MTU: Hard To Look At - Chapter 1 (Patreon)

"Hey, Gorgon, did you twist last night?" Called the familiar and unwanted voice of Tommy Radner. "Look, somehow you got uglier." Suddenly a hideously mangled image of my face appeared floating in front of me where everyone in the hallway could see it.

"Tom, I think you may have improved his looks." John Lee joked. Tommy and John were both on the football team and could do no wrong according the school administration. No wrong apparently included accosting innocent students such as myself.

"You're right," Tommy agreed. "Not even my illusions can achieve Gorgon's natural ugliness."

"Oh, you're horrible," Tommy's girlfriend Jenny groaned, pulling Tommy down another hallway as John's girlfriend Nancy started pulling John in the same direction. Jenny and Nancy were on the cheerleading squad and thankfully tended to pull Tommy away from me if they found him picking on me. I couldn’t understand why they dated those jerks in the first place.

Tommy allowed himself to be pulled away from the target of his prank but not without first calling out, "Not as horrible as Gordon..."

The image faded as Tommy moved away from me. This was not the first time, nor probably the last time Tommy had pointed out the obvious. My face had several unfortunate features that made me far less than handsome. My nose was wide and bulbous, my ears stuck out comically, my eyes were narrow and too close together, and I had several vertical scars that made the right side my mouth seem to be smiling maniacally. It did not help that I was shorter than most of the other guys in my class, too, at just five feet three inches.

My name was Gordon Harrison and I was a junior at Starling High in Spiral. I turned 16 several months ago and while both my parents were Twisted, I had not undergone my own twist. Sometimes I wondered if I ever would.

What’s a twist? Twists only happened to the descendants of the survivors of the devastating Antarctic Flu, which swept across North America over fifty years ago. Over two million people died from the virus before a vaccine was found. Since my parents were both twisted, I had always known I would probably twist. Twisting could cause you to be altered physically and/or mentally, from slightly to drastically or not at all. What you were doing when the twist happens could influence how the twist manifests. Who you were may be totally different from who you became.

Along with these changes, many twisted can unconsciously tap into a quantum field that gives them powers. They called these powers tricks to downplay their significance because these same powers caused fear and hatred in the non-Twisted population. These advantages tended to be tempered by unusual changes in physiology or unusual compulsions or both.

Tommy's trick was the projection of illusions. I wasn’t sure if he had any additional compulsions or not since he was always a complete jerk to me before his twist.

Putting Tommy's taunts out of my mind, I went to my morning classes where I paid as little attention as I could get away with. At lunch, I was the last one to reach our usual table. I sat down next to Elliot. Elliot was my best friend since we were in preschool together. He was taller than me and probably pretty good looking, but he was such a science geek he got little respect from the girls in our school.

As soon as he saw me, he began, "I heard what Tommy did. You need to deck him."

Pete, another nerdy student relegated to our table asked what happened and Elliot filled him with a surprisingly accurate account considering he had only heard the rumors.

"I tried decking him, remember?" I replied. "All it got me was detention and more ribbing. I think he's getting bored, though. It had been three days since he last picked on me before this morning."

"Yeah, that's a good plan. Maybe he'll forget who his favorite punching bag is," added Jim, the fourth member of our band of misfits.

"At least he isn't throwing actual punches," I said.

"No, he leaves that job to Colby," Pete declared.

I sighed at mention of the name. Colby graduated last year and I only had to worry about running into him at the mall. He became famous for managing to break my nose, giving it a greater bulbousness than it had originally possessed. Yep, he had made me uglier. When he was suspended for two weeks, he blamed me for getting him in trouble.

The bell signaling the end of lunch rang far too soon and we parted ways. The rest of the day was pretty good as I avoided the obnoxious kids who picked on me. Elliot and I walked home together as usual. He was talking at length about a new video game he wanted to get as soon as it was released. Since he lived just a couple doors down from me I stopped in for a while. We played the prior release of the game he was dying to get. After an hour I had to leave.  It was nearly 4:30 and I was responsible for starting family dinner.

As soon as I got in the door, I filled the oversized pot on the stove with water for pasta. Mom's twist accelerated her metabolism to the point that she had to eat like twenty grown men to maintain any fat tissue on her slim figure. Eight or nine hours without a couple pounds of pasta and her body shriveled into the shape of an emaciated famine victim. Her trick allowed her to move insanely fast for a few moments at a time. She often described the world around her as if it was stopped in time when she used her trick.

Mom arrived home shortly and immediately sat down with a big bowl of buttered pasta. "How was your day?" She asked after scarfing down half the bowl.

"Same as usual," I replied. "I'm going out to the garage."

She got up to refill the bowl,  "Okay, I'll call you when dinner is ready."

The garage was my sanctuary, mostly. Half of it was cluttered with stuff normally found in a shed. The other half housed my kiln and clay works. I sculpt clay, and other materials when I can afford them. I tend not to call myself an artist though since people expect me to be able to draw or paint. While I can draw a decent image, it’s not nearly as good as my sculpting.

I was between subjects at the moment. I gathered up some clay I had left over from my last commission, Aunt Sofia had asked for a pair of bookends that looked like cherubs. They had been the best pieces I had ever done. Dad always complained it would be impossible to live on the income of the average sculptor, but even he admitted my works were lifelike.

There was always dust in the garage. I was constantly brushing and dusting it away. While near my display shelves, I wanted to look at one of the pieces I kept under a sheet. It was a bust of a woman's head that I had done a few months ago. It came out of the kiln perfect but I had only put a base coat of glaze on it. I had decided not to color it, not sure why. Her face was drop dead gorgeous if you will allow me to indulge myself, although I always felt there was something wrong with the hair. It wasn’t a face I had ever seen before or since. Elliot was the only person I’d ever shown it to.

When my mother called me to dinner, I realized I had been looking at the bust for a while. I quickly put the sheet back over the bust. "Coming," I shouted back.

Dad had come home while I was in the garage. I hadn’t heard him park the car in the driveway and walk past the garage on the way into the house. "How was school today, son?" He asked.

It was somewhat out of the blue as he usually was only interested in school when report cards were due. I tried to be noncommittal in my answer, "Same old, same old."

I need not have worried. Dad and Mom started talking about local gossip and ignored me through the rest of dinner. When dinner was over I cleared the dishes, wrapped the leftovers, threw out the garbage, and put the dishes and silverware in the dishwasher. This was always my job and I did it without being asked most nights.

Afterward, I went upstairs and started on my homework. I had a deal with Mom and Dad about being able to spend afternoon time in the garage, my art studio, while the sun was out. I just had to do my homework right after dinner. It took me about an hour to finish that night.

As I was vegging out watching some videos, Dad knocked on my door. "You look down. What's the matter?"

"Nothing," I lied.

"I heard about you getting picked on in school today. I hear about it most of the time. Why don't you ever tell your mother and me when it happens?"

"It happens all the time. And when I do tell you it just gets worse after the jerks at school get their slaps on the wrist."

"I wish I could tell you life was fair, Gordon, but it isn't." Dad said putting a hand on my shoulder. "If it were, you wouldn't get picked on just for being different. I'm sure in a few years your jerk classmates will mature and see how foolishly they've treated you. But, as I've told you before, you will twist someday. And what you are now might have no bearing on what you become. Embrace what is good about now and the bad you can hope will go away when you twist."

"That doesn't really make me feel better."

"I didn't think it would," he admitted. "But, it does give you something to think about other than the specific taunts and torments your classmates make at your expense."

* * *

The next day,  I made it to first period without being insulted or picked on. Yay, me. Elliot met up with me before class and looked worried. "Watch out today, Gord. Tara Parker dumped Ryan Cairns yesterday and I heard he was planning to take it out on you later."

"Great," was all I could reply as the teacher started class. After second period, I was walking up the back stairwell when I was interrupted by a soft voice.

"Gordon?"

I turned to see a girl of stunning beauty looking at me hopefully. "Marie?" I replied. I thought that was her name. She had recently twisted and looked nothing like the mousey bookworm she had once been.

"I hear you're a sculptor and was wondering if you could do my bust."

Years of never getting anywhere with a girl might have been the only thing that prevented me from recognizing the double entendre in her request. So I managed not to stutter as I replied, "I only work in clay and my kiln isn't big enough for a full sized bust. It would be about two-thirds scale."

"That should be fine," she agreed. "When could we start."

"We?" I began, "I would just need some photo references for most of the work."

"Oh, no, I want to pose for you. If you aren't busy Friday, meet me in the parking lot after school Friday and I'll give you a ride home. We can work out the details." She turned and walked down the stairs.

The next two class periods were a blur as I spent most of the time wondering if Marie would like the bust I hadn’t even started yet.

It was while thoughts like this swirled about in my head that I walked into trouble. Biology class ended and the teacher bolted faster than most of the students, I think he had a free period next. As I stood up my book bag slammed to the floor. I stooped to pick it up but it was stuck.

"Problem, Gorgon?" Asked the deceptively pleasing voice of Ryan, yet another of Tommy’s friends. His trick increased the weight of objects, like my book bag apparently.

"C'mon, Ryan, I've got to go." I said uselessly.

"Now, that is true. You have got to go," Ryan laughed humorlessly. "Your kind of ugly is dangerous."

"How many mirrors did you break today?" One of his cronies, Jared I think, added.

"Saw you talking to Marie earlier," Ryan continued.  "You think she likes you?"

"Is she your girlfriend?"

"Like anyone would date ole Gorgo here. I'm sure any girl getting that close to him would be petrified."

"Petrified he might try to kiss her?"

"No, petrified as in turned into a statue."

I wanted to run. I could not just punch them. They had the principal wrapped around their fingers. "She just wants me to sculpt her bust." I muttered in useless explanation.

They laughed loudly. "That's as close as you'd ever come to touching a bust," jabbed Jared and a couple guys high-fived him for it.

"A bust?" Ryan accused. "So, you admit it. Your face can turn people to stone.  Can't it, Gorgon?"

I felt hot. A chorus of "turn her to stone" and "Gorgon" surrounded me as I felt something like a live outlet zap me. Pain rang out all over my head. As I grabbed my head it felt funny, bumpy I think, and I remember feeling my hair fall out. The taunts turned into shouts and sounds of running away. I hit the floor with a thud or maybe that was the classroom door slamming.