. Kitchen Staff

After I showered I changed into the only clothing there was in the whole room. A black shirt, with a leather jacket, black jeans and dark brown knee-high boots.

"It's not something I'd naturally wear but it'll do," I mumbled to myself before hearing someone knock on the door. I opened it to see Conrad on the other side.

"Hi there, I guess.... I'm your tour guide," he says as I walked out next to him.

"I guess so," I smiled, "by the way. Do you all constantly keep your eyes glowing or..?"

"What? Our eyes? They're like that all the time from birth," Conrad said.

"But how does no one notice?" I asked so confused.

"Oh it's not that they can't notice, it's that people are blind to things they want to pretend isn't there," he says as we turn the corner and walk into an extremely busy room.

I look around to see JoeJoe sat at a table with Angela and a few others.

"Let's eat!" Conrad says a bit too excitedly as we walk to the kitchens.

"What can we get ya, newbie?" a large woman behind the counter asked me.

"oh- uhm- I'll have whatever that is supposed to be," I say pointing at some brown sludge in the food choices. The other women and men behind the counter gasped. Conrad just apologised and tried to put a good word in for me.

"Did I say something wrong?" I asked confused, the woman looked angry.

"That is pie," she snapped at me, I looked at it shocked.

"really?" I asked, the whole hall went silent.

"What my sister meant to say was, it looks really nice and she'd love a sl- no portion," JoeJoe quickly stood behind me and placed her hands on my shoulders as she peered over them sheepishly.

"You need to stop," I say as I flick her in the forehead, "but yeah, I'll have some of your mud."

"Why you little-" the cook began before Conrad grabbed an apple and started pushing me away.

"On second thoughts.." he mumbled while laughing awkwardly. I was pushed to an almost empty table.

"What was her deal?" I asked as I took the apple and took a bite out of it, instantly regretting it and conspicuously transferring the apple in my mouth, into a napkin and then throwing the whole thing in the bin.

"She's the cook and she's like, the demon as well, it's hard to explain," Conrad said as he took a spoonful of whatever he'd chosen to eat. I could tell he was physically forcing himself to swallow the food.

"Sis, not everyone is as good at cooking as you," JoeJoe said as she slid into the chair next to Conrad and Angela sat down next to me.

"She's good?" Conrad asked, my sister just nodded.

"I think she out-cooked my mother and father's cooking, and that's saying something," she said. I rolled my eyes and flopped down onto the table, tired.

The others spoke over me for about an hour when I started to feel slightly cold, I looked up confused. The others noticed my upright presence again and mirrored my confused look.

"I'm cold," I simply say, JoeJoe just shakes her head shocked.

"There's no way, they're purposely keeping the room temperature up so you don't go ballistic, obviously you don't know how to use your gift yet," Angela says. I shake my head, I could feel my body getting colder and colder by the second. I grab JoeJoe's hand and she pulls away quickly.

"Damn, you are cold. She's like an ice cube," she supports my comment about me being cold. Conrad puts his hand to my forehead and quickly retracts it. Angela stands up and looks around the room.

"The other two aren't in here so it's not them," she simply says.

The woman behind the kitchen counter appeared next to me, she had an angry expression.

"Look, there's no need to insult my food and then break my kitchen," her voice boomed terrifyingly around the room. I looked at her confused.

"I didn't do... anything," I whispered, I was shivering violently.

"Someone increase the heating!" Conrad yelled. People complained so he got up and walked to the other side of the room. Hitting a button and turning the heat up.

"Conrad we don't want to be in a sauna," someone yelled at him, I recognised the person to be James.

"Zip it, James, we have an issue," Conrad returns. Looking down at my hands I noticed some weird glow and steam flowing from my finger tips. I stood up and everyone around me stepped back.

"Everyone get out!" Someone yells before opening a door, everyone left the room, leaving me in the centre and a few people at the doorway. Those people were Conrad, JoeJoe and Angela. James was tucked behind them, on the phone. A couple moments passed and suddenly men in body armour and shields are surrounding the outside of the window and a couple had filed into the room.

"Funny how much one person can terrifying hundreds," I mumbled to myself before tapping the table and watching it freeze almost instantly.

"Whoa, now that's cool," I smiled before shaking my head. My ears started ringing and I clasped my hands over my ears. Looking up, I see two figures stood in front of me. Two boys around my age with abnormally white hair and bright blue eyes.

"Hello, I'm Zeke and he's Tim. We are the frost bitten here. Now who, are you?" One of the boys asked, the difference between them was Zeke was really tanned, however, Tim was extremely pale. Zeke seemed to have an extremely British accent which made me curious as to his origins.

"J.....J," I managed to force out before dropping to my knees.

"Your name is JJ? Nice to meet you, now what you're feeling is a draw back. This is basically what you feel before you meet your familiar and your gift is....changing your appearance and senses. Or just your body in general," Zeke explained as he kneeled down in front of me, he pulled my hands from my ears and held them tightly.

"We'll call for a familiar host crystal, just hold on and try refrain yourself from killing the kitchen, yeah?" he tried to joke before looking towards Tim and nodding. Tim nodded back and then turned around.

"He doesn't talk much, tell me about yourself. Any subjects you like in school?"

"...a..art, music and....creative writing," I stumbled. The ringing was getting stronger and I could see ice spreading from my hand to his, slowly.

"How old are you?" he asked.

"15."

"Birthday?"

"25th December."

"Siblings?"

"One, my twin sister, JoeJoe."

"Really?" he peaked around me, "I kind of see the resemblance. Not much though. How about, other family?"

"My mother and father died this evening and my uncle and aunt ran away and disconnected from us years ago."

"Oh, that's.... I'm sorry," he mumbled as Tim ran back into the room. He was holding a small box.

"This might hurt a little," Zeke warns before pulling something from the box and pricking me with it.

My body started burning and a fiery pain blossomed within me like I was being burned inside out, then I found myself falling forward and loosing consciousness once again.