Chapter Text
I’m in an arena of sorts, it’s hard to tell when the world blurs around me. I’m fighting someone, someone much older than I am. We trade blows with swords and I can’t keep track of the fight I’m participating in as if someone else is piloting my body. Time seems to skip and suddenly the ground, previously red and grey, blood encrusted into stone, is turning gold. I feel my neck and-
I wake up, my own hands feeling around the smooth skin of my neck. Nothing. It was a dream. A dream more vivid than any I’ve ever had, but a dream nonetheless. I sit up and look at the digital clock on the wall. 4:45 am. I’m fine. This is an embarrassing way to start a story. Actually, how do you start a story? Introductions, right. I’m Ollie, and my entire life has been the borders of an orphanage named Green Meadows Orphanage. It’s an old, moderately sized, wooden building with all the necessities for caring for misbehaving and/or unfortunate kids who have nowhere else to go, or so they say. My parental unit left me here 11 years ago, and I’m 12 now, so you can imagine the memories I have of them, which is none at all.
Am I a misbehaving kid? No. I don’t think so. I have volume issues and can never tell when someone is joking, but I don’t intentionally break rules. Am I unfortunate? Sure. I was abandoned as a baby, but why miss something I can’t remember? The only thing I really wish for is some privacy, but for some reason, all the boys are in one room, and all the girls in another. Who needs personal space, anyway? I don’t have a choice but to sit on my bed and wait for either morning or sleep, whichever happens first, especially since the floorboards creak so loud that it can be heard in space. My nerves from the vivid nightmare communicate that I’m stuck waiting for the morning. Great.
While we’re stuck in exposition limbo, I’ll keep explaining stuff. I have two best friends here, Kaleb and Floral, who are both twins. No, I don’t know why their parents decided to name her Floral of all things. I get wanting a unique name, but that’s just a random word. Kaleb and Floral both are 11 with black hair and pale skin. The differences start at the eye color, with Kaleb having blue eyes while Floral has green ones. Kaleb is taller than Floral as well, but other than that, they are practically identical.
Those two are my friends, but I also have an enemy, kinda. Meet Joseph. He’s a year older than me, so 13, came to the orphanage when he was 8, and has made Kaleb’s life hell ever since. I’m not sure why, but Joseph is just angry at everything. He’s taller than me by about 7 centimeters, blonde, and has tan skin. He also has hazel eyes that look green in the light. His hair also has these red streaks in the front, which actually aren’t dyed. He said it was because he’s a demigod- or half celestial. Him saying that the off color of his hair was caused by that always confused me. He has shown actual magic, which seems to be purple when it physically manifests. From what I know, he has telekinesis of some sorts, but I never really asked.
Speaking of descriptions, I should describe myself. I have black hair, amber eyes, and dark skin. I also have a lot of freckles for some reason. Along with that, I have streaks of white in the front of my hair, which is why the thing about Joseph’s hair explanation confused me.
The lights come on and I look at the clock. 6am. Did I really just explain my situation for an hour? It didn’t feel like that. Ms. Korral is about to come in, so before she does, I should explain her. She’s… actually I don’t know how old she is. She could be anywhere from 57 to 157, and I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference through no fault of her own. Her hair is some mix of grey and a really light blonde, but I think she dyes it every couple months. She tends to cycle through different dresses, today it is a red one with buttons up the front. She walks through the middle of the room, making sure each of us is awake. I doubt she cares about when people wake up early, so I should be in the clear. In the bunk below me is Kaleb, so I hop down and land with a soft thud.
“Hey, Kaleb. Get up,” I whisper as loudly as one can get a whisper to be before shaking my friend, causing him to startle.
We had started this tradition a while ago. I would end up waking up early, and him late. So when Ms. Korral came in, I’d wake him up so he wouldn’t get in trouble. It obviously worked as he got up and sent me a half-assed glare.
“Don’t look at me like that. I could just let you get woken up by middle aged anger,” I say at what I assume is a normal speaking volume as he sits up.
“Can you two shut up? She’s almost here,” A kid next to us whispers.
“Well maybe you should-”
“Yes, sorry,” I cut in, interrupting Kaleb. I wait for Ms. Korral to leave before I grab the clothes from a nearby dresser, mine and Kaleb’s, and pull on the outfit inside. It was a pair of shorts and a plain t-shirt, which all the guys had.
We all leave the room and walk downstairs, heading to the dining room. On the way, Floral joins our group.
“Is it just me, or does Ms. Korral seem more angry than usual today?” Floral asks, looking at me and her twin.
“I thought she was always angry?” Kaleb responds.
“She used to be nicer, but her kids all died, and now she’s bitter, or at least that’s what the older kids said before they left,” I explain.
“Maybe this is the anniversary of those deaths?” Floral guesses as we reach the dining room and sit in our usual seats. They were on the edge, close to the entrance of the room. The dining room itself is just a bunch of rectangle tables pushed together to make one long table. The leftmost wall from the door has a lot of windows, so lighting doesn’t tend to be an issue until dinner time. The floor, like the rest of the orphanage, was made of wood and was about 200 years old.
“Or maybe she’s just a bit-”
“Kaleb!” Floral cuts Kaleb off.
“What? I’m calling it how I see it!” Kaleb says, glaring at Floral.
“No one cares,” Joseph says from beside us at the table.
“Really? Or are you unwilling to admit you’re a bitch too?”
“Kaleb! You can’t say the B word!” Floral says.
I groan and put my head in my hands. This kind of thing happens almost every day. I turn to her, “I’m sick of this.”
She nods and watches the bickering two. I don’t like Joseph much, especially since he triggers most of the confrontations between Kaleb and him. It makes me wonder why he has such a thing against my friend. I just hope this doesn’t continue in class. I have a hard enough time paying attention without these two fighting. Speaking of class, I hate it. Especially since we are learning about Queen Aracos right now, and every time I look at her photos I get a weird feeling of familiarity. Kaleb likes joking and telling me I’m the long lost child of the queen. As if. We just both have dark skin and hair.
“Both of you! Shut it,” Floral snaps, glaring at them both.
“Stay out of this, flower girl.”
Wow. Flower girl? Joseph needs to work on his insults.
“Well maybe if you got over yourself you wouldn’t need to tell her to stay out of it. I mean, you act like your hatred towards Kaleb is necessary when it was completely unprompted. I mean, what did he do?” I ask, leveling a look at Joseph.
“You stay out of this, too,” Joseph said, but with less bite than he had with Floral. Odd.
“Hey, you’re only telling them to stay out of it because you don’t have any friends to back you-” Kaleb gets cut off by a punch delivered from Joseph.
I stand up and push Kaleb behind me, “What is your problem? You can’t just hit someone because they said something you don’t like!”
“I told you to stay out of this!” He yells back then tackles me to the ground.
I hit the ground hard. It doesn’t hurt. That’s not right. It should hurt. I felt the wood. I definitely got a splinter or two, but I’m not feeling pain. I push him to the side and we flip over. I try to get back up but he ends up bringing me back down, so we stay there, trying to get the upper hand over one another. It’s not unusual for him to get into fights, but I’ve never been in one. We both manage to get up at around the same time and suddenly it’s as if my nerves are burning up. He throws a punch at me and I’m suddenly back further than I remember stepping. I step forward and hit him instead. I may be crazy, but he almost seems excited by my unexpected strength as he ends up on the ground.
He gets back up and swings again. I step back, almost tripping over my own feet. My nerves are burning. I can almost feel everyone in the room. It’s nauseating. I step back again. I don’t want to fight. He steps forward, swings again. It connects with my arm as I raise them to block. What is happening to me? Why does everything feel like it’s on fire? I grab Joseph’s hand the next time he tries to punch me. The pain lessens. He pulls away as if he was burnt. What is wrong with me?
Mr. Meyers pulls us apart. He says something, probably scolding, but I can’t tell what’s going on anymore. The burning is stronger than ever. We’re being led somewhere. Ms. Korral’s office, if I’m right. We sit down in the dark red colored office. It has pictures of Ms. Korral’s kids, dead now, from what I’ve heard. She’s yelling at Joseph. He’s replying. Their words aren’t processing to me and I’m not sure why. Mr. Meyers grabs my arm, but pulls back, it feels like a switch was flicked as I’m forced back into the present.
“He’s burning!” Mr. Meyers exclaims.
“So, Joseph, not only did you get into your 5th fight this month, but you also fought a sick child?” Ms. Korral glares at him.
I’m not sick. I don’t feel sick. My body is just going against me and I can’t tell why. I look at Joseph, and he looks at me, almost concerned. My gaze hardens to a glare as I look at him and dart my eyes over to Ms. Korral then back to him, as if saying “look what you did”. He glares right back.
“Come on, you’re going back to bed until you don’t have a fever,” Mr. Meyers cut in, leading me out of the room and down the stairs from the 3rd floor to the 2nd, where the rooms are. We get to a single room. There are 3 of those on this floor, reserved for kids who are sick. I’m still not sick, but I don’t care enough to correct him. It wouldn’t work anyway. I lay on the bed and he turns off the light before shutting the door and leaving. It hurts. I hurt. Everything hurts. Wow. Great words. You’d think with how much I’ve been describing things that I would have a few better words for this, but no.
The room is pretty barren, a cabinet of medicine is beside the door, ibuprofen and the such. The cabinet is always locked unless a kid needs medicine. The bed I’m on has a blanket, no shit. Maybe if I keep describing things I’ll hurt less because my mind won’t be on it. I roll over and try to do anything but focus on the pain, but as I described, it feels like I’m on fire. I close my eyes to try and sleep.
-and it’s been cut open. It doesn’t hurt then. I grab a weapon beside me, a glowing sword. I swing it up.
I startle awake. That’s the first time a dream has finished itself in a different dream. The pain is worse now. There’s no way it’s ignorable. I need to get up. There’s someone in the basement, I can feel it. I can help him escape. He can help me with the pain. I know who it is. The kids here say that when others get sent to the basement, never to be seen again, they’re sent to another orphanage. I’ve always disagreed. I get up. I start to walk. I don’t know why I’m doing this. I just have to.
The stairs don’t creak as I walk down. I turn to the right and see the basement door. It’s locked with a padlock. My body burns. My hands feel static like- as if they fell asleep and are just waking up. I grab the lock, and in a golden flash it’s gone. Just like that. I don’t know why I’m not more surprised. I need to get down there. I walk down the steps. It smells of rot and decay. Years of kids who deserved better sent down here to never come back up. I know who I’m looking for. I walk over. The one I was looking for was Joseph. Why was he down here? He looks up at me from where he’s sitting, says something. I sit down next to him. I grab onto his hands and everything explodes in a golden light. It’s burning. It feels like hell. It’s getting better. He stares at me, confused. It’s not hurting him. It’s no longer burning. I look at him. Wait. What was that? What did I just do? Was that magic? What happened to the lock? Why did it hurt so much? What was that light? I’ve heard of humans having magic but not to this extent! Am I human? I have to be, right?
“What was that?” He asks.
I don’t immediately respond, but after a moment I break the silence, “I don’t know.”
I look around the space. The decay, both the sight and smell of it, seems to cling to every surface it can. In the dark, with the light from the singular window at the top of the basement, I can barely see the forms of what used to be children, now nothing more than corpses. The sight of them made me nauseous. It was worse than the smell, seeing the bodies of kids smaller, and younger, than me on the ground. I stand up, and so does he. He leads me out of the basement. The door to the basement is opposite the front door, and that’s where we go.
“So, do you want to explain how you managed to sneak downstairs, break the basement door lock, get to me, and then whatever glowy thing that was?” Joseph asks, glancing behind himself to look at me.
“I- I actually don’t know. It just hurt and I knew I had to get to you. I don’t know why you, and I don’t know why now,” I explain to the best of my abilities.
“Let’s start with the lock. What happened there?”
“So I grabbed it, there was a light, and it was just gone, as if it disintegrated. My turn, where are we going?”
Joseph stops. We are outside the orphanage now, the usually cool night air feeling much warmer to me. I see the sign for the orphanage, paint chipped and fading, “Away,” He finally responds.
“We can’t just leave! What about the others?”
“The others,” He starts, putting emphasis on those two words, “Are not half celestial, we are! The others,” Again with the emphasis, “Did not just break a huge rule by even stepping in that basement in the first place, you did! The others do not have magic so strong it caused you to basically give some to me, you do! My mom told me about this kind of stuff, you’re going to develop some sort of non-human trait, and how will you explain the missing lock and partially disintegrated handle then!?”
I don’t know how to respond. I don’t know if there even is a response that I can give. Half celestial? That would explain the whole glowy thing, but wasn’t Joseph half celestial? Did he have the same experience?
“Half celestial? Did you have the same experience?” I ask, looking at him.
“No, your magic is… what did she call it? Potent. It’s potent,” He responds, looking at the ground, “It was too much for your body to bear, if you hadn’t done what you did.. I don’t think you’d be around to have this conversation.”
I feel my body tense as I stare at him. I could have died? Do I trust him? Should I trust him? Do I even have a choice? This all seems so far-fetched but I did just do.. whatever that was. If I do this, there isn’t a real way to go back. He looks like he’s telling the truth. By that I mean he looks concerned, I can’t actually read his intentions, though. I want to call him a liar. I want to say that no one will notice the missing lock or him not in the basement, but something tells me that this isn’t some joke.
“Why take me with you, then?” I asked.
He sighed, “Because you’re the only one who’s like me! And I’d rather not have you end up in the basement or whatever.”
“Why do you have such a thing against Kaleb?”
His expression turned sour, as if remembering something bad, “I’ll tell you some other time, but we need to go.”
I walk with him as he goes down the trail. I don’t want to leave them, but he made a good point. If he’s right, and I am what he says I am, I might just be putting myself in danger by staying.
“This doesn’t mean I’m excusing you for the years of bullying Kaleb.”
“Yeah, I didn’t expect you to.”
We find a place to sit down. He’s shivering, so I scoot closer. He feels cold. I’m not sure if leaving like this is the right choice, but it’s not the time to dwell on it. That would have to wait for the whole ‘developing non-human features’ that is apparently happening soon. He falls asleep before I do, so I try to as well. I’m hoping that I can actually get a full night of sleep this time.