(I’m sure you’ve heard this a million times, but please have patience with me to read all the text and all the series. Though there isn’t any sex in this, you will get to grips with Alice and Elixir. I’m aspiring to be a novelist and decided to try my hand at this. Please leave constructive criticism and don’t comment saying you don’t get the story later on, because my reply will be you haven’t read the whole thing. Enjoy!)

“Hey fag!”

Well, what a wonderful way to start my first day at a new school. This was going to be a treat. Before prying eyes of jocks and cheerleaders alike I cowered, trying to think happy thoughts. It didn’t work. Once the words left the asshole, the whole classroom erupted into torrents of laughter that turned my face florid.

Some didn’t laugh. Probably out of respect. Or the fact they didn’t find assholes amusing. Whichever it was, I was glad that some people knew my position. Joining in the middle of first semester, when the cliques had formed, was the last thing I wanted to happen. Outcast in this world of mainstream-ness, chinos, converse and snapbacks, I sheltered in the subtle fact that my imaginary Prince Charming had killed everyone of the laughing asses.

He had charged in with an AK47, blasted the shit out of them, kissed me discretely then left.

In reality, I was still gazing at my checkered pumps with the mismatched laces; one green, one pink. The glitter of one of the many chains hanging from my trousers caught my attention the way a magpie was attracted to a silver piece. My mom called me that.

“My little magpie.”, she used to coo whilst I huddled in her arms. That was a decade ago, and her comfort was long gone. Now, I had to face this world alone.

At fifteen, bisexual, braces, five-seven and completely fucking weird, life wasn’t going too well. I still hadn’t made eye contact with anyone in particular, but it was my first mistake in doing so.

“What the fuck is wrong with his eyes?”, shouted the asshole again.

They all stared. They always do. Everyone does. And I hate it.

I was born with a genetic mutation that has been passed down through my mother’s side of the family. It is known as Alexandria’s Genesis. With this condition, my eyes started as pale violet-blue when I was born. During puberty, they darkened to royal purple, but now, they are rich plum in color. It looks like I’m wearing contact lenses. And they cause me a never ending torrent of unhappiness.

Oh, but, they don’t cause me any problems at all, actually. Not physically anyways. My eyesight is, and will remain to my death, twenty-twenty; my immune system is one hundred and ninety percent more effective than the average human; I can live twenty to fifty years longer; at the age of sixteen my aging rate will slow, then stop completely when I am forty.

There’s many benefits of the Genesis. But being a kid like me, abhorred by everyone, even my family, it’s downfalls override the advantages by a fair mile.

My pale, thin complexion, raven black hair and lean frame do not compliment it at all. If anything, it looks like and eye tattoo gone drastically wrong. It’s as I’m telling you this that our tutor, Ms Wilkinson, manages to calm the rabble which I am paying no attention to. Then it happens.

The worst part aside my mutation. My name.

“This,”, states the beaky woman who is leaning so far over the table everyone aside me has a clear view into the abyss of her cleavage, “Is our new student, Alice Gray.” Fuck.

“Alice!”, returned some of the assholes, chortling with unmerciful laughter.

“Enough!”, Wilkinson bellows. Wow. Her ex-pornstar appearance completely belies the animal within. I feel sorry for her husband, or husbands. She seems that type of woman, but who am I to judge? Her hawklike eyes scrutinize the class before her, silent and staring.

I then take the chance to gaze up again and observe my new classmates. None look exactly the nicest of chaps, and there seems to be only two cliques of girls; sluts and goths. What the fuck? Did they purposefully put me in this class so I had no one to mix with? I suspect so.

Then, third from the left on the back row, I see him…

Light, honeycomb hair, with delicate trickles of raven black flowing through the right side, so perfect and yet uneven, it looked as though someone had taken a brush and painted it into the pale ginger. Despite it being tied up loosely, it still trailed down his back, down the rear of his black shirt. The ivory tie hung loose around a slim, pale neck, the collar bones visible. He appears to be wearing chain trousers, similar to me, and Marine boots with crumpled sides.

A silver stud belt glints at me from afar.

And like a magpie to silver, I fell in love with the gothic boy, sat third from the left, on the back row.

“You can sit at the back, next to Elixir.” … that name… I almost stumbled forward in my attempt to follow orders, eyes still locked on those enticing blue irises which belonged to the one named Elixir.

A smile crept onto his thin, pink lips. Alluring, but frightening too… Fuck… the desks are double. I have to sit literally next to him. Whatever god gives a damn about me, please don’t let me fart or do something stupid… Please…

“Hi.” God damnit his voice is so sexy. Low and lilting, and what’s this?! He’s English?! He’s frickin English?! Don’t think about the boner, hide it Alice!

“Hey.”, I reply awkwardly, slipping into the seat at his side. Please leave the conversation there, I begged him in my mind, please please please… No such fucking hope. Toward me he extended a hand clad in fingerless black gloves; thank god. If he was wearing gloves perhaps he wouldn’t notice how hot my hand was.

Taking the slender fingers and strong palm, we shook hands, and I replied with an almost level voice, “Alice.” The smile he cast me was enchanting, and of him I took in a million things.

Through his right ear was an expander, in the shape of a rose littered with thorns. Naturally thick lashes accentuated the brilliant blue of his eyes, which were shadowed a little by the sweeping side fringe, long enough to tie back, but he must have his preferences. Scooping away the honey colored hair and black strays, he kept gazing at me, and I stared right back.

His eyes were the trap, and I was his rabbit. I was helpless in those aquamarine oceans, floundering and drowning in their beauty. I’m such a lame romantic. Fuck it. Eventually, he seemed to consider that he had tortured his prey enough, and looked back as Wilkinson began in that scratchy monotone. Though the trapper had left his catch, it remained within the cage.

How could a simpleton like me fall so easily in love with a god like him? But was it really love? Or just my way of describing awkwardness?

One more glance at his elegant profile, one more longing look at those luscious lips with black snakebites and I knew…

It was definitely love…

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