Doodles

Day 9/30: Your best friend catches you using a superpower they didn't know you had.

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"Cal, it's the first day of spring break. What are we doing with our lives?" Olivia sighed, flopping spreadeagle on her dorm bed. She spit a mouthful of curly hair out of her mouth, drawing laughs from both girls.

Cal shrugged, pushing her glasses up her nose. "Enjoying some much-needed downtime? We're halfway through the hardest semester in both of our degree plans. I'd say we've earned it."

"I never want to look in a microscope again," Olivia said. "Or at least for another week or so, some of those blood samples were really cool."

Cal pulled her favorite pencil and her sketchbook out of her bag and started doodling, little miniatures of characters dancing across the page.

Literally dancing.

Whatever Cal drew came to life on the page, giving her the option to pull it from the paper and into reality. She'd discovered it on accident when she was nine and the purple unicorn she'd doodled offhandedly during a snooze-inducing math lesson generated its own speech bubble and talked to her. A week later, she accidentally pulled an intricate crown from its page and it appeared in her hands, rubies and all.

Luckily for Cal, she didn't have to deal with this all the time. Life as a Graphic Design major was already hard enough without all of her creations critiquing themselves. Whenever she didn't want her drawings to expose her greatest secret, she'd use a different pencil than normal.

Olivia... Olivia didn't know. That was probably for the better. Cal knew that her best friend would find the concept endlessly fascinating and would love her more for it, but she didn't want to risk the wrong people knowing.

So Cal continued to doodle away, giving her tiny characters a swing set and a floor keyboard to mess around with.

She didn't expect the floor keyboard to make sound.

Olivia perked up, leaning against the headboard. "Did you hear that? Sounded like piano music..."

Cal placed a hand over the keyboard, receiving deadly glares from her characters. "I don't think so? Maybe we're going crazy from lack of sleep."

"Maybe," Olivia said, eyes narrowed. "There are a few music majors in our complex, right?"

Cal nodded. "Yeah! Maybe they had a piano assignment or something."

"... on a Saturday? Something's not adding up," she frowned. "Now that I think about it, you're covering something. Whatcha drawing today?"

"Oh, nothing in particular," Cal squeaked, flushing a bright red. "A few webcomic ideas for down the road."

Despite her protests, Olivia pulled the sketchbook from Cal's hands and fell off the bed.

"....Cal?"

Cal peered over the edge of the bed, bracing herself for the worst.

"The.... the drawings are... are... m-moving?" Olivia gasped, turning the page towards Cal.

Five characters stomped happily on the floor keyboard, faint chords of Fur Elise emanating from the page.

"Crap."

Olivia's jaw dropped. "... how is this happening?"

A sheepish Cal joined her friend on the floor. "Whenever I draw things, they come to life. I have to keep things on the downlow for class assignments, but I've never been lonely with these guys around."

Cal looked at the page. Five characters turned towards her and waved, some making hearts with their hands or putting tiny hands forward for finger-high-fives.

Olivia poked the page, the drawings giving her exasperated looks. "How long have you been able to do this?"

"Don't do that, they're like goldfish in a tank!" Cal cried, rescuing her pad. "I was eight or nine? On the bright side, animation's never been a challenge for me. I just let 'em do whatever and the professors love it!"

"Only you'd have a superpower that makes your life easier, Cal," Olivia said. "But that's seriously amazing!"

Olivia reached for the edge of the headboard to pull herself up. The portion that she grabbed came off in her hands, cast iron bending and snapping away from the frame.

Cal raised an eyebrow. "Something you want to tell me, Liv?"

Olivia turned a deep red, almost matching her maroon shirt. "I was twelve. Remember that car accident I told you about first semester?"

Cal nodded.

"I woke up pinned under the wreckage. EMS got there and I was free. I lifted almost a half-ton of metal. I've gotten good at controlling it except for when I'm excited..."

Cal giggled. "I've noticed. No more secrets between us now, yeah?"

Olivia grinned. "Yeah! I'm looking forward to hopefully seeing more of your work... and getting to know it?"

"I know who I'm calling whenever I can't get a jar open."