“Uh, I, well, you see…” I stammered out nervously.

What turned me into an incoherent mess that could barely form a few words let alone a sentence? Well, that would be the camera crew standing in front of me along with a small horde of reporters all pointing their microphones at my face.

I expected a bit of a reaction from my fight and maybe some paperwork, but that’s not what happened. Well, it is what happened. I got patched up, told my story to some officers, and filled out a report.

It was all going well until I stepped outside of the perimeter of the attack and was immediately swarmed by men and women who asked me questions faster than my brain could keep up with.

“What about your gift? There are reports that you were able to bring the dead back to life, is it true?!”

“I can't really do that but I think-” I couldn’t finish because another question came flying at me.

“What’s your name?!”

“My names is Casper Clay, but to answer the other question-”

“How old are you?!”

“I’ll be twenty-three this year, but like I was saying, I can't actually bring the dead back to life, it's just that I-”

“Were you expecting a ruin to appear in this area?!”

“N-No, I was jogging when it happened, but I think I should stress that I can't-”

“How long ago did you awaken to your gift?!”

“Not long ago, a few weeks maybe, look, I- I think I should really get going-”

“So you’re inexperienced and you still decided to help out? Why?”

“Who did you train under? Was it Alexandra, the leader of the Iron Dragon Guild? Was this all a publicity stunt for your debut?”

“The what?” I’m sure my face reflected my confusion as I couldn’t understand what was going on.

The questions continued flooding in and my route of escape seemed cutoff. I knew they were curious, but they couldn’t be that blind to my condition. My arm and torso were bandaged up and my sweatsuit was still covered in dried blood. Maybe because I was a Gifted they assumed I was stronger than I appeared, but I just really wanted to get home.

“I’m sorry, but I have to go, really.” I made a wry smile as I slipped through the crowd.

I became doubly thankful for Penelope’s Dance as it helped me slip through them with ease. Just as I emerged from the crowd, I felt a spine-tingling sensation and turned my gaze to a different direction. It was there where I saw a slight image of what may have been a person.

I ignored the reporter's barrage of questions and headed for the place where I saw it. I couldn’t explain it, but there was something drawing me toward that place, oddly enough, I didn’t feel like I should be cautious.

I knew exactly why I had become relaxed, it was due to the fact that person, whoever it was, almost looked like my mother.

Once that thought took hold, I ran forward as fast as I could to catch them. I turned a corner only to see a brief glimpse of their figure vanish into an alley.

“Hold on!” I shouted while sprinting as fast as I could.

I rushed into the alley and tripped over a few trash cans before coming to a stop. It was a dead end, there was no trace of a person and no secret passageway to be found. Just a graffiti-stained brick wall and a few odd smells.

Not a single person in sight.

“Maybe I imagined it,” I whispered, hoping to dispel the growing sense of unease.

That’s when my phone vibrated in my pocket and I checked it only to see my father was the one calling.

“Hello, Dad?” I answered while departing from the alley.

[Not much danger involved in being a Gifted, huh? So please tell me why the hell I just heard your name on the radio? They're running stories about the sudden appearance of a ruin and how someone named Casper Clay fought them off. I even heard you suffered some injuries in the process.]

“Dad, that wasn’t- It sounds worse than it is.”

[What are you doing Casper? I already lost your mother and now I have to worry about you too?]

“Come on, don't you think you're overreacting a bit?” I tried to reason with my father but he was understandably distressed.

[Overreacting? Casper, how long have you been doing this stuff? Do you know how many of those Gifted die in a single year?! It's the most dangerous profession in the world!]

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“That doesn't mean I'll be one of them-”

[No, I don’t want to hear it! You know what, I’ll be stopping by your place so we can talk about this.]

“Dad, you really don’t have to-” The call abruptly ended just as I was about to continue. “Crap.”

I sighed and braced myself for a headache while heading for my apartment. I rubbed my temples before grabbing my phone and calling for a taxi.

…

In a distant place, far from the Emerian Islands that Casper called home.

A woman startled awake, climbing out a bed made from twigs, animal bones, and wilted flowers. Standing in front of her were a group of robed women who seemed to be expecting something.

“I’ve found a descendant, he’s located in the Emerian Islands.” Said the woman who had jolted awake only a few seconds before.

“He?” A woman furrowed her brows. “Are you sure it’s a man?”

“I am.”

“That can’t be possible.” Another woman shared the skepticism as she cupped her chin and lowered her head in thought.

“Has there never been a man to awaken to the bloodline?”

“There has in the past, but they all have suffered some form of illness whether it be mental or physical. They never lived past their adolescence. The blood of witches runs thin enough and his bloodline should’ve been far too diluted to actually produce a gift.”

“So? What should we do?”

“We contact the High Mother. If he proves to have truly awakened, we should take steps to bring him in.”

The women seemed to identify themselves as witches, a strange thing in the current age of Gifted where all people with powers or abilities fell under one label. The real difference between the women calling themselves witches and those called Gifted would be the fact those “witches” descended from precursors.

Although the precursor theory was just beginning to emerge, it seemed to hold some truth. As each of the women gathered around had ancestors who would’ve classified as Gifted if not for the superstition that persisted during the time period.

The group of women discussed their plans further while expecting Casper to be none the wiser.

...

I arrived at my apartment and hurried into my room. I had to stash my collection of animal remains before my Father arrived. I sort of left them lying about since they were needed to create Wilma’s War Scythe.

I don’t know how he would react if he learned my obsession was stronger than it had ever been so I chose to avoid it.

My doorbell rang just as I finished putting the last box away. I exhaled a sigh of relief and went to open but just as I did, I forgot about the blood-stained clothes I hadn’t changed out of.

“Casper!” My Father stepped in and he was clearly concerned with my health.

‘Damn it.’ I said inwardly, but outwardly I smiled and tried to pretend nothing was wrong. “Dad!”

“Wait-” My Father was too preoccupied my wounds to notice how much I changed at first, but he when he finally looked at my face it made him take a step back. He even had to slightly raise his head to look up at me. “Your face, no, your entire body! What happened to you?!”

“My gift happened to me.”

I thought it’d be wise not to tell him about my bone-breaking experience that resulted in my change of appearance. I looked at my father and smiled, he was a man who began to grey and kept an untrimmed beard speckled with little grey hairs. On top of that, he wore thick glasses that gave him a harmless impression, but I once heard that he used to be a bit of a troublemaker before he met my mother.

“Ah, what’s that you have there?” I asked after noticing the book he had in his hands.

“An old photo album.” His voice grew noticeably more pained.

“Mom,” I said softly as I reached for the book.

He handed it to me and we went toward the couch so we could sit down and look at it. My experience from earlier had made me all the more sentimental.

I opened the book and the first thing I saw were pictures of my mother as a child. The first one showed a girl with messy hair with a face caked with dried mud and a wide smile on her face. Then, it moved toward her youth where she stood in a schoolyard with a frown.

“She went to an all-female school, didn’t she?”

“Yes, she did.” My father smiled as he looked at the picture. “You know, she once told me that the school was so strict that the teachers even controlled arts and crafts and they were forced to make creepy little effigies from twigs and grass. Not only that, but they even made up stuff about history, battles that never happened, people that never existed, strange stuff like that.”

“Ah, I think I remember you telling me that before.” I turned the page again and froze completely.

At a glance, it was a normal picture, a photo taken in class, but in the background, there were paintings that were familiar to me.

“Runes,” I mumbled as I looked at the strange symbols that were clearly drawn by the hands of a child.

“What was that?” My dad asked.

“...Do you know what language that is?” I inquired as I pointed to the drawings of runes that hung in the background. They were vaguely familiar to the runes I could understand, but there was a distinct shift in the level, almost like a rudimentary version of the runic language I knew. The one depicted in the photo was far too simplified for me to really get a grasp of.

“Hmm, that?” My father scratched as his beard as he tried to think of the answer. “I think it was...Ah! I think it had something to do with witches, maybe? The headmaster of her school was allegedly a descendant of a witch or something or maybe the kids called her that because the lady was so mean. Either way, they did a lot of cultural studies around witches and the persecution of witches in that school.”

“Do you know where that school is now?” I tried to calm my heart as I voiced the question.

“It shut down a long time ago, but the building is still up. You’ll have to cross the bridge to the northern side of the Island if you want to get there, why? You plan on going to check it out?”

“No, I’m just a little curious of where mom grew up.” I let out a dry laugh, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

I had seen glimpses of my mother’s memories during her funeral but none of it made sense to me back then and I was too young to properly understand it. But now, I could see there was something off about my mother’s childhood.

I spent a few more minutes looking through the photo album with my father and couldn’t discover anything else that stood out. Eventually, he recalled the real reason he came to my apartment and we had a somewhat serious talk, but my mind was too cloudy to actually process what he was saying.

He voiced his concerns but ultimately chose to accept my status as a Gifted under the condition I maintain my safety to which I mindlessly agreed. I sent him off with a smile, but as soon he left, I rushed to my computer screen and began to search up anything and everything I could about that school, witches, and strange languages.

I was determined to find out the connection between the strange language and the odd curriculum.