With the breaking of my cognitively induced illness, my parents were clearly relieved, and I couldn't appreciate this while my mind was otherwise occupied. I would have to try to prevent causing worries for them in the future. As for my part, I had no time to waste—needed to start my character build off right. Basically, at this point, this meant gathering information. For starters, it would be nice to know where I was, it clearly wasn't Earth. (I suppose there was a small possibility that it was, and we were living underground or something, but that seemed highly unlikely.)

The obvious source of information would be from my two caretakers; I had reached the point in my telepathy that I could express some fairly precise questions. I couldn't have a philosophical conversation at this point, but I could ask, “What is that?” and the bane of parents everywhere “Why”. That being said, I decided not to ask questions I did not have the context to ask, that would be really unusual, and I didn't want to ruin my parents' playthrough with my meta-gaming. Although I said I wasn't going to take life seriously this time around, I was in fact a serious person. So, I would settle myself on being precocious.

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So, my life began in earnest. Not just from my point of view, but from my parents as well. It seemed my guess about my eyes opening was correct, but the festivities were delayed due to my internal tantrum—unbecoming perhaps, but a necessary event in my personal growth.

What did these festivities entail? Well, two main things. First was being brought out into the larger world, or rather, around the village. My mother or father carried me around on their back, as they strolled about. Interestingly, they didn't use any kind of device to secure me, but I always felt like I wasn't going anywhere. I figured out early on how this was accomplished, but more on that later. As for the village, in construction, it reminded me of the Ewoks’ treetop village. Houses were carved into the trunks of massive trees. By comparison, the Great Redwoods didn't look nearly so great. And, while I say trees, there were only two of them. I wasn't sure how many people lived in this village, but it seemed to be a modest number. Taking advantage of building vertically—think primitive skyscrapers—they could spaciously accommodate everyone. As for moving between these platforms, there were many bridges, ladders, and stairs that you could use to change levels or trees, the first of these levels being perhaps a story or two from the forest floor.

While I found the village construction intriguing, what really struck me the most was that everyone wore a mask. I was aware that my parents often wore masks but would often remove them while interacting with me. However, out here, nobody took them off. I, of course, had expressed curiosity about these strange items well before venturing outside the confines of our cozy den. My mother had been the one to answer, saying they were for covering your face. I obviously knew this, but since I had no context to inquire further, I decided not to seek out more information.

But now that I could see everyone, it wasn't long before I could contain my curiosity no longer, so I asked my mother, "Why is everyone wearing a mask?"

Her response was, "to cover their faces." Warm emotions accompanied the thought.

"Sometimes you and Father take them off?"

"We want to be close/intimate when we do that" I got the impression she didn't expect me to understand that, but the warm emotions continued.

"So, you don't always want to be intimate with father?" I had seen them interacting with each other quite often, but they didn't seem to communicate much. Furthermore, though I had seen them take the masks off occasionally, they usually stayed on.

"..." She didn't know how to answer that question. I didn't get the impression that anything was wrong between them. At any rate, I think I got the general idea. A mask was... a mask. You wore it most of the time, but sometimes you wanted to let the mask down so you could really be seen. Essentially giving physical form to the proverbial mask. At least that's what I surmised.

Now perhaps you are interested in what these masks looked like. If you are, you should know they came in a wide variety of styles, shapes, and colors, they were pretty diverse. Though they generally had a sort of guideline they abided by, and the only hard and fast rule was they had to cover your face, at least the expressive parts. On the utilitarian end, you would see a plain solid colored mask with just slits for eyes. The plain masks were not too common, but what you did see were many masks that used this utilitarian approach as a starting point and then added some artistic license to it, anything from stylized shapes and symbols to pictures of flowers or some such. I definitely could appreciate the stylized versions, a combination of simplicity and creativity.

On the other end of the spectrum, you had some pretty wild masks: masks carved into various animals, others into various humanoid faces, ranging from somewhat realistic to highly distorted. Still, others wore what might more accurately be described as a helmet. Perhaps these were warriors of some kind? Doubtful, as the rest of their attire didn't seem to align with those kinds of duties. However, what made the greatest impression on me was the guy who was wearing a bucket on his head, a wooden bucket... Sure it had eye slits, but I'm pretty sure it still had the rope handle attached to it, though it's possible that my mind just superimposed that feature onto it. Regardless, he looked preposterous. Perhaps he was the village idiot?

The second thing that I learned from these initial first days was not on the introductory curriculum and something that a tabula rasa infant wouldn't understand the profundity of. However, I immediately recognized it as a total game-changer. It was so revolutionary, that I wondered how I hadn't noticed it sooner, but that might be because the discovery was made during such a bland activity.

It happened while my mother was preparing the midday meal. She was usually the one to cook, but not always. This coincided with my midday nap, so I was in the cradle. Incidentally, I could now see over it, as I had requested additional padding so I could see what was going on around the den while I was lounging there. My parents were somewhat hesitant, worried about me falling out, but they gave me enough that I could generally see what was happening.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

I usually wouldn't pay much attention to this mundane activity, and I wasn't really then either; I was just glazed over as I lay there. This is why when it happened I didn't immediately register it as anything other than grabbing a piece of green fruit. However, that fruit had seemed pretty far away... And that was when the neurons finally connected. That hunk of vegetation had just floated into her hand! And she had certainly expected it to. I wasn't exactly sure what was happening, but my attention was now hyper-focused. She cut up the green fruit and added it to a pot; she was probably making a dish that she made somewhat frequently. I Only know because this fruit had an odor that I wasn't particularly fond of, but I was spared having to eat this for now, as I was still on an all-milk diet.

I watched impatiently for another sampling of this phenomenon. But it never came, not while she was cooking at least. I was quite disappointed. Perhaps sensing me staring at her, or maybe I inadvertently let some of my disappointment drift over (this can happen), she turned her head to me with a slight head tilt, expressing superficial concern. There was nothing wrong with me, so I informed her I was content. Once reassured, she gave me what amounted to a gestural smile (Telepathy sure was useful if you wore a mask, maybe that is why they could get away with it...) and turned back to carry the pot over to the table. This is how meals were served, the food would be placed in the center of a central eating area, and people would take what they wanted from the pot. Depending on what it was, individual bowls might be used, but if it was what one might consider “finger food”—and they were a bit liberal in what they deemed finger food if last night's pot roast was any indicator—you just had essentially one large communal eating plate, not that there would be more than two eating from it at this point, so perhaps it wasn't a big deal. I did wonder how this scaled up, I guess I would eventually find out.

The pot itself was made out of thick ceramic, from what I could tell these people didn't seem to employ the use of metal at all, so they used wood, clay, or stone in its place as well as animal bones on occasion. This made heating some food with fire rather difficult. To get around this, they used heated rocks kept in the fireplace and placed them in the pot. The other problem was that these pots could be somewhat large and had to weigh no insignificant amount. Mother had to be really strong to move these pots around without issue, being so slight of frame, as is common with our species.

With this thought in mind, I decided to watch her form, and that is when I saw it again. As she moved it to the dining area, she wasn't using her hand, the pot just floated in front of her, almost as if she had cast a spell on it. I couldn't resist anymore, I had to inquire, "How are you moving that pot?" No doubt my intense curiosity was palpable.

Again, she did another subtle head tile to express her surprise at the unexpected question. Honestly, I did find this gesture kind of endearing. "I moved it with my intentions." I used the word "intention" here, as it best captures the meaning of her thought. But even though we could telepathically transmit direct sensory information to each other, I couldn't quite wrap my head around what she meant, or more importantly, how to do it. Naturally, I pushed for more information. She gave a feeling of what I could best describe as playful exasperation in response as she placed the pot into its rightful place, after which she proceeded to come to my side.

My mother wore a mask that could best be described as the face of one of those smiling cat statues you sometimes see at Chinese restaurants. It was made out of some kind of wood that had a color very close to her hair color, or perhaps they used some kind of wood stain? At any rate, the mask always gave me the impression that she was approachable and easy to talk to, compared to other masks, especially my father's, whose mask I found slightly terrifying.

She was wearing this mask as she approached but removed it as she got to me. "Indigo," she smiled as she picked me up, "Always so inquisitive." Nuzzling my nose she continued, "You will learn these things in time." She proceeded to press her forehead against mine. For my part, I was filled with indignation! If ever I wanted an answer to a question, this was it! I had no problem letting my feelings be known either. Looking back at it now, I'm sure I came across as a child pouting. Mother seemed to find this amusing as she returned my sentiment with what amounted to a telepathic chuckle—our people seldom had a physical expression of laughter.

She then decided to torment me further as she cradled me in her arms, by causing several objects to float up and spin around in a circle. She mixed up the pattern and had the object fly in various formations: a figure eight, a kind of shuffle, a flight pattern that would have made the Blue Angels proud... How was she doing that?? Okay, I'm sure she wasn't trying to torture me. I'm pretty confident she was just trying to quell my curiosity, but if anything, it only increased it.

She played with me a while longer, until my father entered, at which point I was returned to my cradle as the two of them partook in their meal.

From that day onward, I was a man... Baby obsessed. I spent every free moment trying to figure out how this awesome feat was accomplished. Now you might think that as a baby I had nothing but free moments but let me assure you this couldn't be further from the truth. For one thing, I was sleeping for most of the day. Then add on I couldn't really focus while being carted around town on the back of one of my parents—which, by the way, I had now figured out was done with telekinesis. I could squeeze some time in when they were doing stationary tasks if not eliciting my attention.

My first attempts were complete failures. With nothing really to go on, I decided to work under the assumption that telekinesis worked under the same principle that telepathy did. So the question became, how could you translate telepathy to telekinesis? I wasn't sure, Telepathy was pretty much a broadcast, I didn't see how it could affect only one object. Well, I decided to see if I could cause any kind of kinetic effect. That would be a good starting point.

Let me tell you folk, this did not exactly turn out how I had hoped. I decided to focus my attention on a target object—my thinking on this was that it couldn't hurt to have a focus—and send out an intention of moving the object as strongly as possible. The end result? It didn't move. What it did do, however, was scare the ever-living daylights out of my two guardians, who rushed over and grabbed me up as if from the jaws of a rabid grizzly bear. My mother kept checking me over for wounds or injuries and asking what was wrong. I of course didn't have an answer that wasn't embarrassing, so I remained silent. I did give off contentment, but that didn't seem to satisfy her. Even Father looked quite worried, which was unusual since he usually was more muted in his responses. I felt terrible, my mother especially looked like I had just received a gunshot wound. I would have to be more discreet in my experimentations in the future.