blog]

Response to Writing Prompt #1: Visual Viewpoint

Cal stands at approximately 5 feet 4 inches and is of mesomorphic build. His skin is partially tanned due to the Italian/Sicilian history of his family. He has chestnut eyes, full pink lips, dark brown hair and eyebrows, and unnaturally chubby cheeks. To compensate with the lack of tattoos, he has two individual piercings: one on the right side of his lower lip and the other is in his left ear. He rarely if ever wears his lip piercing. It gets in the way.

His sense of style resembles something close to business casual. Cal's closet is filled with button up shirts, ties of different varieties, trousers of different shades, and an abundance of vests. When he doesn't have the time to press a shirt (which is almost never), he will wear a 3/4 sleeve shirt under one of his two jackets. One is grey and the other is a pastel colored pink.

Response to Writing Prompt #2: Great Power

To Cal's knowledge, he is something known as a changeling. This means his power is absolutely innate, and judging from his family history, it's hereditary. At one point, Cal thought being a superhuman was a delightful blessing. It brought positive attention to him and even got him adopted. This changed once he realized that his abnormality was grounds for execution or worse, experimentation.

After several events that unfolded within the last few years, Cal has accepted that his power is not only extremely harmful, but will help him better his status in the world. Having the ability to shapeshift is a handy trick that has gotten him out of several sticky situations. Additionally, with each acting cell in his body doubling as a weapon, Cal has the means to use brute force to escape scenarios in which his shapeshifting is rendered useless.

[eviebanner-deactivated20141213]

"We don’t have giant pillars of light trying to eradicate us," Evie said, thinking of the spontaneous destruction of Manhattan a couple of years ago. She vaguely remembered the event. It was like Heaven opened up and doomsday arrived. Many kids lost their lives apparently. "So there is that," she said, grinning. "We have rumors; they have death."

"We have peace; they had war," she also added. "And the rumors are bad. The squishes are harmless," she said, giggling almost madly. "They are cuddly and loving," she then realized that it was a secret and covered her mouth. "Whoops," she said, slightly muffled. She almost hoped that Cal ignored her, but probably not. She’s never that lucky.

[nonecalpass-blog]

"No, of course not. Instead, we have a girl who could've possibly eaten someone, a boy who could singlehandedly tear a whole in the fabric of reality, another who has a body count twice the amount of his IQ, and god forbid who knows what else in this conglomeration of garbage we call a student body." An expression of utter disdain marked the boy's face as he spoke. It was as if all glimpses of emotion had been stripped from him, systematically transforming him into a husk. "And I'm not sure what umbrella you've been living under, but we all had to face that war; Imperium Academy attendee or non. Hell, part of that war was started by those idiots," Cal corrected. He remembered being hauled away to a prison, trapped in white walls listening to the foolish rambles of a madman. He remembered having to 'eat' his way out of a locked cell, leaving most of his humanity there. He remembered having to turn on his own kind, the members of the Battalion, pitting superhuman against superhuman. The worst part: he was only 14.

When Evie mentioned the squishes as she called them, Cal couldn't help but to roll his eyes around in their sockets. There weren't many on the island who'd managed to actually see the beasts; she was one, he was another. However, unlike her, he made a habit not to blurt it out whenever he saw fit. To preserve face, and for the sake of turning her statement ambiguous, he replied with a quick, "Yeah, I suppose the island's animals are pleasant, but in no way does local fauna flavored icing sitting on top of a shit cake make it taste any better."

[eviebanner-deactivated20141213]

"Infection? Oh, I wouldn’t know how to infect you," Evie peered up at the ceiling, trying to recall if she could. She grinned happily. shaking her head. "Nope, I think I would stab someone if I had to try to hurt someone," she added, taking one of the apples. She analyzed it before taking a monstrous crunch out of it. She chewed and chewed before swallowing. She hummed gleefully.

"You’re missing out," she sang, taking up a mango. "And you know that other school has psychopaths on the regular," she added, taking a bite out of it. 

[nonecalpass-blog]

There was something inherently bizarre about Evie. People weren't one-dimensional, yet all that was ever seen of her was the living embodiment of a rainbow stretched across the horizon. That is, until she opened her mouth. "That's lovely," he retorted sarcastically. Cal's vision shot up toward the sky as she reached for an apple. He wasn't sure whether the act was a covert effort to get him to see how harmless the gesture was, but even if it weren't, he didn't sign up to watch some girl eating an apple in the doorway of a building he was trying to leave.

Letting out a soft breath, he folded his arms over his chest. Cal replied plainly, "I don't see how that's any different than here." He thought over the similarities between Arcadia and Imperium for a moment. One thing was for sure, there was no such thing as absolute safety, it seemed. "At least the threat there is apparent, instead of appearing only in the passing of rumors."

[eviebanner-deactivated20141213]

The Void retreated deep into Evangeline’s form. This boy was a bit…unhinged, according to people. Evie just looked at the door hinges, wondering if the door would fall over once he let go of it. She looked at Cal with an odd look. “Okay,” she said, walking in. In her hands was a basket of fresh fruit; a little teddy bear sat on top of one of the apples, hugging it. As she stepped in, she handed the basket over to Cal. “An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” she said gleefully.

"You’ve been holed up in this room for so long that I was worried that you weren’t eating," Evie explained, looking among his furniture and what not. It was dusty. She almost went to draw in the dust. She then looked back at him. "So I got some fruit for you," she said, placing her hands on her hips.

[nonecalpass-blog]

No one carried around a fruit basket in Arcadia. It was seen as rude when one was taken from the kitchen; it meant fewer people had access to the food supply. That is, unless you were Evie Banner. Cal assumed she just did as she pleased around the school. She skipped orientation, wandered where her heart took her, and did just about whatever made sense to her. The sophomore often wondered if the reason behind this was because there wasn't a person on the island who didn't hear the rumors about her being a cannibal.

"Uh..," he finally mustered out, palm getting sweaty against the wooden weaving of the fruit basket. How did she know how long he'd been in there? Had he actually let someone slip from his radar? "I'll decline." Cal reached down and set the basket on the floor between them. Too often had things like this occurred and he ended up being poisoned or chewing on nails. Funny little gimmicks, he supposed, until he threw one of their limbs into the black haze. "Wouldn't want to end up getting Snow White'd so early in the school year. An angry, homicidal sophomore waking up from an attempted infection might not sit well with the whole 'making an example for new students' idea."

[nonecalpass-blog]

The 2014-15 school year didn't exactly start out with a bang as the administration promised; though, from Cal's personal experience, the staff were generally wrong about everything. New students wouldn't become "new friends" nor did the atmosphere of quaint ol' Arcadia Academy become any more appealing with their arrival. Inviting in a conglomeration of clueless, sappy children into the shitty school's gruesome mess was already a bad decision in the first place. Cal almost felt sorry for the unsuspecting mass, but almost was, truthfully, a stretch. If they weren't resourceful enough to fend for themselves, they didn't deserve to live in the first place.

To add insult to an already severe injury, with all of the new people plaguing every hallway in every building, Cal had absolutely no peace of mind. The accumulating ensemble of voices ignited a fiery anger that only grew more fierce every day, threatening to boil the blood running in his veins. Sitting in the corner of the common's room, Cal's frustration verged on eruption. He rose up from his seat, used all of his willpower to replace the distraught expression adorning his countenance with one of only slight discomfort, and made his way toward the door. Being a recluse was one thing for the boy, but he'd done everything in his power to stop walking around like the brooding monster people thought he was. They weren't wrong, though.

As he finally reached the door, he'd been unable to control himself and pulled the door open with too much force. The wood shook inside its frame but before he could think about what an utterly stupid notion that was, he noticed that he was standing in front of another student. He let his eyebrows raise up on his face, blowing out a massive puff of air from his nose. "Sorry; after you," he told them, gesturing for the person to take a step inside.