Meghan sat there and watched her friend. She waited patiently to hear what would come out of Carter's mouth. Carter took heavy breaths to calm herself down. She knew that Meghan wouldn't believe her and she was well aware that her best friend thought she was crazy but she needed to tell someone what she witnessed yesterday.
Meghan was a wonderful friend. She was extremely passionate but Carter knew that Meghan disliked mutants. She would always talk about how they were threats to normal human beings and while Carter never agreed with her, she never attempted to defend mutants. After yesterday, there was something in Carter's mind that told her that she was exactly what Meghan despised. She controlled the remote controller yesterday and there was no denying it.
"Yesterday, the remote was floating in the air!" Carter announced.
"Carter." Meghan said with a sigh.
"I need you to listen to me, Meghan!" Carter exclaimed. "I know what I saw! I stood there and watched it float in thin air. It wasn't just floating for a few seconds either. It was up there for at least thirty minutes!"
Meghan shook her head at Carter. She recalled the first time Carter told her a story similar. It was a few weeks ago and they had came home after a night out. Meghan and Carter went their separate ways to shower and get comfortable when Meghan heard a scream come from Carter's room. Panicking, she ran over to see Carter standing in the middle of her bedroom pointing at a hairbrush that laid on the floor. Carter told her how she was reaching in her closet to find something when she turned around to see her brush floating in the air.
It took Meghan twenty minutes to calm her down and Carter's been trying her hardest to make that same thing happen again. Meghan never believed it. She just assumed that her mind was playing tricks on her. The only thing that could make an object float in thin air was a mutant and she knew that neither of them were one.
To Meghan, it was impossible.
Meghan sighed. "Carter, it is impossible!"
"I know what I saw!" Carter exclaimed.
"You haven't been getting any sleep as of lately. What you saw was something your mind completely made up!"
"I've changed, Meghan!" Carter yelled.
Meghan stood up. "You don't say?"
"I feel much different. I look the same yet I feel like a new person! There's this burst of energy in me and I don't know why but I feel like something's happening to me!" Carter explained.
Meghan laughed. "Oh! You want to know what that is? It's your body finally returning back to normal because you've managed to get a full nights rest!"
"Or it could be that I have powers and I can control things." Carter revealed.
Meghan's smiled dropped and she stared at Carter as if she had two heads. "You can't even control your own life, how do you expect me to believe that?"
"I'm serious, Meghan."
"I wasn't going to say anything, Carter. I really tried to go with the flow but I just can't keep my mouth closed anymore. I love you a lot like I really do but you have problems. You won't even get help. You've been acting weird for the last three weeks and there's only so much that I can do! I can't help you anymore but you can help yourself." Meghan said as she walked out of the kitchen. She listened to Carter as she stood up and began following her.
"I'm serious, Meghan. You have to believe me!"
"Carter, do not make this hard!"
"Can you just listen for one fucking second!" Carter shouted.
On cue, thunder roared and a huge lightning bolt decorated the sky. Carter closed her eyes as she attempted to calm herself down while Meghan stopped in her tracks. Slowly, Meghan looked towards the window before staring at Carter. As Meghan prepared to say something, the sound of the front door opening caught her attention. She looked over to see that no one was standing there. Carter slowly walked forward as she watched the door. Slowly, she lifted her hand up. Meghan's eyes widened at the sight of Carter closing the front door without touching it.
"I can move things without touching them as you just witnessed, Meghan." Carter whispered. Meghan couldn't believe what she had just saw. She refused to look over toward her best friend.
It wasn't possible.
"Meghan, I think that I'm-" Carter started only to be cut off by Meghan.
"Carter, please don't say it!" Meghan whispered.
"Meghan, I think I'm a mutant." Carter announced.
Meghan shook her head in disbelief. Carter reached out to touch her but Meghan was too quick. She quickly ran towards her bedroom and slammed the door shut. Carter stood there in silence as she heard the sound of her bedroom door locking.
Carter couldn't believe it herself but there was no other way to explain what she had done. She didn't know much about mutants or their abilities but she knew that someone had to have given her the mutation gene. Grabbing her keys from the counter, Carter ran out the apartment and towards her car.
She knew what she needed to do.
Carter sped down the road as the rain poured down heavily. She squinted her eyes a bit to help her see but her mind was on one person: Grandma Elsa. Since Carter was a child, her grandmother raised her. When Carter was ten, her grandma told her the story of her mom's death. She could recall her saying that her mom died when she was only two years old and that someone had killed her. Whenever Carter would ask who did it, her grandmother would tell her that she didn't know.
There were no more details.
Pulling into the driveway, Carter quickly shut the car off and walked right to the small brick house that she once called home. Unlocking the door, Carter stepped in and immediately called out to the person she was looking for.
"Nana!" Carter exclaimed.
Coming around the corner was Carter's grandmother who stood in the middle of her dining room with a vase of flowers in her hand. She smiled at the sight of her granddaughter before taking in Carter's appearance. Standing near the entrance was Carter drenched in water from the rain.
"Goodness Carter!"
"Did you know?" Carter asked.
Confused, Elsa placed the vase in the center of the table before turning towards her granddaughter. "Know what? What's wrong?"
Stepping up, Carter clenched her jaw. "Nana, just please don't do this right now. I need to know the truth! Did you or did you not know what I was?"
Sighing heavily, Carter's grandmother placed her hand on the table for support. She knew it was time for her to sit Carter down and tell her exactly what she knew. There was no way out of it.
Carter needed to hear the truth.
"Sit down, Carter." She demanded. Carter walked over and sat in one of the chairs as Elsa did the same.
"Grandma?"
"I met your grandfather when I was sixteen. He was a very odd man but I was very interested. He was always on the move though but we remained very close friends for a few years while he traveled to God knows where! When I was nineteen, he came back. He showed up on my front porch and asked to take me out dancing which I agreed. I didn't hear from him after that and then a week later, he shows up on my front porch again at midnight. On that night, he revealed that he was a mutant and that he didn't want to hurt me by not telling me the truth."
"My grandfather was a mutant?" Carter whispered.
"Instead of being afraid like he expected, I wasn't. Because in the end, I fell in love with him for who he was and not what he was. We went off and got married a few weeks later. At the age of twenty-two, we had our first and only child. It was an amazing year for us up until 1975. In that year, mutants were going through a hard time and disappearing. I remember crying and telling him that we could go far away and hide but he wasn't going to do that. He knew the government was wiping them out and your grandfather Michael was determined to fight. He fought for mutants to be treated equally and it's what got him killed." She revealed. Carter watched as her grandmother wiped away a few tears before continuing.
"In 1976, your mom showcased her mutant ability for the first time. I remember it like it was yesterday. She stood outside as I did laundry and lifted the ball with her mind and I was scared. Here I was a twenty eight year old widow with a six year old child who was exactly like her father. I knew nothing about raising a child with mutant abilities because I didn't have it and I didn't know what it was like but I did it! I would look up so much information in hopes of learning how to raise her and it helped. In 1988, I sent your mother away to attend The Martial Academy in Zims, New York. I had raised her to not use her powers at all but I knew that she needed to be around people like herself so she could learn more about what she can do and how to control it."
"My mom lived in Zims?" Carter asked.
She nodded. "I wanted to go but I am a human so I wasn't allowed. She was eighteen and considered a legal adult so I had to suck it up and let her go. I didn't get to see her at all but she would send me letters. She told me how she had developed a new name called Mysteria because she had been helping people but she was simply Amina to me. In 1999, she came home but she was heavily pregnant. A month later, in May, she gave birth to a healthy baby girl in which she named Carter."
"I remember this story." Carter said as she smiled softly. She remembered her grandma telling her the story of how her mom had showed up on her front porch with a stomach as big as the house.
"Yeah but what you don't know is she lived here quietly until you turned two then she began saying how she wanted to move back to Zims so you could be around kids like yourself. Her plan was to raise you in Zims up until you turned sixteen and then you would both relocate to Runne." Grandma Elsa revealed. Carter watched as her grandma sniffed and wiped the tears that slowly rolled down her cheek. "We argued. I wanted to be in your life and I felt that she was taking you away from me. I couldn't see you in Zims but The Runne Kingdom was just too far! It was another country with a large force field surrounding it for protection. I felt that she was running and hiding something but she refused to tell me.
"My father." Carter spoke. "She was hiding something about my father!"
"Even I do not know who your father is, Carter." Carter's grandmother stated. "She left here in 2001 to go view a home and called me back saying that she had gotten the house. She asked me to watch you for a few days in which I agreed. On March 11th, she called again and told me that she had decided to let everything happen naturally. She wouldn't force your power out of you or anything. She would raise you in Zims and let your powers come out whenever they were ready just as I did with her. After you gained your ability, she would send you to The Martial Academy so you could learn how to control your power."
"What was my mom's power?" Carter asked.
"Telekinesis."
Carter smiled softly at the thought of her mom having telekinetic abilities. It seemed that she had definitely followed her mom's footsteps.
"We hung up and I went to bed early because she was going to return home the next day. Sadly, it never happened. I didn't hear from her ever again. Two days later, I received a phone call from John Porter who was the headmaster at Martial Academy and that's when he told me that Amina had been murdered and they had no clue who had done it." She said. "I remember my entire world crashing down. I lost my husband and now my daughter. I was alone. Amina was the most kindest and trustworthy woman to walk this earth so who would do such a thing to her? I sobbed and screamed and thought about ending it right then and there until I heard your cry. You were such a bright and curious little thing filled with passion and determination. You didn't even realize that you had saved my life. From that moment on, I decided to raise you the way your mother planned. I wouldn't send you away or force your power out of you. I'd let it happen naturally and then send you to the Martial once the time comes like she had planned."
Carter froze. She knew where the conversation was headed and she wasn't too sure if she was ready for it.
"Grandma?" Carter warned.
"It is time for you to go to Zims and be with your people. You need to learn how to control that growing power of yours and then leave and go some place where you can be free."
Carter stood up and shook her head. How could she expect her to leave her alone? She couldn't believe the words coming out of her grandmother's mouth.
"You really expect me to leave you here alone?" She shouted.
"I've lived, Carter!"
"I'm not going!"
"Carter, this has always been the plan. You were and always have been destined to go there!" Elsa replied. She gave her granddaughter a soft smile. She knew the time would come sooner or later and she had been preparing for it for many years.
"I'm not ready." Carter mumbled.
"You're more than ready, Carter."