Max Theodore pushed past the boisterous throng of laughing kids and settled down at his usual table. Max’s best friend, Isabella, bounded over to him with her typical energy. “Max!” she greeted, hugging him as if she hadn’t seen him in days. “You won’t believe what I was able to find last night!” Max grinned and shook his head. Isabella had a reputation as a paranormal fanatic. On Saturday night she could be found in her home watching black and white horror films while eating buttered popcorn. Each year, she would drag Max and their other two friends, Henry and Renee, to the Oakfield’s Halloween Festival. Isabella had gone to the festival ever since she could walk and each year…

Around me are the sounds of panic and horror. Gunshots fill the once silence air and people in white lab coats are screaming and running past my room. I know they are because I can see them through the reflective wall that shows my own reflection. How is this possible you might ask? Well, I was once the hope for humanity. This is how it began. I was thirteen and still had some sort of life stitched together if you could call it that. My father was nonexistent and my mother trying to form a life out of broken pieces scattered all over the floor. I had no social life; I still find it very hard to open up to…