Cold Chemistry

Awakening was a whole new experience today as my body rose from it’s bed like a zombie from it’s grave, feeling dull and slow. Distant, as if I wasn’t quite entirely awake yet. I probably wasn’t, as I was rising much earlier than usual to experience the ‘joys’ of chemistry class. My vision was somewhat blurry, but blinking my bleary eyes didn’t help much as I scratched myself idly and stepped into the shower.

Even after stepping out of the shower I still felt as if I was still struggling to shake off sleep. My thoughts were running rather sluggishly as I fixed myself breakfast, a simple sandwich or two of jam and cheese. Loading my books into my book bag, I scrunched my face up in confusion as I walked into the kitchen and grabbed the spice-rack, stuffing it into my bag. Now why did I do that? Ah, well..

Apparently, I’d decided to walk to school, yawning once or twice as I occasionally detoured to examine or pick some plant or flower I had idlishly noticed. Arriving a bit too late at school didn’t seem to bother me much today.

When I slipped into the classroom Chemistry was held in, allowing my eyes to wander across the white-coated students and lab-equipment, I felt decidedly.. at home there. Still blinking blearily, I glanced at the blackboard for the assignment. Apparently, we needed to distil unclean water into pure water, then use that water in the second assignment. Yawning loudly, which coaxed a few weary smiles from my fellow students, I gathered the laboratory equipment I would need, although several other objects that might seem useful found their ways into my hands.

Distilling the water was easy, it seemed almost second nature to me. My hands knew exactly what to do. When I started on the second assignment, however, they seemed to decide no longer to co-operate with me so easily. In fact, they seemed to, sporadically, completely disobey me, adding things I had never intended into the mix: thyme, pepper, and salt went into the boiling water, follower by the crushed leaves of some plant, and three petals of a flower I’d collected on my way to school. By that time, I was boiling, cooking, and brewing furiously, working ingredients with a fervor which was not my own, drawing laughs from the students which were abandoning their own projects to stare at my strange behavior.

...when I started giggling, tittering madly out of a volition not my own, however, they figured out this was not merely odd behavior, and started backing away, to the exit of the classroom, their confused cries growing in volume as they found I’d locked the door on my way in.

My brew was almost ready, I could feel the thin tendrils of cold seeping into my hands as I reached out and picked the glass Erlenmeyer from the cold-snuffed flame. Liquid nitrogen was nothing compared to this, my potion of the Icy Embrace. Small cracks were gathering across the glass container’s surface as I held it up high above my head, and shrieked loudly, my voice pitched insanely high as, without any volition of my own, I screamed to my fellow students, "Your time had come! *giggle* You will now feel the power of alchemy!". It felt strangely good to gloat as I threw my arm out, the flask leaving my now-blue-fingered hand to slam into the ground among the tightly packed students around the door, sending out a wave of icy mist that hung thickly about the shrieking, terrified people.

...when the mist dissipated, only statues of frozen flesh remained, trapped forever in poses of panic, staring out through pale white orbs of ice...