In the middle of the summer, with no sign of disease, she collapsed. There was no sign of pain, no sign of injury. First, she was there, and then she was not. This was only a couple of weeks ago.

Pete could find no answer to the cause of her death in books, borrowed directly from the great library.

So, he thought for himself; “What if Joen had been right? What if there were magic, demons and such?"

The only abnormality in his life since he met his wife is his son. With eyes that affects someone who as much as gaze upon them. Feeling the same feelings as his son seemed to feel, even without saying a word.

This was not the regular being happy if someone else is happy, no. He felt as if his son could control emotions.

"Perhaps… "

No, he did not want to think of it. Yet, the thought came lurking back, and stabbed his mind from the shadows.

"What if his son was a demon, or perhaps possessed by one?"

Pete felt a sudden hatred. Hate for his thought. He had betrayed his son. To be fair, he admitted that he had already done so. Since Joen died, Pete had began researching his son. He was making daily notes on how his son’s eyes changed, which colour they showed.

He noticed that he could connect certain colours with certain emotions. They were reoccurring. Sorrow and sadness were pretty much the same, grey, while thoughts such as curiosity and hope were yellow. Joyful emotions were connected with the colour red.

He seemed to never have his eyes become a colour connected to something other than what he felt. Using his own son as a test subject, he could tell Cury stories, history of their people or about adventures he went on in his youth. Pretty harmless tests, but the feeling of betraying his son and his own morals would not get off his back, slowly growing while he was still not satisfied. This night, he had another test going on, but his eyelids were rather heavy.

Pete woke up still resting on the wooden chair. He did not know how long he had been out for, but the stars were still shining as bright as ever outside the window.

He was sweating and over-heated. He was nervous and felt guilty, knowing he was about to ignore his morals once again.

He had a fixed idea, that Cury dreaming would affect his emotions and in turn his eye color. He wanted to see what Cury’s eyes looked like when he was unconscious.

Having gathered mustered enough energy to withstand the voice in his head telling him this was wrong, Pete moved his hand slowly towards his son’s eyes.

His hand was shaking, his heart pounding and he could feel the blood rushing like a torrent through his veins. This pain, but he had to pull through with it. He had to know. So, he reached for Cury’s eyelid, and carefully opened it. He grasped for air, the eyelid went up, and silence.

Pete was quiet. Everything was quiet. His blood stood still, his heart dared not to beat.

Cury’s eyes were radiating in a golden light, forcing every shadow in the room to hide, making the light from the dying candle flame seem like nothing but an hallucination.

Pete flinched. Closed the eyelid and scattered out of the room, closing the door. Then he exhaled. He decided to leave this issue be and pretend like this never happened. He had to burn a few notes to ease his consciousness.

The colour, no, the light he had seen. It gave out an emotion, a strong one. It seemed to be leaving a message along with the emotion, rather than an emotion alone like the others. He could almost hear the message, with the love of his life’s voice, singing. It brought him a meaning to live, and the emotion along with it was inner peace. In the moonlit night, burning pieces of paper left the fire. Levitating upwards to the sky and dancing with the stars.

Pete sat on the ground, staring into the fire. He had left his old, scared self as he saw his son’s golden light and was ready to do just as Joen’s voice had told him. He had to have faith and trust his son in order to proceed with his research. They could work together.

Mercury woke up the next morning gasping for air. He was getting used to it. His body always seemed to forget how to breathe when it was about time to wake up, like an internal clock.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

He pushed his legs out of bed and stood up; the birds were singing their usual melody. Cury was ready for a brand-new day, the sun was shining and he had lots to do! He swiftly put on his brown pants and a simple blue shirt, proceeded to pull out his small box of papers, or as he called them. “documents”. He was looking for a specific unfinished paper, within the unorganized box with dozens of papers. Then he found it, the paper about ants.

Mercury wanted to become a scientist like his father, and had an inborn interest for how nature works, though he also accepted his mother’s ideology, he felt that even magic could be explained. Cury took the paper plus a few blanks and hid them in his pants, then left his room. He was eager to leave, skipping towards the front door. As he grabbed the doorknob, he felt a hand land on his shoulder. A chill went down his spine.

“Where do you think you are going?” said Pete with a grin on his face.

Cury turned around and saw his dad smiling.

Stuttering, he answered “Nowhere, just heading outside. The sun’s up and I have lots to do.”

Pete, knowing his son pretty well, thought he was probably off to look for some animals to take notes off. “Young man, you are not leaving without breakfast, are you.” He said, still smiling.

Cury’s eyes became red. He was happy.

Ever since his mother died, his father had been acting strange, like he lost a piece of him along with mother. He understood that. How could he not? He felt the same way. But today was different. His father seemed to become the happy father he was when mother was alive. His father began walking towards the kitchen, and with his back turned towards Cury, he missed the lucky teardrop that went down Cury’s cheek.

Cury answered, “of course not, dad”.

Pete and Cury entered the kitchen. Cury looked at the dusty cabinet next to the window. There was something inside that he needed to snatch later, hiding within.

They sat down on the royal-oak chairs around the square kitchen table. Pete had prepared a variety of freshly cut vegetables and put them on a wooden plate in the middle of the table. On his regular morning trip through the village, he had bought some bread from the local baker.

The still warm bread was resting underneath a piece of red cloth, and Cury could barely wait.

“This is perfect.” Cury thought for himself.

“Another story?” he asked.

“That will have to wait, I know a good one.” His father replied, still smiling.

After breakfast Cury gave his father a hug. “Thanks for breakfast” he said.

As Pete was hugged, a lucky tear went down his cheek.

Pete gasped. “I need to save this one!” as he walked very oddly, with his face turned towards the ceiling in an attempt to slow down the fall of the teardrop.

He took out a small, blue vial from the cabinet and let the teardrop in. then he sealed it with a cork. Cury scratched his head.

“I thought you said that lucky tears are probably just a myth?” Cury said.

“I haven’t studied them enough to draw such a conclusion” Pete muttered.

“I was obviously tired that day” he added.

“Anyways, I will have to resume my research on these fellas. It’s been a long time since I had one, and I got a strangely good feeling that I will make progress in my research”.

Pete walked out of the kitchen with a good grin on his face and went straight into his own room. He closed the door, and everything went quiet.

Cury sat still on the chair. His eyes were locked on the cabinet. He was about to steal something from his father. It was unforgivable but necessary.

Cury slowly stood up and sneaked towards the cabinet. He was focusing hard to hear any sudden movement from his father’s room. He raised his hand towards the cabinet and began searching through it, quietly looking for a certain vial.

It was a very small and strange and spherical vial. It was not made out of ordinary glass.

The glass was made with red sand only found in the Roa desert. What made the sand red was unknown, but Cury had read some time ago that this special kind of red sand had certain properties that seemed to have weird effects upon contact with many different species of the animal kingdom. He had thought that it might be because of the Roa desert being rich in magic.

His father had disagreed.

Cury found the vial, wrapped in a grey piece of cloth. He grabbed it along with a regular vial and shut the cabinet slowly.

“I’m leaving now Father!” he said with a weak voice as he went out the front door.

He had planned to use this before, but he never had the courage to snatch the vial. Up until now, when he knew his father would be occupied for a while researching the lucky tears.

Closing the door, embarking on an adventure he walked along the village road. Their own residence was positioned on the outskirts of a village named Poz.

As Cury was getting closer to Poz, he could catch the smell of freshly baked pie. He began walking towards old lady Agda, the owner of the village’s Inn.

Seeing the very familiar Crooked Harp sign hanging, Cury decided to enter.

“Oh, if it isn’t our very own Mercury, whenever you come around people seem to forget about their budget and share some more mead with each other!” Agda welcomed Mercury.

“Always good to see you too, Agda. Perhaps I can have some of that pie I could smell all the way home?” Cury replied.

“Well, yes I suppose I could give you some.” Agda slowly answered.

“If you agree to deliver a mail to Mr Trench. You know where he is, right?” She added.

“Of course, I was heading towards the forest later anyway!” Cury said, drawing a mental map of where he was heading and the area where Trench, the lumberman was working recently.

Later, with lunch secured and mail delivered, Cury could begin his own research.